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jamroom
2008-03-09, 09:30 AM
I saw this dvdrw with lightscribe on Amazon today. Has anyone here used a lightscribe unit and what are the results like (label-wise - not burning or playing)? I find it hard to believe I can get a 20x dvdrw external drive for £35!!! I remember not so long ago paying £160 for a cutting edge internal 32x cdrw...

Lightscribe DVD (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/ref=pe_8421_9733741_pe_41/?ASIN=B000VX6OCO)

tgunn2760
2008-03-09, 09:45 AM
I saw this dvdrw with lightscribe on Amazon today. Has anyone here used a lightscribe unit and what are the results like (label-wise - not burning or playing)? I find it hard to believe I can get a 20x dvdrw external drive for £35!!! I remember not so long ago paying £160 for a cutting edge internal 32x cdrw...

Lightscribe DVD (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/ref=pe_8421_9733741_pe_41/?ASIN=B000VX6OCO)


One drawback is the cost of lightscribe media.

The cheaper alternative would be ink jet printable CD-Rs and DVD-Rs.

jamroom
2008-03-09, 10:01 AM
Good point. Mind you, I'm not much of a disc burner (flac + foobar). Might be nice for my own masters though.

direwolf-pgh
2008-03-09, 11:19 AM
if there is anything that will destroy CD/DVD media, its those sticker labels.
many of my early burns (1994'ish) are now dead - its a glue issue.
Ive heard from others the Lightscribe is very cool, but it takes a while to etch them.
+ the limited media factor as mentioned above.

cheap thermal printers are only $100..not bad.
the good color thermal printers are still $1000

stickers are OK if you just expect 10 - 15 yrs from them.

jamroom
2008-03-09, 11:32 AM
I guess unlabelled discs will do me fine. So much for "pure sound forever". :-)

tgunn2760
2008-03-09, 11:49 AM
if there is anything that will destroy CD/DVD media, its those sticker labels.
many of my early burns (1994'ish) are now dead - its a glue issue.
Ive heard from others the Lightscribe is very cool, but it takes a while to etch them.
+ the limited media factor as mentioned above.

cheap thermal printers are only $100..not bad.
the good color thermal printers are still $1000

stickers are OK if you just expect 10 - 15 yrs from them.

The inkjet printable media have a printable surface, and they are fairly new to the market, or at least I only saw them recently.

I don't know how well the stickers work, I've never used them.

stantheman1976
2008-03-09, 05:52 PM
I speak from experience, the printable DVD's are way better than Lightscribe. They look nicer and take a LOT less time to make. LS discs take about 30 minutes or more to burn a label at the higher setting and are only monochrome.

I got a HP Photosmart D5160 printer from newegg for $90 and TY printable discs for $35 per 100. The quality of the prints is fantastic. Plus if you have to print any quantity of discs lie me (120+ for one job) the time and money you'll save are worth it. The LS discs cost between 75 cents-$1 a piece depending on where you buy them and how many you buy at once. Buying in bulk is best for any format since it brings the individual cost down. You can get Ridata printables cheaper from supermediastore.com but I don't know if they are as good as TY.

Audioarchivist
2008-03-09, 05:54 PM
My old friend and 70's taper who also runs a repair shop for 30 years told me once about this guy who brought his high end CD player in with "a little problem"...
It was some audiophile player with external AD DA converters and big money spent on the thing.
The label on a burned disk had come loose inside the player. At cripes who knows how many RPMs the disk was spinning, the label peeled and the paper and glue shrapnel obliterated the disk shattering the mechanisms inside.
The dude wound up spending a couple grand on his $20000 player because of a $.30 disc with a cheezy label stuck on it.

The moral of the story is:
A) Don't be a dork and pay $20000 for a CD player...
B) Don't use cruddy stickers on your discs...
C) Don't exhibit evidence that you were dumb enough to use a cruddy sticker disc in your overpriced CD player! Hide it and buy a new one!

I have one of those LightScribe DVD burners. I still haven't invested the dough on the LS discs yet (3-4 times the price) but the demo labels at the store looked alright. It can take as long to burn a label as it takes to burn a DVD or maybe more. It has quality levels you can select a faster label burn, but lower quality I guess.
So far they're monochrome (like black & white) but I've heard they're working on color discs, too. That's where the printable discs win right now - full color.

ignore the fashion
2008-03-20, 01:25 AM
I use lightscribe to label all my disc, is so much neater and nicer looking then my sloppy handwriting with a sharpie.

I don't ever put any fancy labels on them, so it never takes more than a 2 or 3 minutes to write the simple text to the disc. Although a few times I have put fancy labels on them and that took about 20 minutes, about half the time it takes me to burn a dvd.

Traderist
2008-04-06, 07:37 PM
LightScribes are too slow and they have limited color. Markers can corrupt data as can sticker glue. I agree with those who swear by printable discs. I use printable discs with my Dymo DiscPainter printer and they work great. I use the glossy finish discs and set the resolution to 1200 dpi, three minutes later I have professional quality color labeled discs. Best of all the printable discs have an extra layer that provides better protection of data. The DiscPainter ink is also non reactive and so it won't migrate into the discs.

LeifH12345
2008-04-06, 08:04 PM
Light scribes are cool, cooler than printable CD's, but take forever, don't have full colour and aren't worth the extra cost.

Chicago77
2008-04-09, 12:31 AM
I have used the LightScribe on both CDR and DVDR LightScribe disks. It requires hardware, software and the disks. I think the results are good but not excellent. I print preview before printing which gives you an idea what it will look like and whether to keep the image or use something else. A note as well if the titles of the songs are in the directory it allows you to add them as well. Also the disk color is gold or the ones I have bought are. The printing time is averaging 17 minutes. The cost as has been noted is higher than blank disks. I have used on downloads when cover art is available for it. I like it. If you want to get something better you can consider a ink jet printer with a cd/dvd holder that allows you to print directly. I would not recommend writing on cd/dvd or placing labels on them.

Peace