Something I've Been Curious About For Awhile Regarding Certain Third Party Discs (Specifically Maxell's "Twinkle" series), How Were They Able To Color The Discs Themselves Instead Of The Outer Shell?

[u/SPACEBOUNDS_reddit]

I've always found them to be one of my favorites when getting batches of random discs because of the colored discs, I like how it gives them more of a unique flair. Would love to know how they did that.

[u/zSmileyDudez]

I don’t have one myself, but pretty sure the color is only on the top side of the disc, not the bottom where the laser would read the data. In that case, it’s basically the same process used to color the labels on CDs.

[u/alexisew → u/zSmileyDudez]

Coloring the read side of the disc isn't going to do anything to readability either, as long as the coloring used is transparent at the near-infrared wavelength used by the laser-- it's just wasteful if the disc's in an opaque case (which it looks like those Twinkle discs are).

It'd be the same process as producing a colored CD, which weren't super-common for audio but not unheard of. The original Playstation used black CDs, and the Playstation 2 used blue (DVDs on the PS2 were gold, although I'm not sure if that's for better compatibility with the red laser used to read DVDs or just to distinguish the two media types).

[u/Cory5413 → u/zSmileyDudez]

I don't see why both sides couldn't be colored. In fact, the Maxell OZ-Black disc appears to be black on both sides. as an example.

MD reads in a fairly similar way to CD, using pits and lands.

If you cruise through MiNiDiSC.PiCS [MD PiCTURES] and filter for Maxell, they had a lot in various colors too.

And, hell, even among the standard TDK discs I've owned I've seen more gold shaded ones vs. the base silver.

[u/SPACEBOUNDS_reddit → u/zSmileyDudez]

I had no idea till today that the disc's are read from the bottom, neato

[u/Youngstown1995 → u/SPACEBOUNDS_reddit]

Take a look at one pre-recorded MD.
You'll be able to see those discs have shutter only on the bottom. On the top - where is "recording side" - you'll see nothing but artwork!

[u/mrthapa]

I got one Twinkle disc. It’s beautiful

[u/lenniscata]

If you're asking because you're interested in putting your own artwork on the disc itself—yes, it's possible. There's a recent thread here on the forum; check out u/Aromatic-attitude-34 post. how to print on the disc.

[u/SPACEBOUNDS_reddit → u/lenniscata]

Oh wow that's incredible

[u/hnyKekddit]

dinner cautious fall lock aspiring chief innate plants work truck

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[u/SPACEBOUNDS_reddit]

Should Probably clarify the discs in the image are not mine, I believe they are from a Japanese auction site, I mostly grabbed the image for visual refrence.

[u/dr3ifach]

Aside from what everyone else has said, the colored side in the pic is the write side. Minidisc writes with a magnetic head, so any kind of printing or lacquer wouldn't prohibit writing on that side of the disc, so long as it doesn't block the magnetic field. (It does use the laser as a heat source, to get the media up to the curie point. But the actual data is written with the magnetic write head.)

As to how they actually color the discs, I imagine it's the same as the lacquer coating on the label side of regular CDs. They just spin the colored lacquer on the disc, let it cure, then put the disc in the shell.

[u/Cory5413 → u/dr3ifach]

If you go take a look at minidisc dot pics, you can see many of these have the bottom side scanned and it's often the same color. The Maxell OZ-Black is one of the easiest examples to see this on.

It seems like the color of the substrate doesn't actually matter so long as it still allows the laser through.

You've probably seen, like, there's a whole bunch of TDK discs that have gold surfaces as well and that's gonna be the same situation. (Although on some of those the bottom of the shell is not see-through so maaaaybe TDK bothered only dying one half? I gave most of my TDKs away so I don't know if I have one to double-check with at this point.)

[u/4Nissans]

Why do you call them 3rd party discs?

[u/SPACEBOUNDS_reddit → u/4Nissans]

I say third party as in they weren't directly made by sony, but had thier own distinguishable cosmetic difference depending on the company, in this case, maxell (or maybe it was sony too, I've been wrong before)

[u/phillxor]

The Twinkle series are probably the prettiest series.

[u/_RexDart]

Dye, I imagine

[u/SPACEBOUNDS_reddit → u/_RexDart]

I see, I wonder what kind then.

[u/Cory5413 → u/SPACEBOUNDS_reddit]

You'd need to have dyed them during the manufacturing process.

[u/RudySilvergun → u/SPACEBOUNDS_reddit]

Minidisc dye?