Testing Organization:
The One-Off CD Shops International

The One-Off CD Shops International, Inc. is a chain of independent CD service bureaus in Canada and the United States, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. The international head office is a division of The Duplication Group, which has another division called Cassette Productions. The One-Off CD Shops specialize in CD-Recordable technology, while Cassette Productions duplicates audio and video-tape and replicates compact discs. Both divisions are located in one plant, and their people work closely with each other. Scott Bracken is the senior technician at The One-Off CD Shops International, and was the person who initiated the tests this article is based upon. He was encouraged and helped to learn how to run the test equipment and analyze the results by Pat Smith, who was employed as an optical engineer at Cassette Productions at the time.

Bracken explains the company's rationale for the test trial, "I'm burning a lot of discs. We had the equipment to do the tests, and it makes good manufacturing sense to test incoming products so the outgoing product is the highest quality. You want to make sure you have control over both incoming and outgoing products, and the only way to quantify that is with tests."

Bracken and Smith worked with Mark Worthington of CD Associates while Worthington was designing the SL-25 CD-Recordable disc testing machine. Until this machine came along, CD-Recordable discs were tested on equipment designed for CD-ROM, that is manufactured, or "pressed" discs. Since there are some differences in the potential errors between the two kinds of discs, based on their different technologies, CD Associates decided to create this device specifically to test the recordable media.

Return to top of the page