DVD burner with built-in 'printer'?

chabsey · 04-08-2005 10:50am #1

I haev heard that there exists a mythical DVD burner that is dual layer and all the normal stuff....but has the ability to print onto the printable side of the DVD by simply turning over the DVD.

And not 'print' in the conventional sense, more of a 'burn' scenario. In that the specific DVD's react with the laser from the burner and you can print images and text without any ink.

Does this exist and is it possible to buy at a normal-ish price?

wheresmybeaver · 04-08-2005 11:09am

I heard about this too, its called "LightScribe" or something. You flip the blank DVD over and put it back into the burner and it can imprint a greyscale image or text or whatever.

However, I thought that it was a nifty little trick that you could do with any DVD burner as long as you had the right software, so I bought a Lightscribe DVD-R (about €2.50) but then (afterwards...) read the packaging and it would appear that you need a DVD burner that specifically supports LightScribe. I don't think I've seen any. My own burner makes no mention of this ability so I presume it can't do it. Balls.

Adios

skywalker · 04-08-2005 11:14am

A friend got this on his new laptop, & we were trying it out the other day, works exactly as chabsey said. pretty cool gimmick.

Where did you get the discs chabsey?

WizZard · 04-08-2005 11:22am

dubdvd has one of these drives. Dunno if he's tried it out yet though.

stevenmu · 04-08-2005 11:30am

I saw them for sale somewhere recently, I think they were around the €100 mark. I remember them not being hugely more expensive than a normal burner anyway.

kasintahan · 04-08-2005 11:38am

All the new DVD burners are lightscribe compatible.

HP invented it ages ago.

The disks take ages to "print".

chump · 04-08-2005 11:51am

It can do stuff like:

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press_kits/2004/ces/images/lightscribe_labled_cd.jpg

That's fairly nifty

nice article on toms hardware too

http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20050701/

skywalker · 04-08-2005 11:59am

It did take ages to do, I think around 35 mins for a disc.

gaui3d0pnbz86o · 04-08-2005 4:28pm

ay hp have the drives and phillips have them too. both around 110 in pc world

SparrowHawk · 05-08-2005 11:47pm

I bought a Benq drive in I.T. on Parliament street - last thing I'll be buying there - but that's noted in other topics.

There are several different software packages that help in burning images on the "printable" side (I use Nero). That has three different quality settings low, medium &, surprisingly, high. The high setting does take about 30 minutes to complete, but I think it's worthwhile.

one thing to note, HP does say that exposing the discs to prolonged UV light, or pretty much light of any kind, will cause the image to fade.

Ask me again, in six months & I'll ley you know if it's true!

DVD burner with built-in 'printer'?

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