Which printable media for quality print?

[Gritz]

I've only had printing experience with 2 types of media with my R300 .... Ritek G04 -R and Taiyo Yuden 8X +R. The Ritek printable had a far superior printing surface and came out very sharp, smooth to the touch, and sort of holographic in appearance. The TY has a more coarse and rough feeling surface and definitely does not have the quality finished look. However ..... the G04s were giving me a lot of coasters so I'm using the TYs. Is my experience typical? What other media produces a quality finish besides Taiyo Yuden?

[edlav]

I also have a Pioneer 105 and I have had good results with the Prodisc. I use the white mostly but I also use the silver for a special look.

[dmagic1]

Optodisc comes out a lot better for me. Too bad they are not hub printable like Prodisc.
Prodisc looks ok too but their paper doesn't seem to be as good. The disc seems to look too saturated with ink to me.

[GizmoTheGremlin]

The disc seems to look too saturated with ink to me.

Ya know, I had that same problem with my canon putting too much black ink on the prodiscs. I just went into the printer options and reduced the black ink output by 4%. That little bit fixed the problem perfectly. Check to see if you have the same option.

[dmagic1]

Hmm, nice idea. I tried reducing the print quality but only had a small difference. I can't reduce all the colors like you did.

The paper on the Optodisc just looks better even before you print. It has a little bit of a shine to it.

[overloaded_ide]

"with my canon putting too much black ink on the prodiscs."

What canon you got that prints disks?? WHered you get it?
I know they make one for sale over seas, But your supposed to be in Ohio! I'd grab one fast myself if I could find one!

[GizmoTheGremlin]

What canon you got that prints disks?? WHered you get it?
I know they make one for sale over seas, But your supposed to be in Ohio! I'd grab one fast myself if I could find one!

Ah yes, you could order the i865 from overseas, but that would be costly. Mine is a good ole i550, with a little of my own personal modification.






Ain't she a beaut? The best part about it is, it was a completely free mod. I just used stuff around the house. That tray is from an old HP (632c I think), that was begging to be thrown away.

I was going to upgrade to a dvd printer, when I decided that I may as well try and beef up my canon. Especially since I wanted a canon, and couldn't get one here in the US. Now I'm a pretty happy camper.

[overloaded_ide]

Mine is a good ole i550, with a little of my own personal modification.

Ain't she a beaut? The best part about it is, it was a completely free mod. I just used stuff around the house. That tray is from an old HP (632c I think), that was begging to be thrown away.

Yep!
Glad to see The Village Idiot and I aren't the only ones to mod printers

I give him all the credit, I used his guide to build mine!
Did you have to make many internal mods other than removing the pizza cutters? Spiked little wheels. And cutting out the backs.
On the lexmarks we have to file a couple holes to raise the print head a little and the pressure feet need to be filed some. Cut it for back feed and make a tray. Not sure what else had to be done now.
I'll look into the 550 and see how it compares to the I850s printer I have now. Might try one of these latter. I like Canons better than anything else I ever had and I burned out alot of printers! Only reason I went to others was locally I can not buy canons, 150 miles to Best Buy or anyplace like that from here. I got feed up with the junk and started making the drive when I needed stuff it was worth it! Mostly online orders now.

For any printing other than Disks I actually like the Canon I850 better than the R200 even though its only a 4 color printer.

Sorry about the OT.
I like the printable Riteks myself, though I am going to look for some disks printable to the hub too. Main thing is what works of course, no sense having a pretty disk if it is a coaster :P
The Riteks looked good printed with either the R200 or lexmark mod I mentioned above and I never actually had a coaster with the G03s that was disk related, though I've had 3 recently from hardware or software problems on my NEC drive, but not the Toshiba. I thought I had G04's till I ran DVDinfo the other day.
Pretty sure G03 is a 2x disk, but I was getting 4x burns, then I dropped back to 2x right before I had the problems here with 3 coasters.

I like the effect you can get with TY silver top CDs, I think you can get the DVDs in silver tops too, so I will be trying some of those also. Maybe great for custom work! The cd's are.

[GizmoTheGremlin]

The Village Idiots guides are what inspired me to attempt my own mod. Funny thing is, it was much easier than the printers he modded. I was going to make a guide for this mod, since i took pictures along the way, but it didn't seem like there was much interest.

I used superimage's mediaprinter pictures to get an idea of what the final product should look like. Once I cut the hole in the back, I could see a spring loaded tray that lowered every time you start a print. It was in the way for a back feed, so I took a stretched out paper clip and unhooked the springs from the top. Now it stays down.

The only other thing I did, was raise the print head by placing a small wooden wedge (I used a shim) underneath the metal bar that the print head moves back and forth on.

You have to make your own tray (Mine is cardboard) and you must run a small sliver of paper through the regular paper feed side, so the printer knows that you have something to print on.

Two of those spikey spindles fell out on there own when I ran the cardboard through the first time, but no other mods were necessary.

I left out a few of the details (like measuring the distance of the print head, etc...), but you can figure these things out on your own.

I have no doubt that the i850 could be done the same way, maybe even the i950.

Back to the topic:
I like hub printable media. I make my own labels and I find that there simply isn't enough room to get creative if I don't have a hub to print on. I've been using prodisc, but I plan to try BeAll when I need more discs.

[GizmoTheGremlin]

forgot to mention, you can use the printer as is to print text, but not so great to print photos. When I want to print photos, I reach in with needle nose pliers and pull out the two wood shims. Now you are back to your original printer in only a matter of seconds. Putting them back takes a few seconds more, so be sure to mark them, and you can still do it quite quickly.

[overloaded_ide]

I may try those also.
I really hate to do it, but I may order a sample pack of printables from rima. I like rima, it just seems that sample packs are high priced for the number of disks you get most places. At least they do have them! Not sure what the prices per disk averages out to sinc eidks prices fell so much since I last look at the samples packs. Maybe those fell alot too?

Or I suppose to, since disks have dropped to a reasonable price, I could just order a 25pack of 4 different types. I'm sure I could burn anything since I have 2 totaly different drives here, provided the disks are decent quality.

I too create most of my own graphics and would like to have the extra space. That hole seems to be in the way alot.
When doing backups I need both types of disks I geuss.
Stuff like inspector gadget2 will do the hub or you cut off half the people, but Scoobydoo 2 has nothing in the hub so that would look funny not being printed if on a hub printable disk.

I have not done either of the 2 I mentioned yet, because I don't have them, but when I do buy them I will back them up, so no gripes about Scooby 2 not being in stores yet!! I have seen the commercail disks already and that is what I am reffering too in general! NOT WAREZ!

Also I don't want to re-work all the designs I all ready made for the original content disks when I need to make more copies of those and they were made with the hole.

[mccoady]

I also sure would like to know which printable media to get as I'm getting ready to buy a Epson R200. Is there really that much visual difference between Ty, Prodisc and BeAll when you get done printing the surface? Also does a person want media printable to the hub if you're merely scanning your own dvds or downloading some disc covers off the net? Since I don't have the R200 yet I have no clue how you go about printing these, but I need to get some media ordered. And I assume you are are talking about white printable? Thanks!

[GizmoTheGremlin]

Is there really that much visual difference between Ty, Prodisc and BeAll when you get done printing the surface? Also does a person want media printable to the hub if you're merely scanning your own dvds or downloading some disc covers off the net? Since I don't have the R200 yet I have no clue how you go about printing these, but I need to get some media ordered. And I assume you are are talking about white printable? Thanks!

I don't think there is "that much" visual difference between the discs, but I think that there is a difference. I don't have much experience amongst different brands, but others have posted about the difference being noticable.

I think that most discs downloaded or scanned do not require a printable hub. If you print a scanned image that didn't originally have the hub printed, then it will probably look bad. In which case, you may want to do as overloaded_ide does and order a little of each kind.

I use white inkjet printable. I have considered silver inkjet printable, but I think that most of what I do looks best on white. I haven't ruled out silver, so it may happen in the future.

Ordering a sampler pack as overloaded spoke about is probably a good idea for you (me too in fact), but I am interested in trying BeAll, and I don't think that Rima sells them. I could be wrong, but too busy to check.

It's not all about the print, your media needs to give good burns with your paticular burner. It's good to hear the opinions of others first, but it may not match yours, even if it's the same burner.

[mccoady]

Well I have a Pioneer 106 and 107 so I know I can burn all three of the brands mentioned, so that's not a factor. After looking at alot of my dvds and scans on the net it does appear you need both printable to the hub and non- hub printable media to be able to handle everything., so I guess I need to order some of both.

[overloaded_ide]

SOmetimes I am wrong and when I am I try to admit it.
ScoobyDoo 2 IS at wal-mart for sale already, even though the rental store here just got it the 14th! Saw it yesterday for $20!
I said in a post I did not have it because it ws not sold yet. Well I did not yet buy it, but it is sold!

Yes as for the hubs, if you look at some labels like I mentioned, ScoobyDOO 2 does not cover the hub area, But Inspecter Gadget2 does almost right to the hole. Unprinted hub area would not look right for Scooby disk with a hub printable disk, and Gadget you would cut off about half both His and Her Heads the way the disk is designed. Course you could make your own.

For those with a few bucks to spend it might be worth it to just buy a 25 pack of 4 types or so. Disks are getting cheap! So what you get would be 2 types with printable hubs, 2 types not hub printable, making sure all are supposed to work well on your burner!!
Then use the ones you like best for all the important best stuff, and use up the ones you like least on stuff you care less about. That way your not blowing alot of money on nothing and later you will know what you want to re-order. All will be usable!

As for myself, I make original DVDs (I say that so often) and I give away alot of those. So for me to dispose of disks I did not like it would not be much of a problem, as long as they burn well!! Heck people were happy to get home movies done on cheap gloss tops and hand written too when I first started this stuff. They still are happy, I just don't do it as often now. They were freebies anyway that I wanted copies of myself and something to learn everything with.
I no longer hand write on gloss tops or use cheapo thin cd cases for my disks. Evolution in progress!!

[mccoady]

Would someone that has kind of a limited knowledge of computers be able to make their own? Is there a tutorial somewhere?

[jimmalenko]

Time to gloat .... I have a stock-standard Canon i865

They grow on trees in Australia

[jaxxboss]

What the heck is the actual deal with the cannon i865 anyway? I heard something about copyright crap infringemnet or whatever. Whats the real scoop why they cant or wont sell it in the usa / Canada .

[GizmoTheGremlin]

Time to gloat .... I have a stock-standard Canon i865

They grow on trees in Australia

You're a dirty bastard. jk.
I was considering having one shipped over here from Australia, if my modded i550 didn't work. I really wanted a Canon. 8)

Would someone that has kind of a limited knowledge of computers be able to make their own? Is there a tutorial somewhere?

Certainly. You will need some decent photo creating/editing software. Photoshop is what most use, but for some strange reason I like to use Paint Shop Pro. If you have no experience with these programs, they can seem very intimidating at first. There is a 60 day trial for Paint Shop Pro, so if you have some free time, download it and see if you like it.

I think that the official website even has outside links to other websites that give great tutorials for using the software for beginners or advanced users. If it doesn't, you can do a google search for Paint shop pro tutorial, and I have no doubt you will find many.

Once you have an idea of how to use the software, you will need images. You can take your own pictures, draw them, scan them, or download them from the internet. I assume you will be doing movies from your posts, so you will want to check out www.outnow.ch (free, just sign up) or www.e-posters.ru ($10/month but very high quality), and also don't forget to search for free movie wallpaper all over the net.

As you get better, you will start combining multiple pictures, using layers, adding logos, etc... It's actually very entertaining, and is a fun hobby.

I'd be happy to help you further, if you are really interested.

[mccoady]

Thanks Gizmo, I may take you up on that! I need to first see if my wife comes through with the R200 for my birthday and then spend some time mastering printing images. I sure wish I knew if Epson was getting ready to replace the R200 because I would wait hoping they would correct some of the problems people had with the cd drawer.

[GizmoTheGremlin]

What the heck is the actual deal with the cannon i865 anyway? I heard something about copyright crap infringemnet or whatever. Whats the real scoop why they cant or wont sell it in the usa / Canada .

Wish I knew. I did a search some time ago and could never find a definate reason. I had heard that it was a patent issue, which holds a little more hope since those sometimes go away over time.

I wonder if Epson has the patent. :/

[jaxxboss]

I'm retired Navy and I wonder if I can either buy online from the exchange if they have it or even hop on a mac flight and fly to italy or germany spain Uk and buy one on base, then fly back. HMMMMMMMM

[Gritz]

jaxxboss,
NewEgg.com has the R200 for $85 plus $7 shipping ... just for exchange price comparisons.

[jaxxboss]

jaxxboss,
NewEgg.com has the R200 for $85 plus $7 shipping ... just for exchange price comparisons.

I already own an R200. had it awhile now. A ctually, i own 2 of them. I bought my first one the first time it was available thru I think it was dell or one of them. Then i bought a second one for $30.00 after rebate.

[GizmoTheGremlin]

I sent an email to Canon through their website about the i865. If they think it's worth responding to, then I'll let you know what they say.

[overloaded_ide]

They grow on trees in Australia

Pick me one

Would someone that has kind of a limited knowledge of computers be able to make their own? Is there a tutorial somewhere?

It's not really a knowledge of computers. It's cutting stuff up physically!
You need a printer to cut and some tools. Main thing about the printer is that nothing is in the way on the back like circuit boards and such since you have to feed from rear. Print head height has to be high enough to clear the disk and caddy durring printing, or you need to be able to raise it yourself somehow. Several ways to do that.
As for the computer knowledge that's just basic using a printer stuff itself. You use the drivers for the printer as normal and your normal software for imaging. Make a template for printing your disk images and then a caddy so the disk and templates line up when printed. I used several methodes for that. So really the making of the printer is more mechanical abilties than computer. Was a guide for the lexmark mod here, not sure if it still is or not.

I heard something about copyright crap infringemnet or whatever

I don't think that's it. You can't patent or copyright an IDEA, so as long as it's not the the same actuall hardware design anyone should be able to make and sell a Disk printer legally with thier own design. No-one could stop you simply because they thought of printing disks first, it has to be you used their design for the hardware to do it. Since Canon and epson printers are not the same, the design to do it would HAVE to be different anyway. Otherwise we would only have one brand of printer, made by who ever thought of printing on paper first

Certainly. You will need some decent photo creating/editing software

Yes, but you need that for anything anyway. As for making the printer the software isn't of much concern really. Getting the disk to line up where ever the image is printed is the important part. So really any progam that prints will work as long as it prints in the correct spot and prints what you want like images, or text only even if just doing simple titles.
Use what you like, just print in the correct spot.

It's actually very entertaining, and is a fun hobby

Yep. like modding computers with windows and lights, but serves a useful purpose
And thanks for the links, I'll check those out myself too.

first see if my wife comes through with the R200 for my birthday and then spend some time mastering printing images

Might as well practice the images now while you wait, all the same thing rather on paper or disks. Media doesn't matter so go ahead and make your images and print to paper to learn and then save the ones you like. Then you have something ready to print onto the disks when you get the printer
Also a good way to give hints, like if the wife starts seeing pages of disk covers laying around

[GizmoTheGremlin]

Would someone that has kind of a limited knowledge of computers be able to make their own? Is there a tutorial somewhere?

It's not really a knowledge of computers. It's cutting stuff up physically!
You need a printer to cut and some tools.

I think we interpreted that question completely different. I thought he was talking about making his own Labels, while you thought he was talking about making his own DVD printer. Looking back, I guess it could have gone either way, so now he's got all the information he needs.

What the heck is the actual deal with the cannon i865 anyway?

As far as my email goes, this is the reply I got from Canon:

Dear Gizmo,

Thank you for contacting Canon product support.

Regrettably, we are not privy to any product or accessories decisions
made by marketing or corporate headquarters; for this we apologize. If
you have any further questions or comments, please reply to this email
message with the history included.

Thank you for choosing Canon.

Sincerely,

Khariim

So uhh..., that was a dead end.

[mccoady]

I was just talking about making my own dvd labels, thanks anyway.

[GizmoTheGremlin]

So I went to Best Buy to get a microwave, and I stopped by the printers. Within a few seconds, someone came running up to help me and I decided to pimp him on what he knows.

I asked, "Does Canon make a CD/DVD Printer?"

He said, "As far as I know, Canon has no plans of selling a CD/DVD printer in the US."

"Why not?" I asked.

He replies, "Epson has a patent and Canon isn't touching it."

I ask, "How can you patent printing on a disc?"

He says, "It isn't the printing on the disc, but the mechanism of loading it through the printer. Canon would have to come up with a completely different way to do it."



Now, normally I'd say these Best Buy employee's aren't reliable for anything, let alone the truth. This guy claims that a Canon rep is in there a lot, and I should ask him about it. He did go on to say that Epson is a better printer than Canon, so I about had to kick him in the arse, but I refrained.

At any rate, I realize the source isn't the best, but take it or leave it.

[dmagic1]

He did go on to say that Epson is a better printer than Canon, so I about had to kick him in the arse, but I refrained.

I really have to agree with him there. My old 800 lasted longer that most peoples cars. Not one paper jam ever.