Lightscribe or Inkjet?

[roxics]

Here's my situation. I'm releasing my first feature film in about a month or so. I don't anticipate a lot of DVD sales. Because honestly indie DVD's of movies made on super low budgets don't sell that well. Because of this and my current financial situation I can't go with a replicated Disc all nicely screenprinted. As much as I would love to. It would cost me at least $1000 and I would end up with probably 200 or more sitting in a closet collecting dust.

So I'm looking for cheaper alternatives. Short run stuff. But I want quality. I'm open to all suggestions.

Ultimately I want full color on the disc itself. Which lead me to looking at screenprinting and full color thermal printing. Both of which are pretty expensive. Then I discovered inkjet printing and how it has a pretty decent reputation.

So I'm looking into an Epson R200 and some nice white inkjet printable disc. My only issue is I don't want these discs to smudge or come off on peoples hands. If you bought a DVD for say $7 would you want the ink coming off on your hands?

Plus I know ink gets expensive. What kind of viable replace imks are avaialbe and about how many discs can you ink with an Epson R200 stock inks?


So I'm considering bypassing the full color idea and going with lightscribe because I want a pictureon the disc but I guess it doesn't necessarily have to be color. I've seen a lightscribe disc in aperson and thought the look was cool. But my concern with Lightscribe is that I hear the verbatim DVD's are not as contrasty and vibrant as the HP Lightscribe CD's. Since Verbatim is the only brand I can find that makes burnable lightscribe DVD-R discs that has me second guessing whether I want to go that route.

I also don't want to buy into lightscribe it it's goiung to be a passing fad and media will become expensive or hard to find. It's already both of those. But lightscribe would mean it wouldn't rub off on your hands. But it also wouldn't be full color.

[NightWing]

You may want to look into coating the disk if you go with ink.

Lightscribe is a B&W or in this case copper shades. If you want a basic 1 color disk no problem. And domt mind a copper looking tint.

Have you also look a the silkscreen disk but you do the burnning? Or si that what you ment by replication?

There are thermal printer. Does colors but wont run. Problem units are about 1000.

[roxics]

I have looked into silkscreening or thermal printing 0f blank discs. But they usually run about $3 a piece and I need say 50 of them. So for tha tprice I could have a printer and and ink or a lightscribe burner with discs.

Where can you get cheap inkjet coating for discs?

[NightWing]

Do a scan through all forums looking for water, damp, smudge and injet.

Some have had luck with clear krylon protection. Same mix as in the high price photo fix sprays.

Good luck!

[US Guy]

My kids and all my friends appreciate the color inkjet printed CD/DVDs way way more. Get a CIS for the printer and the cost would be much more reasonable.

[roxics]

What's a CIS?

[ricky1756]

continuous ink system

[roxics]

Where can I find such a thing for the Epson R200?

Thank you

[Supreme2k]

You should go the distance and get the silkscreening. At $3 a disc, that's only $150, and it will give you that ultra-professional look. I print fom an R200 myself for backups and home projects, but for clients, I go with silk/thermal printing.

[thor300]

Be very careful if you go for a CIS, theres so much crap out in the stores with ink totally unsuited for disk printing. I wouldnt consider anything else than original Epson ink for DVD printing, or at least read everything i can about other peoples experience with CIS on printable DVDs first. I been in contact with a generic ink distributor about epson CIS, they tested lots of CISs but still havent found anything good enough to sell, they recommended original ink for disks. And they dont even sell original epson ink, so it was not something they said to sell that instead.

Then again, i wouldnt say original epson ink is much to cheer for when it comes to moist resistance also. I been using R300 on Verbatim printables and its quite easy to damage it with wet fingers. If it was up to me, forget inkjet, but maybe you can get good result with this photo-sprays.

[roxics]

Thanks guys. There is a lot to consider here. Seems there is no perfect inexpensive solution.

I admit that part of my reasons for considering inkjet and lightscribe are selfish. I know that I can easy go out and get 50 themal printed DVD's for about $150. Or I can go out and spend the same price (perhaps a little more) and have a new printer or DVD lightscribe burner I can also use to make discs for other future projects. Including personal uses.

Maybe I should just bite the bullet though and do a 1 time thermal job.

[dcsos]

Lightscribe takes 20minutes to burn pictures or graphics at "8X"
do you want to spend an additional 20mins burning each disc?

[kosekjm]

Hi there,

This is only one review, but here is a review for the BenQ DW1625 Lightscribe drive:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1778338,00.asp

Let me say I don't own it, but the review scares me off of lightscribe for one reason, the third paragraph that mentions that it took 23-25 minutes to etch the graphics to the disk. Ugh!

Now having said that, I've seen posts on other sites that mention that there is planned improvements to this technology to speed up the image process, so there may be hope yet.

I personally love my R300 (Esentially the same as the R200 with more bells and whistles), for disk printing. So far my three year old hasn't smeared any of his disk backups. I've smeared one disk, but that was an intentional test of a coaster.

[celtic_druid]

No problems here with my Canon and cheap replacement ink. Then again they aren't allowed to sell them in the US.

Personally I wouldn't buy an Epson printer if it was the only one available (as it is in the US),

I'd say go for the thermal printing since it is a once off job.