Has anyone here used the LightScribe technology yet? I'm wondering what anyone who has actually used it thinks of it. It seems like it's very nice, but without any 1st hand experience I'm not sure it's worth it to spend 40 bucks to replace one of my drives with a lightscribe enabled one. The recordables don't seem that much more expensive though a bit more of a hassle to get. I would want it for both just labeling computer archive discs as well as make CD and DVD with full art labels. Like if I convert a video file to DVD and burn the DVD, I might want to burn a full art label on it and make it look really nice. So if anyone's used it and likes or dislikes it, tell me why that is. I figure for 40 bucks or so it wouldn't hurt to replace the older burner in my PC with a newer one that does lightscribe. I also saw they now have new colors for LightScribe, so it's not all the same dark gold color, but there's also colors like blue, though strangely no white ones. I think white and black would have made sense for a lightscribe thing. Or atleast silver and black.
Ive used it, its cool but not very useful. It can only do black and well whatever color the disc is and also it takes forever.
So are you main issues with it the time it takes to burn the label and the monochrome limitation? For me I doubt I'd mind the long time for personal long term use discs, and I don't mind the simplicity of monochrome disc art.
I used an external LS drive to do prototype disks of Qublix and I was pretty satisfied with the quality. The two main problems are the speed and software support. Most of the recent burner software can do LS labeling, but not all of them do. The speed is getting better. There are different "versions" of LS, but you have to make sure that both your drive and your disks support the latest version to be able to use the fastest speed.
Version 1.0 media: 30-38 minutes Version 1.2 media: 16-20 minutes Version 1.3 media: 8-10 minutes Source: http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?p=1371628 Good luck finding the version for most media though.
Sweet. Another question however, are there any database like sites similar to those that offered scans of CD covers offering LightScribe CD label files? I would imagine they are, and I'm also surprised LightScribe isn't more popular these days.
I know that www.lightscribe.org has a bunch of stuff, but I haven't really looked for pre-existing artwork.
I found LightScribeCovers.com but its seriously lacking or just too new. Can't believe more people having scanned their CDs to put the CD label art on the net.
Well I got my LightScribe drive yesterday and burned several discs now. While preparing the label is the most taxing part, the results are quite nice. It's certainly handy for quickly labeling and neatly labeling with text. The full art labels are not as convient taking 20mins on best quality, but well worth it. The only rather prohibitive thing is the extra cost of the media. But if you want something that looks nicer than a misc CD-R or DVD-R with some brand name slapped all over it or don't care about the cost it's great. Though I'm rather disappointed there's no Taiyo Yuden media with LightScribe. =(
Why would you do that when you could buy a CD printer (e.g. a lot of modern Epsons) fairly cheaply, and it'll work a LOT faster and do colour?
Because I don't have room for a printer in my tiny room. Color isn't important. Speed isn't important. Cost however is important. Printer + Ink + Printable Discs cost more than Drive + LaserScribe Discs. Though they are certainly a viable option, I just never really bothered. It just seems rather silly to run a disc through a printer to me. But sometime I'll try it. That reminds me I bought a DVD off ebay once that was a fucking DVD-R with label printed on it. The results made it look quite clearly fake. It was not smooth and shiney like a real silkscreen job. So I might be a bit biased. I don't have pictures yet, I have to find a digital camera to borrow. Yes I know it's shocking this day and age that I don't have my own digital camera.
Fair enough if you haven't the room. Still.... Epson R series printer can be had for £50-60. Inks can be bought for about £2 each, and there are 4 - 6. LightScribe writers are £25 (very reasonable now). As for media, 16x LightScribe are £4 for 10, 16x Printable are £4.50 for 25. If you're gonna be using the printer JUST for that, sure its more expensive. Still, if you need a printer for documents, then it is a cheaper (and faster) solution. As you say, the only issue is space!
