Press Releases
CD-ROM Services celebrates 20 years
2013
When Bernhard Kirschner, announced 20 years ago that his new start-up CD-ROM Services Pty Ltd now offered the service of burning to CD, one Australian daily national newspaper wrote rather sceptically:
“Kirschner claims that he can burn your own data to CD”.
Says Bernhard Kirschner: “In 1992 Kodak showed their service called Photo-CD, scanning photos and slides and burning them to CD. I asked them if their equipment could burn data to a disc. They looked at me aghast and said ‘Who would want to burn data to a disc. It's only for photos!’ Perhaps that sort of thinking explains why Kodak went into liquidation last year.
I then raised some investment money, hopped onto a plane to San Francisco, and brought home the first Sony CD recorder to Australia.
Twenty years ago each CD cost $60.00, the CD burner cost $12,000, and it took over an hour to burn each disc.
The most practical way to get the data to CD-ROM Service was to hire out costly 640 MB hard drives for customers to load their data from their computers.
Computers in 1993 struggled to transmit the data to disc quickly enough, and about 20% of discs at $60 each were wasted.
CD-ROM Services believe that there are still has many years of life for discs. Although the cloud and downloaded music and video are growing fast, the security of tangible media still has appeal.
Says Kirschner: “There is still question to be answered about who owns downloads from iTunes and eBooks, but a disc is yours and handled carefully disc will outlast its owner.”
Most of the CDs and DVDs produced by CD-ROM Services Pty Ltd are for marketing, educational, family, medical, archival and myriad other uses.
Says Kirschner; “In 1964 I started the first Instant Print shop, but when there was talk of the paperless office, I moved into technology, believing that paper was doomed. I now realise that the paperless office and the paperless toilet are both myths. So when will the CD end? I don't know, but there is still sufficient impact from a disc compared to paper or digital data to ensure some considerable life for the medium.”
CD-ROM Services claims to be the oldest still operating CD burning service in the world.
Says Kirschner, now 72; “I am also probably also the oldest operator in the industry. I wanted what will end first, me or the CD?”
In 2001 Bernhard Kirschner founded and is still President of the International Disc Duplication Association, www.discdupe.org, which has organised trade shows and conferences in the USA and Europe, and has acted as the trade organisation for the world's disc duplication industry.
For more information or images contact Bernhard Kirschner on 02 9954 9885 or visit http://www.cdroms.com.au
Hexalock Copy Protection
20 September 2005
If you don't fence your orchard, expect your fruit to be stolen.
If you don't protect your discs, expect them to be copied.
Software that is unprotected can and will be copied.
Music that is unprotected can and will be copied.
Pictures that are unprotected can and will be copied.
Protection is now available at little additional cost for all this intellectual property at CD-ROM Services Pty Ltd of North Sydney, pioneers in disc duplication.
