Burning or Printing: what comes first?

[drumkid]

Hey, this might be a pretty dumb question for most of you but I just couldn't find the answer anywhere.

I have an Epson R200 printer (for on disc printing); I was wondering if I should burn the DVD first and then print on the disc ,or the other way around.

Thanks!

[Bob W]

I have always just burned the disc first then use my Epson 900 to print directly to the disc. I believe Epson says to print first BTW.

[lordsmurf]

I'd think that ink weight may be harmful to the burning process.

[GizmoTheGremlin]

You could look at this from a couple of different views. Why waste all that burning time, just to muck up a print, and have to do it all again. Therefore, you should just print first.

On the other hand, if you muck up a burn - you now have a printable disk that you may want to do a practice print on. I like to have these.

Bottom Line, I would say burn first. I don't like there to be any chance that something could happen to the burn surface prior to a burn - including dust or scratches. Mine go straight from the spindle, to the burner, to the printer, to the garage to be glossed.

[Gritz]

Burn first then verify with Nero's CD-DVD Speed using scandisc --- if you don't see errors then put the DVD in your standalone player and fastforward and play the last 5 minutes ... then if it's still good use the ink and print. A long process .... but then you're not embarassed when someone gives the DVD back to you saying it doesn't work! :P

[maldb]

NEVER print first! Ink spots might get on the recording surface and then you might as well throw it out.

Burn first, then print.

[iooi]

Burn first.... The ink dry's better on a warm disk.

[overloaded_ide]

Hmmm, warm disk dries ink better :P
How long should I Microwave the ones I burned yesterday to warm them up
Or maybe just lay them in the sun for an hour first.

Just joking, but really unless your pretty fast at taking out the burned disk and getting the printer working I don't really think that maters much. Mine are always cold by the time the printer is done with it's little dance and actually starts printing anyway.

As for which to do first, BOTH.
It is safer and recomeded to burn first. Lots of little things can happen durring printing. You could get a small scratch, dust, a finger print, ink, ect.. on the disk that could ruin the burn later but would not effect playback had it already been burned first.

On the other hand, as far as I can tell it does not hurt anything to print the disk and then burn it, provided you have not damaged it as mentioned above.

When I said which I do first is BOTH, I do both first sometimes myself.
While I have one not yet printed disk burning, I am printing a not yet burned disk. Then when Both disks are done I simply swap the printed disk for the burned disk and run them again doing both at the same time.
Does not save alot of time, but then I do basicallly get 2 disks in the time it takes to Burn 2 Disks and have removed the time it takes to print them completly!
Also durring the same time I am printing the case jackets on another printer. While all this is being done at one time, other than loading disks I am free to do other stuff myself. So, I am trimming the jackets and stuffing cases.

Basically I can take all blanks ready to go, and in the time 2 full burns at 4x takes I have the finished product completed. No extra time waiting for printing anything. When the second disk comes out of the burner it goes into the finished case and I am done with 2.

Doesn't save alot of time, but when doing 10-15 disks in a small run that little time saved does add up pretty good. Doing that many at once I will start printing blanks and burn after printing sometimes. Just feed the printer fast as it wants to work then have a stack of printed disks ready to burn.

Safe is burn first, faster is do both same time, less confusing is print first!

I added less confusing because sometimes I need copies of 2 or more disks I've authored in the past. Once burned if I don't print right away then I get em mixed up and forget which was what and not sure what label to print on one, but if printed first I know what to burn on it by looking at the top

Why do things go either all or none? I don't burn any disks for along time, then I got to get abunch done right away all at once of several different things..

Oh Boy and not long till the Holidays start, I got a few plans to keep busy

[Gritz]

overloaded_ide,
Which programs do you use to print the inserts for the slip covers and the case jackets? I know I could use Photoshop and size to fit but there must be programs out there that make it easier?

[JeeDub]

I have the that very printer and if you RTFM it states to Burn first, then print after.

[andkiich]

WHAT, read the MANUAL!! How dare you suggest such a reasonable, logical solution!!

Real men don't read manuals!!

[indolikaa]

Burn first, print second.

[golfnut]

Gritz, CoverXP is a great, simple to use, FREE program which will automatically size your DVD covers for printing. Do a Google search for CoverXP.

[overloaded_ide]

I don't do things the ways others consider easy
I mostly do custom stuff so I have to do most the work anyway in creating the covers.
Use any program you like and make your own template if you want.
I use alot of programs for different things and print from most of them.

I figure when you say "size to fit " your reffering to making DVD backups and using existing artwork. I don't do much of that, most my stuff is custom. Either original content DVD's or backups of my VHS tapes. Since I have to custom design the entire cover for those, when doing DVD backups I use my same templates I use for custom work. I backup alot of DVDs too, but it's not that much compared to the rest of the stuff.

You will always have to resize anything that is not the correct size, and nothing is really any simpler than dropping an image into a template. So whatever program you have should work if you make a template the correct size for it.
I don't use precut inserts either, I set my printers paper length to about 12". Also if the program has a pagesetup area I set that to the same 12".
Then leave about 1/4" (.25) top and side margin. Drop in the image or open the file, make sure size is correct, print and cut.
Use any 8.5"X11" papers you like. Sometimes I use cardstock, matt photo, gloss photo etc..

Two things about not using precut inserts,
1 paper is cheaper and you can buy any type they make inserts out of so it's the same thing!
2 If your printing is off a little to the side/top/bottom it does not matter since you cut it yourself. As long as it all printed on the paper correctly it does not matter WHERE it printed

[overloaded_ide]

Hmm, could I be wrong?
A program that actually resizes for you??

17 minutes or so left for download on my little 3kb downlod, slow modem connection at home.

If this is as good as the site claims it might be usefull for me too, so I'll give it a try.

[GizmoTheGremlin]

Hmm, could I be wrong?
A program that actually resizes for you??

There are a lot of programs that do this. Go to www.download.com and do a search.

[Gritz]

Golfnut & Gizmo .... thanks for the info ... I'm looking right now ......................

[noki]

CoverXP is a great, simple to use, FREE program which will automatically size your DVD covers for printing.

but does it do direct printing on disc? I don't think so. remeber the poster has a R200 that does that. no reason to print on labels .

[psx_pirate]

read the post properly ... he wasnt talking about printing labels .... he was asking what people used to print the covers for dvd cases ..... i use m.s publisher ... i created a template of the right size and i just import the cover and select fit to frame

[overloaded_ide]

i use m.s publisher ... i created a template of the right size and i just import the cover and select fit to frame

Yea, me too some times. And that also makes it easy to add other stuff if wanted, like I sometimes add text stating it's a backup copy. Or if I put two movies on one disk I can add an extra pic for the second and the title over the first cover etc....

CoverXP looks great for a quick easy way to print existing jackets/inserts ect... Gee, I never knew such an easy program existed for those.
But still with my little 33k modem connection at home just easier to scan and print my own for backups anyway. Maybe it does that too?

For me it will be of limited use since I make my own custom ones, not just copies of others, but it could be usefull too for additional prints of mine in the future.

Of course I think it does rely on the inserted image to be corect to begin with, so if you have one that was scanned bad and the side cut off I think it would distort the image durring an auto resize. But for the couple covers I downloaded to test with it did work great!

Hmmm, CDcovers.com had like 136 covers too! What happened to them? The MPAA and others starting to crack down on images now??
I noticed another place said they took down all of the ones they had for FOX movies. So where do you find them now?

I did find another site that had some good stuff, but it kept trying to force me to install alot of crap. Game something, browser search stuff and who knows what kind of spyware gargbage I did not even know about!
Be sure to run Spysweeper, Adware ect.. to block alot of that and clean up before and after, and I found most install popups (and others) seemed to stop when I shut down Explorer and went back to the site using FIREFOX browser instead.

[jimmalenko]

Burn first, print second.

There's more chance of a bad burn than a bad print for me.