Lightscribe: cute feature, or useless gimmick?

[fritzi93]

How about - No I don't have it and won't have it because it prints Butt ugly discs and it takes too long to print.

Add this as an option and I'll vote for it. Or the "FulciLives" option, essentially the same thing.

[discguy001]

Gimmick, without a doubt. I use a Rimage Everest II at my business that puts even commercial discs to shame. I would say even a cheap monocolor thermal like the casio CP50 is lightyears ahead of laser scribiling, especially for home use.

[FulciLives]

Gimmick, without a doubt. I use a Rimage Everest II at my business that puts even commercial discs to shame. I would say even a cheap monocolor thermal like the casio CP50 is lightyears ahead of laser scribiling, especially for home use.

A friend of mine has one of those Casio printers (the one with the built-in keyboard). It only cost about $120 and prints very professional looking text directly onto a DVD-R disc. Best of all it works perfect with the shiny silver (in other words the "normal kind") Taiyo Yuden DVD-R discs.

It's simple sure but professional looking and not expensive. Although he only prints simple text onto the DVD you can't beat the fact that it will not rub off. I gotta laugh at people using ink jet printers for full color only to have them get messed up ... oh and then the whole "spray coating" issue. It's insane when all you need is one of those Casio printers.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[kschang]

It's the ribbons that cost a bundle on those printers.

[ROF]

I gotta laugh at people using ink jet printers for full color only to have them get messed up ... oh and then the whole "spray coating" issue. It's insane when all you need is one of those Casio printers.

I use a sharpie which does Arial, Times New Roman, or Bookman Old style text all for the price of $1 per 1,000 discs.

[Marvingj]

Great Feature to Jazz up your Personal DVD for Home.

[träskmannen]

I use a sharpie which does Arial, Times New Roman, or Bookman Old style text all for the price of $1 per 1,000 discs.

I obviously need to update my sharpie, it only does Almost Illegible Scribble.

[ROF]

I use a sharpie which does Arial, Times New Roman, or Bookman Old style text all for the price of $1 per 1,000 discs.

I obviously need to update my sharpie, it only does Almost Illegible Scribble.

That is why most people buy these other expensive measures. All it takes is writing practice. Something which is not taught enough in today's class rooms.

[oldandinthe way]

I don't have it and don't want it. Inkjet printers are so cheap that when I have the need I'll buy an Epson which prints on writeable disks.

Until then I'll use my Sharpie to label.

[dabreezetn]

I just intalled a new samsung with lightscribe a few weeks ago, have used it on ost all my dvd backups.
Pros:
Can label dvd cd without paper, ink ect
I think it was resonable priced at just under $40.00
Can do a decent job at using just text
No messy sloppy looking cd/dvds
Cons
Too light for any images or detailing
Takes 18-10 min to label a disc
media is too costly compared to reg disc
All in all I like it but tech will improve over the years maybe deceasing burning time and media cost. I do not want to spend lots of $ for disc printers,ribbons and sure hate the paperlabels i stick with it for it's better than the altenative IMO
dabreezetn

[olyteddy]

I got an external DVD writer ($49.95 for a Samsung in an I/O Magic case; no rebate; includes Nero 6 OEM) at the Black Friday sales that does Lightscribe, so I'm gonna at least give it a try. Making Christmas CDs and DVDs for the family. Verbatim makes LS media that costs about 1.5 times normal, so I doubt I'll use it for every day recordings.

[hech54]

I don't have it and don't want/need it.

[Dr. DOS]

I have it in a BenQ DL Drive that I have. Neat feature to have... will be interesting to see if they have DL flavor litescribe discs - at a decent price.

[CapeKO]

Use it once in a while on Verbatim, Titles with minimum graphics
4-5 minutes to burn



scan.bmp

[hanugro]

Well, it depend on the price of the blanks. Anyone knows how much is the premium? For now I just use that special CD/DVD marker, cheap and fast. Anyway the content is more important unless you want to sell it.

[Super Warrior]

1.- Too expensive
2.- TOO slow
3.- Useless

I've had better results with a sharpie!

Expensive? I bought a Lite-ON DVD-RW drive recently to install in my mom's computer, the lite-on has the lightscribe stuff, and it only cost about $35.

[Super Warrior]

A friend of mine has one of those Casio printers (the one with the built-in keyboard). It only cost about $120 and prints very professional looking text directly onto a DVD-R disc. Best of all it works perfect with the shiny silver (in other words the "normal kind") Taiyo Yuden DVD-R discs.

It's simple sure but professional looking and not expensive. Although he only prints simple text onto the DVD you can't beat the fact that it will not rub off. I gotta laugh at people using ink jet printers for full color only to have them get messed up ... oh and then the whole "spray coating" issue. It's insane when all you need is one of those Casio printers.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

I have one of those casio CD title printers, the non-keyboard version. Cost about $70 and was very WORTH it. It can print text well on just about any disc, whether the brand is meant to be printed on or not, as long as the surface on the label side is fairly smooth. Like those shiny TYs you mentioned.

My only gripe about the casio is it wastes too much damned ribbon. Hell, just pressing the button to open the tray to insert a disc, causes the ribbon thingy to advance a little and waste some. Not closing it after each print does not help, as the software automatically opens the door itself each time ya click the print button.

I learned the hard way NEVER to needlessly press the button to eject the tray unless i'm going to print something, cause the ribbon advances either way. Pretty sloppy on the part of casio.

I wish updated software was released to solve this problem. Instead of about 40 prints per ribbon like the package says, its more like 25 after the wasting.

All in all, its still a GREAT gadet though. Hell of alot better than a sloppy sharpie or the hassle of printing/applying labels.

[Super Warrior]

Use it once in a while on Verbatim, Titles with minimum graphics
4-5 minutes to burn



scan.bmp

That looks neat. Question: are special lightscribe media discs required for that? Or can any disc with a smooth surface work with it?

[mats.hogberg]

Super[/url] Warrior]

1.- Too expensive
2.- TOO slow
3.- Useless

I've had better results with a sharpie!

Expensive?

Yes, LightScribe only works with special disks, and that's whats's expensive - not the burner.

/Mats

[CapeKO]

Super[/url] Warrior]

1.- Too expensive
2.- TOO slow
3.- Useless

I've had better results with a sharpie!

Expensive?

Yes, LightScribe only works with special disks, and that's whats's expensive - not the burner.

/Mats

Purchased 20 verbatim from newegg for $9.99, free shipping at the time

[Super Warrior]

Yes, LightScribe only works with special disks, and that's whats's expensive - not the burner.

/Mats

Ever tried it on normal discs though?

Whats stopping a user exactly, from using lightscribe on a normal, non-LS disc?

[mats.hogberg]

Nothing. But nothing will happen if you try. May even be some ID that identifies it as a LightScribe disk to the burner so that it wont even try on a non LightScribe disk.

/Mats

[Capmaster]

I used it on two CDs and was fairly unimpressed. Not very useful as I don't usually label my DVDs,

[olyteddy]

May even be some ID that identifies it as a LightScribe disk

Looks like there is some kind of positioning 'bar code' around the hub so the drive can index the disc rotationally.

[classfour]

I recently installed a LiteOn LightScribe in my second computer - it was on sale for $32 shipped, so I felt it was worth a try. If you purchase media at Staples or other local sources, there is a huge premium: $1.25 per disc. I didn't even see it available at WalMart. You can purchase DVD-R in the HP brand, and the media code is CMC Magnetics: Not my favorite.

I haven't noted any problems with burning at 8X (16X media).
I did find the same media (HP DVDR Lightscribe ver 1.2) at supermediastore for $.60 per disc shipped.

I downloaded & installed the latest LightScribe drivers from the LightScribe website.

My impressions thus far (I've only labelled a few) is this: It will provide an acceptable label provided the original label to be printed is sharp, dark and has extreme contrast. The labels that I have selected to print were text and image on shiny silver top media. On the labels that I tested with an image - not predominantly text; were not well defined, and not "keepers": I gave them away and kept the inkjet printed (TYG03's) DVDRs of the same video.

I'm not certain if I would use them for customer discs, until I verify the long term integrity of the media.

I do feel, that - given enough time and experimentation: I can find a use for the media, and provide an acceptable final product.