Epson R300 banding on printable CD/DVD media.

[ozstar100]

Yes a good idea...

Was this the original s/w you got with the unit or did you upgrade?

Oz

[depressd]

I'm using the disk that came with the printer.

[ozstar100]

Cool.

I'm checking on the SureThing program to see if they have or can get us a template for the printer.

I'll post my results..

Oz

[Pussylips]

Hi there,
I had the same problem with banding on my Epson 2100. But all it was was a setting. I had Blobs of ink and banding. All I did was make sure CD-R was selected in printer properties. But it might be different on this. Just a thought.

[quasar1963]

Well, I tried another printable brand (Leda printable dvd-r) and the striping/bands on either side of the disc were not there. I have been having the problem with BeAll™ discs and am thinking now I just got a bad batch as far as the printable surfaces on them go. I printed on those previously without this issue.
I would switch to Leda but they are not printable all the way to the hub like Leda. Anyone happen to know of a brand that is full-face inkjet printable with no stack ring?

[lanph]

Here is a link to a Surething Template for print to the hub media for the R300. I use it and it works great.

http://pete.mvd2.com/custom_templates.htm

[ozstar100]

Thanks.. I forgot to look at his template site whic is amazing..

These templates for the Sure Thing program are the same for..


Epson R300 which is the same as the 210 and 310.

and The Canon i865

http://pete.mvd2.com/custom_templates.htm

Haven't tried these but would be interested to know the results if anyone does.

Thanks

Oz

[Hawseman]

Isn't that odd....I just printed out a black dvd and the banding is very visable. Some of my lighter media I cannot detect it.

There is one other thing I did different (maybe someone can verify this)....print quality was set for "text", where I usually set it to "photo". I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it.

[depressd]

I have always used photo quality. It still shows the banding. When the black is in the background. It does seem to show more.

[quasar1963]

Yes, it is noticeable on a black blackground regardless of settings
Speaking of settings though:
Do you use cd/dvd or cd/dvd premium surface?
I can't seem to get it to work correctly without choosing one of these.


What about the setting on color correction? Standard?

[depressd]

Pretty happy with the cd/dvd option and +1 setting.

[quasar1963]

+1 as in the "color correction" setting?

[depressd]

Actually I believe that is the darkness setting. I haven't messed with the color correction at all. I have been pleased with these settings for everything I've printed to cd/dvd, except for this banding issue. I sent Epson an email over the weekend. Pointing them to this thread. Hopefully I'll hear something from them today.

[quasar1963]

Under what sub-tab are you finding the darkness setting?
I do not see it under print settings or epson print cd settings

[depressd]

When I select print in the epson print software. It's the first window that pops up. There should be a slider bar there. I move that to +1 and the click on properties on the top right and go to select photo quality and hit Those on the only two options I have ever changed. Everything else is at default.

[depressd]

Alright, I got an email back from Epson. It was a generic email and didn't provide anything that I haven't alreadt tried. Here is what they said.

Thank you for taking the time to contact Epson. It is my pleasure to
respond to your inquiry.

Please ensure you are cleaning the printer before printing on a CD:

1. Make sure that the printer is on.
2. Open the paper support, then slide up the extension.
3. Lower the output tray and slide out the extension.
4. Check that no warnings or errors are displayed on the LCD panel.
5. Load letter size paper in the sheet feeder.
6. Press the Maintenance button in Advanced mode. Then press the button to
highlight "Paper Feed/Paper Eject" and press the OK button. The paper is
fed.
7. Press the OK button again. The paper is ejected.
8. Repeat the above steps 5 to 7 several times.


If you require further assistance with this particular issue, please ensure
all of our previous correspondence is contained in your reply, so we can
better track the history of this issue.


I then called Epson and was told that they haven't heard of this issue. Apparently they didn't bother to look at this thread. When I spoke to the tech. He didn't know what was going on. Since using other software doesn't produce this banding. He is going to send me another copy of the installation software. He did take the forum info and advised that he would pass it to his leader. That was about all the help he could give. I guess I'll have to wait for the cd and then reinstall and see if that fixes the issue.

[ozstar100]

See this post about the SureThing template for the Epsons mentioned.

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=838394#838394

Good luck

Oz

[depressd]

Seems the banding is back. I've used Surething for a while without any problems. It started back tonight though. Anybody else still seeing this.

[Hawseman]

Roger that....I have seen banding with Surething. Think it's a driver issue?

[quasar1963]

Switch to a different printable and the banding will disappear
I noticed banding on certain brands and not on others
BeAll was hit and miss
Ritek showed none
Leda and Prime as well as Optodisc were good too
Lately, all the BeAll's show banding where as the others do not

[depressd]

It's hard to believe that it's the media. No matter how the printable media is inserted it always prints the banding vertical to the disk coming out. This would indicate the printer. Otherwise the banding would be random.

[Alan69]

Since it has happened on two brand new R300 printers, I can't see it being a problem with contamination.

No real reason for thinking this, since two from the same store likely even came off the line the same day. And contamination doesn't mean something abnormal, almost all rubber coated parts have some kind of release agent on them from manufacturing them. If you didn't go in there and clean it well manually then it's not clean.


But, I don't think that's the likley problem.

Aliasing. You have heard of it I assume. Now going backwards, lets look at just exactly how many things have to have either precisely the same or extremely high resolution to not have any noticable aliasing from differing sample pitches:

1. Final print dot size/pitch.
2. Printing software may even introduce it's own windowing from a resize, depends on how they did it.
3. File dimensions you're printing from.
4. The scanner's base resolution. Not just the file it makes, but it's res it's scanning by has an effect too.
5. Original printing that was being scanned has a resolution too of course.

That's a lot of things that all have to be very high res, or the exact same res and always lined up perfectly to always sample in the same columns. If any two of these have similar res but not the same, you'll be likely to get banding. When the reses don't match, in the area where it changes over from sampling the same column to sampling one extra column over, it's going to be sampling on the edge and getting some pixels from one column, some from the other. This will fuzz the image until you go some number of pixels on over to where it's always sampling from that extra column over.

Go scan a few pics out of magazines at different reses and see how bad some are. Then resize the pics on your screen, and see that some that looked ok at first look like crap when resized. And remember your printer has a fixed resolution it also introduces. There is just no easy way around it with several steps in the process, but good interpolations in the software can work to minimize the problems.

One will have it, one won't, due to the original print and scan resolutions. Different software may do things differently and not have it or have it with different reses. Etc etc.

With them all seeming in the same spot, it could still be a roller issue. Or it could be that your software is just resizing the imported images and isn't really matching the resize to the printer correctly and causing banding at the same spot every time. Since different software seems to have done it that's likely the problem. Still some chance of the roller though if the software is running the printer differently, can't tell since I don't have one to play with.

Try many resizes of the same image, resizing just like 10 or 20 pixels more or less. Even if the software is doing it's own resize as it imports the image, this should affect that and move the banding around a bit..

[videot]

I've had the Epson R200 for about a week now, and have experienced the same banding problem. Initially, I was using the Memorex CD-Rs, with great results. After purchasing a stack of Taiyo Yuden printable CD-Rs, the bands appeared. I quickly discovered that this was specific to the TY media. Switching back to the Memorex discs produced the same sharp looking results as before.

On contacting Epson, I received the following response:

"Thank you for taking the time to contact Epson. It is my pleasure to respond to your inquiry.

From the picture you sent it is apparent there is an incompatible issue with the Taiyo Yuden media. The CD is a non-epson product and we cannot guarantee the results on different CD brands. There is nothing we can do to troubleshoot this issue. Epson does not produce CD's for CD printing. Epson has run some tests on different brands of CD and Memorex and Maxell brand CD's seem to work the best with the R200."

Unfortunately, the retailer wouldn't take back the remaining 98 TY discs. Oh well. I've yet to try printing with another application. Epson provides a Photoshop template for Mac, but not for PC. Once I get around to making my own, I'll see if the results are any different. Frankly, I doubt this would produce different results.

Ritek DVD-R 4X discs don't show the problem, but look much more muted than the Memorex, but still produce acceptable print quality.

I'm tempted to try the Memorex DVD-Rs. CD-Rs are one thing, but I'm not sure I trust Memorex for DVD media.

In spite of all this, the printer is a heck of a deal for 100 bucks.

[jaxxboss]

videot
I too have little regards for memorex, but since Amazon has been selling the printables for $99.99 with free shipping and the fact that they are ricoh discs I have gone with these. printed over 200 so far with not one problem.

Havnt tried any other media nor have I tried a cd. I am tempted to try some cheaper +R printables but havnt found any cheap enough to warrant a change. They would have to be substantialy cheaper than the memorex for me to venture out there. Say maybe .60 cents per disc, otherwise it's not worth the risk.

[Colorado]

Same issue with R200. Bought 100 Taiyo Yuden and have the banding, but only with light background so far. Web support sent me the same canned response about Memorex. I am going to try and open up the printer to see if there is anything on the rollers that would be deposited on the disc prior to printing. Otherwise will reluctantly purchase Memorex printables.

[nickelzy]

Say what you want about Memorex, but for me and my burner, we love them. I'm about 30 into my 100 pack of Memorex printables (which are Ricoh), and haven't had a single problem. Now the Riteks that I had this weekend, oh boy, don't even get me started on them. I know they must be a great brand (since so many people swear by them), but my digital research burner hates them - I burned about 28 discs or so, and had only 4 or 5 that I could keep. So at least for now, Memorex Printables are good to go (although I did like the print quality of the Riteks slighty more than the Memorex - the images looked just very slighly smoother). It's not anything that you would probably notice, but I was looking at both side by side - and again, this was a very, very slight difference.

[Colorado]

I wasn't necesarily bashing Memorex, I have no experience with them. I do have experience with Fuji branded Taiyo Yuden's and have never had a problem, plus I just bought 100 of them. So I'm reluctant to go out and buy any more printable CDRs right now.

[videot]

Hey Colorado,

Are you saying you've printed on the TYs with good results? If so, are you positive TY is the manufacturer? If not, and you haven't openend them, I'd take `em back.

If anyone is able to print on the Taiyo Yuden CDRs sucessfully, maybe there's hope for my remaining stack of 98!

A small update:

I now believe the problem is caused by two small nylon rollers that contact the disc on loading. Nothing contacts it after printing as best I can tell. It's my guess that the TY discs somehow react to this in a way that Memorex and Ritek do not. Even in the area outside the stipes, the print quality is not as good as the Memorex CD-R or the Ritek DVD-R. I still think the Riteks look a bit too muted as to contrast for my liking.

[Hawseman]

Hmmm...I wonder why I have noticed it with my Maxell and Ritek Ridata printables.....I've never even used TY printables before....but I use Fuji branded (TY).

They're brushing you off.

[Guest]

Hmmm...I wonder why I have noticed it with my Maxell and Ritek Ridata printables.....I've never even used TY printables before....but I use Fuji branded (TY).

They're brushing you off.

Just got some Riteks. No banding. Didn't even smudge straight out the R300. Had to get used to the epson software but I am impressed with the results