Lightscribe/Thermal/InkJet

[lwilliam]

I'm currently doing my CD labels either with the ol' Sharpie when in a hurry and paper labels when not.

There are several Lightscribe printers on the market for the $100 price range (external), but I've heard they are very slllooowww.

There are now also a couple of thermal printers for CD/DVDs on the market (U-Print, Primera) for $100-150. These inks are at least fairly waterproof.

Alternatively, I could just get an Epson R260 or similar which is standard inkjet.

Any suggestions on whether Lightscribe, Thermal, or Inkjet will do the job? I guess I'm concerned about the ink smearing on the inkjets.

[superpenguin79]

I own a Lacie L2 lightscribe, and I will 2nd the notion that while they are cool, they are certainly "slow".

for cost effectiveness I probably wouldn't reccomend the thermal ones unless they have come out with cheaper technology from the time I last priced them out. A good Thermal unit will usually run you about $1000. Although, I just googled them and found this: Thermal Printer so they may exist in that price range now, but I'd read reviews and all of that first.

As for the inkjet printers, they might smear as you suggested, and the quality might not be that great as they are meant more for home users than studios unless you're not terribly concerned about quality, but it sounds like you are.

So, if you can get a Thermal for that price range, that would be my best suggestion. The downside to light scribe is that you have to have special "light scribable" discs which are sometimes not great for audio as well. So its a toss up... I would probably go with the one that makes the audio sound best over the one that will look the prettiest though.. goodluck

[sunburst79]

I've putting lightscribes in all my new builds for while now.

The lightscribe process is relatively slow depending on the complexity of the design.

It sure looks little more polished than a sharpie though!

I haven't noticed any sonic difference although using HPs media produced less coasters than Verbatim branded disks.

I like it.

[Mario C]

I don't know anything about the thermal printers, but I know that the lightscribe and ink jet require special CDs for best results (ie, no smearing). The ink jet CDs have a porous surface that holds the ink.

We use an ink jet printer from Primera: results can be amazing with a little design/graphic work.

For quick and dirty work, I've printed out a bunch of disks with just our logo, then I grab the sharpie for labelling. If there's time, 5-10 minutes with the lableling software will give some very nice results.

The disks cost a little more than generic shiny disks (surprise!), but you probably already figured that.

[albee1952]

SKip the light-scribe. IMHO, they aren't worth the extra money or time, and they don't look very good either. Epson makes the R220 inkjet printer that has a CD/DVD tray and it works quite well for $99. The printable discs are not that expensive either. I just bought a 100 pack at CompUSA for $15 on sale. I also found some spindles of silver printables at a computer show that look even better. The white ones still beat the stickon labels or sharpie by a mile. I have done batches of 12-25 for some customers and while its a bit tedious, it came out fine. I just ran them while doing other mudane office work.

[lwilliam]

I had someone on another forum really beat up on Epson for their quality. I've never owned an Epson myself - mostly HPs or Lexmarks, both of which work well.

The latest Epson is the R260, which is still $100 or less. Anyone have that one and can vouch for it's quality (printer reliability - I assume the PRINT quality will be fine).