Printable media vs. disc labels

[dooks]

What's anyone's opinion on using printing printable media vs. using printed disc labels? From what I've read, the disc labels can cause problems and sometimes come off. How is the quality of the printable media? I'd like to keep the discs for quite a while and I want to make sure they're not going to deteriorate on me within a few years.

[lordsmurf]

Inkjet media good. Sticky labels bad.
For more detailed info, search the forum for this topic.

[JeeDub]

Dooks

I don't want to start a flame war, but in my experience, printable media is far safer and easier to do and looks at least twice as good as printed labels. Like most people I pay good money for my DVD's and rather than letting my kids destoy them, I back them up and let them play them in the car or at home and don't worry if they scratch or leave them in the sun, because I still have the original safely tucked away. When the prices came down to a reasonable level I even went to the printable media because I have the Epson 200 which does a very nice job of printing on discs.
Taiyo Yuden (probably the best discs quality-wise) makes great printable discs, though I have also used Ritek and various other brands.

Like LS said, poke around this site for more info.

Have fun, JeeDub

[xxiangg]

Don't use printing lable. Use printable disks as others said. I still have
300 unused printing lables, which I will not use.

[jman98]

I've been using Lightscribe media and I'm really pleased with it. It is only black and white (technically gold and black), but you can get good results with it. I never heard of this direct printing on CD-R labels, but it looks like only Epson supports it. If you don't want to have to buy a special printer, it's getting easier to find Lightscribe CD/DVD burners. Of course, there's a lot to be said for color labels, so I leave it to you to look into Lightscribe and see if that's a good alternative for you or not.

[kip]

Lightscribe is still kinda expensive, but the prise is coming down some; a couple of the sponsors of this forum sell printable media for DVD and CDR which do look much nicer than stick on labels. You can pick up an Epson R220 (refurb) from Epson for 77.00 and this week they offer an additional 20% off with free shipping.

If you live outside of the US and Canada you can pickup one of a few Canon printers that also print direct to the media and in my opinion does a better job than the Epson. Search the web and you can find sites that give detailed instructions for modding the US model Canons to enable this option.