DVD Solution Makes The Olympics Look Good

When the United States Olympic Committee Entertainment Properties (USOCEP) wanted to make its product look better, it turned to Summation Technology, a CD and DVD duplication VAR located just down the road in Colorado Springs, CO. The USOCEP handles all video production for the U.S. Olympic team, producing promotional videos before, during, and after the Olympic games. One of its primary duties is producing promotional videos for Olympic sponsors.

"They came to us because we were located just five miles down the road from them," said James Krainock, VP of Summation. "Panasonic, one of their corporate sponsors, was supplying them with the funding to update their video production facility. That facility would be producing video for high-definition TV broadcasts. Because of the high-definition format, they decided to move their video to DVD. The sponsors preferred the DVD format and it also made sense for their own internal archives."

Sell Impressive Graphics
One of the biggest concerns of the USOCEP was that the DVDs they produce be high-quality and have a professional look. "They were looking for a solution that would produce vivid, high-quality images on the disk itself," said Krainock. "These disks would be going out to studios and sponsors and could not look like they were mass produced on someone's home computer. When you go to a store and buy a DVD, you expect the graphics on that disk to be pretty impressive. Those disks are manufactured in big replication facilities that use offset printing. The USOCEP wanted the same quality of images on its own disks."

The solution Krainock sold them is the CD Artist V full-color disk printer from Trace Affex (San Jose, CA). "This printer is able to print to the same quality as offset printing," he said. "We sell printers from several different manufacturers, and the CD Artist V produced the best results for the USOCEP."

The CD Artist V produces high-resolution artwork right to the disk, which was an important attribute for the customer. "They had started using labels and were not happy with them," said Krainock. "They told us stick-on labels sometimes get stuck in players and don't look professional. They felt this was a much more reliable way to label their disks."

Is Duplication In Your Future?
In addition to making their DVDs look good, the CD Artist V was also the best product to fit the USOCEP's future needs. Although DVD duplication was not an immediate requirement, the USOCEP knew that it soon would be. When they opt to upgrade to a fully automated DVD duplication system, they did not want to have to throw out the printer and purchase a new one. "This printer can be put into a fully automated DVD duplication system," said Krainock. "That system will allow for automated duplication of DVDs as well as printing of the disks. It is always important to look at the customer's needs. In this case we knew it was something they would be considering, which made it important for us to sell them a printer that could be integrated into that system if/when they decide to purchase it."

Summation employees explain the technology to customers and show them print samples from the different printers. "When the customer decides on the printer they want, we teach them everything they need to know to get it up and running and insure it is correctly interfaced with their professional graphics programs like Adobe Photoshop or Quark," said Krainock. "This allows the customer to print directly from their graphics programs onto DVD."

Krainock believes DVD solutions are now a fit in any vertical market. "It is a technology that now covers a wide spectrum of markets," he said. Krainock has found that many companies are now using DVD for training videos. The random access capability of DVD means users can go to the segment they want without having to search the tape. DVD is also a good storage solution for users requiring a permanent record. DVD-R (DVD recordable) is a permanent method of storage that actually burns data into the disk. The only way to destroy the data on that disk is to destroy the disk itself.