Description

This article is from the CD-Recordable FAQ, by Andy McFadden (fadden@fadden.com) with numerous contributions by others.

7-15] Where can I find CD-ROM business cards and "shaped" CDs?

(2005/11/08)

You can find CD-ROMs in many interesting shapes, including ovals and
rectangles. These are functional CD-ROMs that are, for example, the same
size and shape as a traditional business card (well, a really thick
business card). They can have your name and contact information printed on
the front, and can hold a modest amount of data, typically about 40MB.

Recordable CD-R business cards are available as well.

As with 80mm CDs (see section (7-14)), you may have trouble playing these
"discs" on CD-ROM drives that use caddies or have a "slot-in" design.

Some net.vendors (there are many others, but this is a good start):

http://www.cdrom2go.com/
http://www.newcyberian.com/
http://www.cdshapes.com/
http://www.pocketcd.com/
http://www.cddigitalcard.com/
http://www.sculptedcd.com/
http://www.avomedia.com/record/index.html
http://www.nycd.com/
http://www.cdroutlet.com/
http://www.xdr2.com/
http://www.shimad.com/
http://www.home-run.com/
http://www.cdcardusa.com/
http://www.americal.com/

For information about a 57.5mm disc with 80mm "wings", see
http://microdiscs.de/.

Cutting a CD-R disc into a different shape isn't recommended, because the
recording layer tends to delaminate easily once the seal has been broken.
Some CD-Rs have appeared in Japan that use a 120mm polycarbonate disc with
an 80mm recordable area. This allows the outer polycarbonate to be cut
into interesting shapes without affecting the recordable area. Some
pictures are available on http://www.fadden.com/cdrpics/.


What follows are some personal notes on CD-recordable business cards, based
on experiments conducted in early 2000. I bought five from www.cdroutlet.com
for about $3 each. According to CD-R Media Code Identifier, the essential
facts are:

Nominal Capacity: 51.219MB (05m 51s 49f / LBA: 26224)
ATIP: 97m 1As 55f
Disc Manufacturer: Lead Data Inc.
Dye: Pthalocyanine (Type 5)

The discs are gold in color, and look like an 80mm disc that was squared
off across the top and bottom. They come in clear plastic envelopes that
are slightly larger than the discs themselves. Total size is 80mm long
and 60mm wide, which is a little off from the standard business card
(88mm x 51mm) but not by much.

As with 80mm CD-Rs, my Plextor 8/20 rejected them unless I put them in an
80mm caddy adapter. The adapter doesn't work very well, since it's only
holding the disc on two points, but it worked well enough.

I grabbed a local copy of my web page, threw on an autorun.inf and a copy
of shellout.exe, and wrote it to the disc with disc-at-once recording.
The recorder got upset while writing the leadout, and ECDC (3.5c) reported
some fatal errors, but the disc had already been closed enough to be
readable in the two CD-ROM drives tried. It's possible that the slight
looseness in the caddy adapter caused problems... on future attempts I
will try to fasten the disc a little more securely.

The use of these discs as business cards presents some difficulties.
If you look at the picture on http://www.fadden.com/cdrpics/, you can see
that the disc has the same clear hub as a standard disc, which doesn't give
you much of a solid background for writing. All is not lost, however: there
are other cards with ink-jet printable surfaces, and adhesive business
card labels are now available.

Continue to:

• prev: 7-14] Can I get 80mm (3-inch "cd single") CD-Rs?
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• next: 7-16] Can you tell pressed CDs and silver CD-Rs apart?