TY printable disk

[KhiemTran]

i was going to buy Taiyo Yuden (DVD-R47VAL600SK) 4X DVD-R Media 4.7GB Silver Lacquer Blank DVDR Discs at meritline.com

After buying it, can i use my printer to print on them? it will print pretty images on it.

THANKS

[thevoelk]

Do you have a CD/DVD printer?

[soundforbjt]

I don't think those are inkjet printable. Make sure your printer will print on cd\dvds and then make sure the discs you buy say inkjet printable, not thermal printable.

[KhiemTran]

i've got an inkjet printer that prints on CD/DVDs

what is a thermal printer?

[Big_Pet]

I don't think you can use printer to print on them, they are not inkjet printable media, nor thermal printable media.

[Bodysurf]

what is a thermal printer?

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Thermal Printing or Inkjet printing?

[BSpielbauer]

i've got an inkjet printer that prints on CD/DVDs

what is a thermal printer?

KhiemTran:

The reply above (from Bigjet) is 100% correct. The discs you were looking at are NOT at all made for any printing. Period. Printing to them would be a big mistake. Your printer will print on CDs and DVDs that are clearly designated as _inkjet_ printable. You need to steer clear of the CDs and DVDs that are "thermal" printable. And, if you wish to try tp print, you need to steer clear of the ones that do not specifically state that they are "printable discs."

The thermal printers (as you may now know by this time) are a lot more $$, and they tend to be dedicated to printing only on CDs and / or DVDs.

May I make a suggestion? Right now, Supermediastore.com has their Taiyo Yuden inkjet printable white DVD-Rs on a sale, and I just ordered 200 of these yesterday, for approximately 50 cents per disc. This is a great price for these (excellent) discs, as they were 65 cents to 67 cents each disc only two weeks ago. These were the 8X DVD-Rs.

I also note that Meritline has these same discs now for only 53 cents to 56 cents. This may because they are responding to the competition's ad, or perhaps they are dropping another notch in price again, permanently.

Note that the printable discs always cost more. This is the premium you pay if you wish to be able to print onto the disc itself. This is true for all brands.

The Taiyo Yuden discs I am suggesting are white, which is what I prefer for inkjet printing... Obviously, your end result will not be "white" unless the print job has white in it. It merely means that the printer will function just as it does when it prints onto white paper, in terms of dispersing the ink.

Also, these discs are "hub printable," which is also what I prefer. This means you can print much closer to the very center hole of the disc (examine your own collection, and you will note that some of your DVDs have the image printed almost all the way to the center, while others do not.) I think the best finished products are those that do continue on pretty close to the center hole. I go ahead and print in this area, even if I have to do some editing to fill this space. (If I did not, I would end up with a white circular band close to the hole. On some discs, this might mean a bit of extra work, but the final result can look better, with a hub-printable job).

I have been comfortable wih Supermediastore.com. In my own opinion, they tend to rank very slightly above Meritline in a few ways (Meritline is not at all awful, but they have done a bit of advertising on their site which I consider to be a bit deceptive, and this bothers me; and I also am not as comfortable with their customer support when there is any sort of a problem.) Not that Supermedistore.com is the "best of the best," to be sure. I would classify them as "pretty good, overall." I can think of others I like dealing with even more (Rima.com is an excellent example of a terrific dealer you can actually enjoy working with -- but you may pay higher prices for this).

Obviously, the above is based purely on my own experiences, and a few reports from others that I have seen posted. Your own milage may vary, as usual...

Still, that sale price looks pretty good to me. This may be an indication that the inkjet printable Taiyo Yudens are finally beginning to drop lower in price, or it may just be a very temporary sale. Who knows?


-Bruce