OT: DVD printing recommendations

Kind of off topic, but does anyone have recommendations for DVD printing hardware?

I usually send straight to a copy facility who does it all for me, but of late I've been getting smaller runs, just a couple at a time, and I want to be able to make them look a bit more professional than my current method of scrawling on them with a felt pen, without having to give up one of my arms to pay for it.

I'd like it to be able to include my company logo, preferably in colour.

Just get an Epson printer with one of those optional DVD trays and using the software provided make your own professional looking pony labels. One at a time.



Michael Horton
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i have 3 epson stylus photo 1400 printers and an aleratec 7 drive duplicator. we've done as many as 500 discs in 24 hours. and had zero failed discs and only about 5 failed prints.

beats the snot out of all those standalone printer dupers. those only do like 16 an hour.

i also prefer hp printable discs. they have the largest and most even printable area.

the good ol' felt pen technique? I can imagine drawing a logo with one of those... 'cept they'll kill me. I'd say avoid the stick-ons too, coz it's outdated, a hassle and the additional weight may cause the disc to spin more erratically. Saw quite a few Canon printers in the last year, but I can't imagine doing hundreds of discs...



www.strypesinpost.com

I've got a Primera BravoPro which I love...it's got the 50 disc capacity with the robotic arm for automation.

The quality is pretty good...pretty spectacular on the special glossy WaterShield discs by Taiyo Yuden.

I also have an Epson Stylus Photo R220 and R340 which I use generic ink on, and get slightly better results, but they take 2-3 times longer to print and it's not automated...which for runs of 500-1000 can really get old...that's why we have the Primera! Plus the Epson CD software is pretty basic and cumbersome...not great for high-end looking work, and anyway I can use Quark XPress when I use the Primera.

Casey Petersen
www.unitedvideoinc.com

Yep:



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I am using an old Epson R300. I get very professional looking DVD printing using the Taiyo Yuden "Water Shield" disks. They have a glossy finish and are "dry" basically as soon as they come out of the printer. The only thing you have to watch out for is if you bleed your design off the edge of printable surface and onto the thin band of raw DVD plastic. You need to wipe that off right away.

Just order one small pack of the disks and give them a try. It will be worth your effort.

You can use the WaterShield discs in the Epson? Haven't tried that yet.

Casey, I don't use the Epson CD print software at all. It's bad. I use Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and a template I found online for centering the graphics on the disk properly. Yeah, the old Epson's are too slow to print hundreds. But for a few it works great. But the real key is the Taiyo disks.

mind is old but i use an epson R300.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

Lightscribe [www.lightscribe.com] gives you professional results with minimum hustle and downtime. Check it out

Lightscribe looks interesting Nick. What did it cost you to set up, and what's the cost per disk, round about?

I'm not thinking of doing more than 20 disks at any one time. If it's more than 20, the copy house can handle it. This is just for the 'can we have ten copies to send to our blah blah dept' jobs.

Also, I was hoping for something small that just does DVDs, because I already have a laser printer, and if I put any more junk in here there won't be room for me. Buying a big additional printer would be painful. If there's no real alternative then I will, of course.

BTW Joey - how many of these could you get done per day with Sharpies?

Epson R200 at work and R300 at home. They do very, very good quality straight photo printing and will print on printable disks. We use the software that came with it for one-off "the director's waiting in the parking lot" kind of jobs. We also set it up for Photoshop and sticky labels. Your choice.

There is an Epson story.

Epson was the first company that offered a "home" photo printer that would do a good job printing directly on white CD/DVDs. It was, in fact, a sweet spot.

Everybody in all time zones dropped what they were doing and ran out to buy one for their bulk printing. As the Epson representative said, we designed it to print thousands of pages of paper and an occasional CD. They had to explain that a great many times to the people who made it through about five days of round the clock disk printing before the gears under the CD carrier failed.

Epson eventually brought out a much more robust disk carrier system, but we still have to "help it along" every so often when the carrier seems reluctant to cooperate. If your designs don't do full bleed, it's definitely the way to go.

Koz

isnt lightscribe just a monochromatic image?

Yup, monochromatic. But you can buy the disks in different colors.

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BTW Joey - how many of these could you get done per day with Sharpies?

How many do you need?

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

It is a solution...

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One of the problems that the band faced when recording the album, was the fact that they had overrun the budget allocated to them by Love Records and had no money left for the cover. So the first pressing of the album involved hand painted covers by the members of the band themselves!

From: [www.dprp.net]



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