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There are ways to find the perfect company to meet your business’s printing requirements when other companies can’t. With these tips, you’ll be able to find the business-printing company that truly is the best.

Finding it difficult to determine which of the self-proclaimed “best” and “state-of-the-art” digital-printing companies really is the best for your business’s needs? Wondering if it is possible to find the company that is truly the next generation of business printing?

Yes. You can find a printing company that will meet your needs when other companies can’t. Whether it be offset or digital printing, posters, banners, convention printing, tradeshow printing, high-volume copying, design, binding, or whatever your specific needs are, you can find what you’re looking for.

The first step is to find a company that’s been around for a while. With the Internet, starting a business is as easy as registering a domain name. Because of that, it’s hard to tell which companies are here to stay, and which are flashes in the pan. By choosing a company that was in the printing business back when reputation - not a clever website - was what earned it customers, you’ll weed out the here-today-gone-tomorrow businesses.

Next, make sure the company offers many printing and communications options, so they have the technology to fit your job, instead of making your job fit into their technology. Look for a printer that allows you to choose offset or digital printing. And because digital communication takes many forms - not just printing - make sure the company can help in all of the digital-communication areas.

Another important factor in looking for a company for your business’s printing and communication needs is making sure they put their customers first, and the job is done your way. That means making sure the company you choose offers more than one level of service, so there’s something for everyone. There are customers who are more comfortable using automated sales options, with instant price quotes and online file uploading, so transactions can be done with a few clicks of the computer mouse. But there are also other customers, who need personalized full-service and custom quoting. These customers usually like dealing with another person, and prefer being helped through the printing-order process.

Search for a company that offers many services - being a full-service communication provider isn’t just about printing anymore. Find a company that continues to grow and offers additional services like variable data printing (personalized printing), video production, OCR scanning and archiving of documents or fine arts, DVD replication or wide format posters and banners, and more.

And while you’re at it, why not choose a printing and communications company that’s “green.” According to the Institute of Sustainable Communications, the paper industry is the largest user of water and the fourth largest user of electricity in the world. So opt for a company that uses environmentally responsible eco-friendly inks, recycled papers and electronic document delivery whenever possible. These steps, even in a small way, can benefit the planet and energy consumption.

NextGeneration Printing, Copying & Digital Communication is the leading fast-turnaround offset and digital print provider. When it selected the name NextGeneration, it knew the company would always have to be on the cutting edge of the printing and communication industries. NextGeneration has been chosen to produce critical and time-sensitive printed materials by companies in England, Germany, France, South Korea, Australia, Mexico, Russia, Ireland, Barbados and many more.

When you are preparing a CD/DVD project for duplication or replication, it’s important that you prepare the master disc correctly to eliminate any problems or delays. Your master disc should be an exact copy of what you want produced. Make sure you have tested the copy you’re going to send on several different players to assure they play as expected. Sometimes older burning software is used and the master will not play across a variety of players due to the software so make sure your disc plays in systems other than the one it was burned on before you send it in. Below are the basic rules you need to follow to assure your project goes smoothly:

Quality media like Mitsui, Maxell, Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim should be used for the mastering process. If you try to save money and use one of the many brands of very cheap discs that are on the market, you risk the quality of your copies. Your project is going to be an exact copy of the master and if you used cheap media there is the chance your audio and or video quality will not be as good. Spend a few extra cents and get the good media for producing your master.

Duplication and replication facilities deal with numerous accounts and many different masters. There is nothing worse for them than getting a master that is not identified. It can delay your project. Clearly label your master with your company name and the project name either by using disc labels or markers approved for writing on the surface of the disc. Doing so will save you and the dupe or rep houses headaches down the line.

Testing is probably the most crucial step. After you have burned your master, you need to test it in several different types of target players and not just on the system that produced the burned disc. Make sure the disc loads and plays as intended. Also listen to the sound quality. If you hear pops and hisses on the master, then you’re going to hear them on the duplicated or replicated discs. Many older burners produce discs that can not be played on newer players so again, make sure you have tested your master on as many players as possible before you send it in. Remember, your going to get an exact copy of what you send in so if it does not play well, neither will the copies.

Vendors are in the business to perform a service for you and if you have any questions about the mastering process, ask them. Taking a few extra moments to produce and test the master correctly will assure that your project is as trouble free as possible.

Promotion of new books has just come of age thanks to a new tool called Virtual Book tours. In the past authors would travel from town to town and bookseller to bookseller to sign and promote their book. Now they can sit in their own living room with a telephone and achieve better results by conducting a teleseminar. A teleseminar is essentially a large conference call where the author is interviewed and the call is listened to by hundreds of people.

The virtual book tours or teleseminars allow the story of the author and book to be told to many more people at the time of their choosing, regardless of where they are. It provides a rapid way for new authors to penetrate the niche that they are writing about with much less time and expense, as compared to old-style book signings.

This strategy allows you to sell more books, more often and to more people while limiting your cost outlay, a concern for sure for new authors. It is simple, you are interviewed over the telephone in the comfort of your own surroundings where you can talk about your book. The subsequent recording can be heard live by individuals who are targeted and invited to attend the call by calling in at a pre-determined time or by listening to the recorded call at the time of their choosing, versus visiting a book store at a time of someone else’s choosing.

This strategy has been used by leading New York Times bestselling authors like Jack Canfield -The Success Principles, Donald Trump-Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life and the well known information marketing author ,Tim Ferriss, of 4-Hour Workweek fame and has produced spectacular results.

Alex Mandossian, an accomplished platform speaker and educator has been a pioneer in this area of distance learning and has taught thousands of people the marketing potential of Teleseminars. In his Virtual Book Tour he delivers the content that he promises without fail. He is a superior socratic educator.

When producing CD or DVD media, the choice of duplicating or replicating them is often confused. Duplication and replication are totally different processes and should be used accordingly for the type of target market your producing the discs for.

The duplication process uses a premade blank disc as opposed to replication which uses a glass mastering process and actually stamps the discs out of the master. With duplication, you are able to burn a CD or DVD on your local PC. Replicating a disc on your local PC is not possible.

Burning to a blank disc is accomplished by using a laser to bounce light of the dye in the disc moving outward as the disc spins. Spin rate or “Burn” speed of the disc is determined by the rating of the burner and the blank disc. Not all burners or discs burn at the same speeds.

Today’s DVD burners can write to both CD and DVD media. The media itself is branded with terms like CD-R, DVD-R, CD-RW, DVD-RW as well as others. The one consistent identifier among all the various brands is the R or the W. If the disc is labeled with just the R, it means the disc can be recorded to once and only once. Once recorded, that disc will play on most drives. If the disc is labeled with the W, which shows that the disc can be written to numerous times and even over written and used like afloppy disc. The disadvantage to this type of disc is most often than not, it will only play in the drive that originally wrote to it.

Mediatechnics is an industry leader in manufacturing the equipment used to mass duplicate CD or DVD media. They have the capability to duplicate any number of CD or DVD discs in as short as 24 hours. If you need a quick turn or simple DVD Duplication service, be sure to give them a chance to quote it before you get it done elsewhere.

DVD duplication systems are used by many different industries. Producing duplicated CD or DVD media for your own uses or for a client has never been easier with today’s duplication systems.

Most people think of a DVD burner as the drive that sits in your desktop PC. DVD duplication has advanced far beyond the single drive. Today’s industrial grade automated duplicators use robotic arms to pick up and place CDs or DVDs into a rows of burners that will mass produce duplicated discs. Production grade manual duplicators consists of tower configurations with up to 12 drives that require an operator to manually place and remove the discs from the burner trays as they open and close.

Businesses that need to duplicate larger quantities of DVD media prefer to use the automated systems. Automated duplicators will do all the labor by loading and unloading the burner trays and even removing bad discs to a reject spindle. This saves from having to have an employee sit and babysit the system.

A manual system requires you to babysit the duplicator and add and remove discs as needed. While the manual system is good for short runs of a few discs, if you have several thousand discs to duplicate, it will take a full time person operating it to get the task done.

Mediatechnics manufactures the highly popular Fusion automated DVD duplicator. Having been in the duplication industry since 1988, they have been able to incorporate customer feedback into their new systems as technology progressed. Today, they now manufacture DVD duplicators that will also mass produce blu-ray DVDs.

DVD on demand is increasingly becoming a popular buzz word. It basically means that a DVD is burned at the time the DVD is ordered eliminating the need to preorder large amounts or carry an inventory. Since replicating or pressing DVDs uses a different process that is not suited to on demand publishing, burning a DVD is a perfect solution.

Another form of DVD on Demand is Live Conference Production and Fulfillment. This consists of having an event televised or taped and then capturing the feed live so that it can be authored and sent to a bank of duplication machines that can output hundreds of copies literally within minutes of an event ending. This allows people attending that event to purchase what they just saw on DVD as they exit the event facilities.

Conference or event capturing is very popular with sporting events and marketing or business seminars. It allows the event promoters to capitalize further on the impulse buy of attendees as they leave the event.

To capture a live event, the following takes place:

1. The event is captured by either recording equipment or live broadcast feed and streamed to the production booth.

2. The event can be authored as it’s streaming so it can be duplicated very quickly upon the events conclusion.

3. Numerous duplication machines start duplicating the event within a few minutes of it ending. With preprinted discs and full packaging options, the disc is ready to sell within a 10 minute window of the event ending.

Mediatechnics has a Conference DVD or Live Event service available.