Poly Cases are incredibly awesome

[paqman]

Hey guys, I know some of you already know about CD Poly cases, but for those that haven't tried them yet I can assure you they are probably the best way to re-case your CD/DVD based games -- even your current generation stuff. If you're looking to buy some, they are incredibly cheap. I'm talking maybe about 25 to 34 cents a pop. I've been doing some trial and error over the last two years and want to offer my two cents on the best way to use these cases to the fullest.



1. Where To Buy

I get my cases from two places. Tapes.com and LDB Mart. They offer various poly cases, so listen up. I get my single disc cases from LDB only because Tapes' single disc cases are noticeably thinner (which will hinder spine art) and do not offer clips for manuals. If you have several old PS1 manuals laying around and want to avoid screaming several cuss words trying to slip them into the cases from Tapes.com, get LDB's. I'm also using this to print out "Quick Guides" when I don't have a manual present lol. Here's the difference between the two:



I also noticed LDB's cases have a much better "push" mechanism so discs feel more secure inside them. LDB also offers either Super Clear or just Clear. Most of my cases are what you would call Super Clear, but I ordered just normal clear and like the effect it has on inside artwork; giving it a matte finish. Take this Devil May Cry custom I did:



For double and quad cases, I just stick with Tapes.com. I should also note that LDB's cases may vary in condition. I got 100 cases for about $30 the other week and they all showed up mostly dirty and beat up. Six cases out of the 100 were completely unusable. I e-mailed the guy in charge of the store and he apologized and offered me free extras in my next order. Still, I love these cases. The amount of space you can save with old PS1 RPGs like Final Fantasy VII or multi-disc Xbox 360 games like LA Noire or FF13 is worth it.





http://www.ldbmart.com/sipocawmidvd.html (single discs)

http://www.tapes.com/lenco-10mm-double-cddvd-soft-poly-box-w-overlay-p-7532.html (Double Discs)

http://www.tapes.com/lenco-10mm-quad-cddvd-soft-poly-box-w-overlay-p-7535.html (Quad Discs)

2. Printer & Paper

I print all my own stuff at home. Staples gave me a hard time about the covers I was printing since I was doing large volumes lol. Plus, I got sick of driving up to that place so I ended up getting an Epson Artisan 837 Printer. It's an inkjet, but on the right quality paper, it prints like a dream. I believe you can find it on Amazon for about $200ish these days, so if you want stress free printing, I'd highly suggest getting a decent printer. Any way, as far a paper is concerned, for poly cases, you need legal sized paper. The only problem is legal sized glossy is hard to find. Like I said, you do not want to use normal paper here. The colors don't look right at all. After looking high and low for MONTHS, I finally found some heavyweight paper in the correct size at Paper Works:

http://paperworks.com/store/products/paperworks-inkjet-2-side-semi-gloss-8-12x14-48lb180g-50pkg

3. Template

I apologize for not having a template available, but the way I assemble these covers is 3 part process in Photoshop due to my 2 years of changes in trial and error with sizing and making a whole new one for easy editing for everyone else is at least a 2 day project I don't feel like taking on right now (LOL), however, I can tell you the appropriate measurements for inserts are 3362x1417 if you want to take existing templates and modify them a bit.

4. The Final Product

Here's the early stages of my shelf. Enjoy



If anyone has any questions, feel free to hit me up. Like I said, I've been researching these cases for 2 years now.

[Arseen]

Does anyone know where in Europe I could get LDB type cases?

[paqman]

Does anyone know where in Europe I could get LDB type cases?

I will look for an European supplier, Arseen. The model number on the case (AM-CM107) didn't bring back any relevant results. Neither did the model number on LDB's web site. I have no idea who they get their cases from. Over on Tapes.com I know Lenco is the supplier, but as mentioned I think their single disc cases are lacking. If I come across anything I will let you know. I'm always looking for cases in this form factor, esp. various colors, so I'm sure I'll run across something to help

[Arseen]

Does anyone know where in Europe I could get LDB type cases?

I will look for an European supplier, Arseen. The model number on the case (AM-CM107) didn't bring back any relevant results. Neither did the model number on LDB's web site. I have no idea who they get their cases from. Over on Tapes.com I know Lenco is the supplier, but as mentioned I think their single disc cases are lacking. If I come across anything I will let you know. I'm always looking for cases in this form factor, esp. various colors, so I'm sure I'll run across something to help

Thank you.

[kaysow]

planning to do dvd keepcase covers for all my psx games but those things are sexy as hell. just wish they weren't so thin. good for space maybe, but it also diminishes their presense since pal psx spines were double the width of a regular jewelcase. still, if i could get my hands on some (european here too) i wouldn't mind trying them out.

[Robert Martino]

How did you print those custom FFVII CD labels?

[paqman]

planning to do dvd keepcase covers for all my psx games but those things are sexy as hell. just wish they weren't so thin. good for space maybe, but it also diminishes their presense since pal psx spines were double the width of a regular jewelcase. still, if i could get my hands on some (european here too) i wouldn't mind trying them out.

Yeah, I guess for PAL PS1 cases they wouldn't exactly do the trick since they closely resemble North American jewel cases with a bit more thickness. Forgot everything is packaged thicker over there for whatever reason. But yeah, for space saving it's a good compromise if you can hunt them down. My FF7 got ganked a few yrs back, so I don't have a thick PS1 booklet to test in the clips, but the few manuals I have left over do indeed slip in without an issue.

I almost went the DVD case route, definitely a hell of a lot more color options and more space to design on, but I'd have to move my Blu-ray's to those too which kind of halted that plan since I didn't think moving them to a bigger case was the best way to save space --- which is my primary personal goal.

I put all my old cases in storage to preserve them any way.

How did you print those custom FFVII CD labels?

I use Taiyo Yuden Watershield Discs. Very awesome quailty. I never scribble down anything on a burned disc in a sharpie anymore lol. It would hurt my soul.

http://www.tapes.com/jvc-taiyo-yuden-silver-ink-jet-watershield-cdr-50-pack-p-7681.html

After I design the label in Photoshop I just print it out using Acoustica CD/DVD Labeler software.

[gam3rz3r0]

Those look great, I think I'll be using them for my PSX games 

[soundwave925]

http://www.thecoverproject.net/forums/index.php?topic=10313.0

I did this a while ago and was all over it, but since I moved
i haven't really had a lot of time for gaming unfortunately

[paqman]

Snazzy work, Soundwave.

It is incredibly time consuming, but hopefully you find the time to finish it. If you do get back to it, I'd probably suggest switching to the cases I got for the manual clips. I had to swap out all of my old cases with the better thicker single disc ones, but you don't seem that far along for it to be annoying like it was for me. I couldn't bring myself to toss the cases, though lol. I'll just re-purpose them for application archives like Photoshop CS6 or something.

With my Audio CDs I found I was wearing out the edges sliding them in and out with the other kind of clips. Thicker manuals/booklets wouldn't even fit in those, which was a deal breaker for me. I guess it depends on how often you take out your own PS1 manuals if that'd be an issue tho.

[Velmeran]

For where Soundwave ordered his cases from -- there doesn't appear to be any difference in case thickness between the 1,2,4 disc cases (or at least the ones I ordered from the same place don't).

In other random, not related to the comment above; I really like the back design you went with for your customs.

[paqman]

For where Soundwave ordered his cases from -- there doesn't appear to be any difference in case thickness between the 1,2,4 disc cases (or at least the ones I ordered from the same place don't).

In other random, not related to the comment above; I really like the back design you went with for your customs.

I don't think any two online stores carry the same type of poly cases. The ones I get from Tapes.com and LDBMart share the exact same thickness with the 2-Disc and 1-Disc cases. However, the texture between the two are entirely different. Tapes' cases just feel normal and LDB's has a nice texture to the outside and inside. Not sure if that's just on my semi-clear cases or what, though. I'm going to do an order of black cases down the road to see if there's any difference.

The 4-disc is the only different sheep in the group. It's a bit thinner, but nothing entirely noticeable. The clips for the manual are smaller, but it's still able to hold them well.

Awhile back I e-mailed Lenco, one of the manufacturers of these cases, trying to get a custom order done for various colors. They never e-mailed me back. I think me saying I wasn't a big company and just some schmuck trying to organize his video games turned off their sales dept. LOL

Oh, and thanks about the back cover design. Considering I have nearly 500 covers to make, I didn't want to spend forever making each back cover different or "true" to what the retail version looked like. Besides, I noticed every back cover had different information on it. Xbox 360 back covers are diff. than PS1's. Saturn is different than N64. Movies are a completely different beast. I just wanted something quick and to the point to where anyone picking it up off my shelf can read the most important information as quickly as possible without shifting through a ton of marketing fluff lol. I change the color scheme depending on what it is, but other than that I have a pretty standardized system. It's why even though DS and 3DS games have similar case sizes I'm still redoing their cover art just to have a better back cover and their spines fit my system. Yay for more work and OCD lol.

[Spiden]

Could you post a pic of what you have got done so far with your movie and audio cd collection? I'm interested in seeing your template for those formats.

[paqman]

Could you post a pic of what you have got done so far with your movie and audio cd collection? I'm interested in seeing your template for those formats.

Sure. I should note that for movies I parodied "Netflix" with "Paqflix" going off my screen name. Here are two examples I just pulled off my shelf for Beetlejuice and Across The Universe.



Depending on how old the movie is, finding art to use is sometimes a challenge. I spent quite a few hours on the Beetlejuice one just due to positioning conflicts. The PaqFlix logo creates a need for me to have the image slightly off center, so I usually need an image without text or logos so I can add that back later.

Here's the back cover:





Like I said, really no-frills and straight forward with information. I just recently added a faint background image from each movie to the template, but I still wanted to keep the back grayscale-ish because of the amount of prints I eventually need to do.

Here are the spines stacked up:



Color coded by genre.



Inside Resident Evil: Retribution:



When applicable, I include the movie soundtrack. I'd show you the CD disc label, but it's stuck in my car's player at the moment. Like, literally stuck. LOL. Again, I use JVC Taiyo Yuden discs to print labels for my digital movies so they don't clog up hard drive space after being watched.

Speaking of music though, here's what I do for that:







I have to reprint those back covers to add space on the left column for "extras" included since moving to a multiple disc format. Just gonna give a brief explanation of the MP3 disc stats and list music videos/performances included.

Inside of a four-disc case:



Holds the original booklet well.

Here's the spine:



So yeah, keep stuff simple and easy to find. I like my colored spine system across all physical media. I'm about to run out of color combinations, but I shouldn't have that many more formats to cover LOL.

[sheep2001]

I would remove your images with pirate games and movies in.  This community does not support or condone such things.