Advice needed: DVD labeling and printers for that

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Advice needed: DVD labeling and printers for that

Postby DickK » Sat Feb 03, 2007 3:26 pm

Well, after doing a bunch of research I'm confused. :? The topic was labels to go on the DVD.

Consensus opinion is that paper stick-on labels are a bad thing; a really bad thing. So... the alternatives are? For low production (that would be the one-to-a-few category I'm in) it seems there are two choices:

Ink jet printer.
pro: high resolution, full color output; most printers double as photo printer
con: expensive to operate. requires media with inkjet printable surface, slightly higher cost. common complaint is the extremely high cost of ink and rapid rate the low cost printers use it

Thermal transfer printer
pro: relatively low per-unit cost of printing (factor of 5-10 by some evaluations); no special DVD media needed
con: basically text only and only monochrome (at least without a ribbon change and multi-pass printing), single use printer

I really need to do something for labels but with the paper labels out of the picture, I'm leaning toward the thermal printer because of the lower cost. I'm not doing any of this as a business, so the costs aren't going to be passed on to the client. I'm also not very enthused about the inkjet printers--I've previously owned two and found them to be a constant hassle to maintain print quality and costly to operate. But I've been making full color labels on my laser, so the ink jets' have their appeal for color output.

Anyone care to comment? I'd really like to hear from someone who's using a thermal, especially the Casio CW-100 I've looked at.

Thanks in advance!
Dick
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Postby gpsmikey » Sat Feb 03, 2007 3:49 pm

Well, you could always build your own little silk screen setup
and do them that way ... and before you laugh too hard, I'll bet
someone here has done that :)

I have not researched it, but I'll bet there is a product out
there that is fairly easy to go from computer to silk screen
via laser printer. I know for making circuit boards, there
is a product called Press-N-Peel Blue that you run through the
laser printer to print the trace pattern, iron the sheet on
the copper clad board to transfer the "resist" then etch.
Works pretty good actually (used it a number of times).

I have the Epson 340R printer and it does a nice job of
both color prints and printing on the inkjet printable DVD's
(although the colors are somewhat faded compared to a
real photo)

mikey
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Postby jeanc » Sat Feb 03, 2007 8:02 pm

I have an epson R320 that does a fantastic print on the DVD. It does really great printing for me.

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Postby JC » Sat Feb 03, 2007 9:17 pm

What about LightScribe??

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Postby DickK » Sat Feb 03, 2007 9:26 pm

JC wrote:What about LightScribe??

Don't have a drive that's capable of it so that's one issue. Reading about it left me with the impression that the media is a little hard to find, a bit more expensive, there's limited software that supports it and the write times for anything more than a few lines of text were such that you'd need an overnight session to get it done, so that seems to make it unsuitable for more than occasional use. But cost is still the lowest of the options.

But you're right I should have put it on the list. I haven't ruled anything out, including that... do you have any experience it with it? Anyone else using it?
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Postby gpsmikey » Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:03 pm

You might want to snoop around over in the Yahoo producer group -- Debbie Green
has been looking at the Light Scribe and seems to be familiar with it. She was
looking for media and stuff just recently.

mikey
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Postby briancbb » Sun Feb 04, 2007 3:19 am

Dick

Here in the UK I buy nonprintable DVD's at £8 ($16) for 50, White printables for £10 ($20) for 50, and Silver printables £11 ($22) for 50, so that is less than 10c difference per copy. An Epson Stylus to print DVD's is cheap, probably around $100 and I admit to using compatable cartridges at $20 a set. (I also use generic papers!).

From the number of 8x10 prints I can get from a cartridge set, a set should print at least 100 DVD's, so the total cost of consumables (DVD and ink) is about 40c + 20c = 60c per copy. I can live with that for cost, convenience and speed.

Using cheap cartridges did mean profiling the printer to get better colours for the prints (seemed to make no difference for the DVD's), for this I used Profile Prism from ddisoftware.com, I also use their Qimage for printing.

Brian

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Postby jeanc » Sun Feb 04, 2007 6:30 am

I have LightScribe but have not burned one. The DVD's costs more for one thing.

I buy my DVD's at Costco if you have one near you. When they send out coupons you can get them at half price. They carry TDK and I have never had a bad one. Last week I just bought (with 50% off coupon) 100 for $19.99.

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Postby Tarafrost » Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:45 am

Dick:

I recently bought an Epson R380 for my wife (I typically use an Epson 2200 for my fine art photography work, but that won't print on DVD/CD media).

I've recently done some DVD labelling (on Costco TDK DVD's....as someone else said, great price, quality media). The printer was easy to use, the labelling software was pretty simple and intuitive and the results were much admired.

If you want to do snapshot prints from digital camera media cards, it will do that as well, though that's not a feature that I expect we'll ever use.

Recommended!
....Andrzej (aka: the curmudgeon)

Tarafrost Photography: Specializing in Wild-Life
http://www.tarafrost.com

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Postby nannybear » Mon Feb 05, 2007 9:24 am

I have been using the Lightscribe for over a year now. Never had a problem and clients love the look of the DVD. It does take time, but while it is doing that you can be doing other stuff and it doesn't affect the "scribing:" process. Takes about 28 minutes per label for best quality. As for the DVD's ( DVD+R) I buy them from Staples Buisness Depot. They are 30 to a spindle, no covers as I use the DVD ones, roughly 1.50 a piece. Just my two cents......Cheers Jan
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Postby DickK » Mon Feb 05, 2007 1:46 pm

Jan --

What software do you use to create the labels? what do you typically put on the label--just text or graphics and text?

When reading about it, people were talking about write times of several hours for graphics and text over most of the label--exaggerated or...?
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Postby nannybear » Mon Feb 05, 2007 2:59 pm

I believe it came with Surething software. So easy to use, I do pictures, text, graphics you name it and fill the whole disc. Time,hmmm, I have never had it burn for longer than 30 minutes and that is when I use best quality. I wonder if it has something to do with other computer specs as well? I don't mind because as I said I can be doing other stuff while it is doing it. I don't know if I can get a good picture of one to send you but if you email me at home I can try so you can see what it looks like. I love it , Cheers Jan
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cfeather

Epson 220

Postby cfeather » Fri Feb 09, 2007 5:44 am

I bought a refurbished Epson R220 last summer. I use Taiyo Yuden white face DVD-Rs. It takes about 5 minutes to print a high quality photo label on a DVD. I've printed more than 300 this way. The R220 is temperamental and the software is poor as far as design options (I design in PS and import the image, add the text). Cost is very minimal because so little ink is used. I am just now starting to replace ink tanks. I'd guess cost is about 25 cents per disc to imprint.

We tried using paper labels and the reject rate was very high; caused read problems on consumer DVD players. Cost was much higher, too, because you have to buy the ink and the label. The printable white DVDs give you the bigges range of printing options, photos, text, colors. We lose about 10 percent to ink splotches from the so-so performance of the printer.

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Postby DickK » Fri Feb 09, 2007 9:26 pm

Jan (et al) -- well, contrary to what I originally expected, after doing some more research, I ordered an HP Lightscribe drive a couple nights ago and a package of 50 DVDs. Bundle was roughly $75 so I didn't feel like I was risking a whole lot to give it a try. Will let you know how it works out.
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Postby DickK » Thu May 03, 2007 4:17 pm

Realized that I hadn't done what I said I'd do which was to update this with the outcome.

Bottom line is that I'm happy with the Lightscribe capability that I ended up with. The convenience factor is high and the results entirely satisfactory. For anyone considering this choice, just keep the limitations of the Lightscribe in mind--it's not going to produce the photo quality output that suitable media and an inkjet printer can. BUT you aren't buying the ink all the time either and with a little creativity the resulting label looks pretty cool.

Dick
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