Question About Printing To CD Labels

A

andybiz_2005

Well-known member
I need some advice concerning printing a label design unto a paper CD label & then sticking it unto a CD.

I was talking with my videographer friend who told me that it isn't advisable to print a design unto a paper CD label & then stick it on a CD/VCD. His reason was that over a long time, the adhesive (from the paper CD label) is made of chemicals to make it stick to the CD & this chemical will eventually leach into the silver coating of the CD & destroy it's contents. I'm not sure if this is really true & would like to hear your feedback on this. His other reason is that with the paper label stuck on the CD, not all VCD players are guaranteed to play the VCD properly, because of the paper label on top.

He told me a safer solution would be to invest in a printer that prints its labels directly on the CD itself, but he told me that in order to do this, I have to purchase special CDs for this purpose. Is there such a thing that "special" CDs are needed for this burning-directly-on-a-CD? Thank you in advance.

Andrew
 
I would go for printing directly on the disc. For full color, I use an Epson R300. It has a disc tray. It is slow, about 2 minutes to print a full disc with graphics, but at 1200 dpi. Great quality, but it costs about 30-40 cents worth of ink. It also requires the white coated inkjet discs ( about 35 cents each). For single color, Primera makes a 125 dollar printer that uses a thermal ribbon. About 25 cents per disc. I feed it 22 cent silver thermal discs. The 'special' discs your friend is talking about are for the HP burner where you turn the disc over in the drive and the laser burns the image on the special top coating.
 
dmcgill said:
I would go for printing directly on the disc. For full color, I use an Epson R300. It has a disc tray. It is slow, about 2 minutes to print a full disc with graphics, but at 1200 dpi. Great quality, but it costs about 30-40 cents worth of ink. It also requires the white coated inkjet discs ( about 35 cents each). For single color, Primera makes a 125 dollar printer that uses a thermal ribbon. About 25 cents per disc. I feed it 22 cent silver thermal discs. The 'special' discs your friend is talking about are for the HP burner where you turn the disc over in the drive and the laser burns the image on the special top coating.
Click to expand...

+1 I have the same printer and I'll never go back to those sticky labels again!

newegg.com has a great price on them as well. :)
 
Definately avoid paper labels on cd/dvd's...................

They tend to 'Rub' in some players (on top of the other issues mentioned).
 
i'm also looking at getting a good printer that prints directly onto plain white DVDs.

any suggestions other than the r300?...

btw - costco sells the TDK blank DVD-R's with the plain white labels in packs of 100 for about $45.00.
 
Hi Everyone

Hi Everyone

Well, thank you for all your very useful advice on the CD labels. It has helped me now to understand why printing directly to CD is a better choice than printing to paper labels & sticking them to disc. dmcgill, I will go check out the printer models that you mentioned, the Epson R300 one & see if there're any other printer models. Perhaps I might cconsider a HP printer as currently, they're the leader in printers.

Thanks once again. Hope that more people can chip in their suggestions regarding CD labels.

Cheers!

Andrew
 
I use a Canon i865 to print on plain white disks. It's a few years old now, a friend has Epsom & it prints to a smaller circle in the centre.
I used stick on labels for some time till printable disks came available & now have nightmares that soon all the customers are going to come throwing bricke on my roof.
 
I would like to buy a printer DEDICATED to printing full-color graphics onto CDs and DVDs. Aside from the super expensive industrial printers, can anyone reccomend a good printer under $1,000 that's especially good at this? One with a CD tray and quality printing technology? Thanks!
 
Well, all I could find was the Primera Bravo II AutoPrinter 62715 Color InkJet CD/DVD printer for $1,025, and it DOESN'T do I.D. badges. Newegg.com also has the monochrome printer someone else mentioned, the Primera Signature Z1(56300) 200 dpi color thermal transfer printer for $120.
 
Epson's R200 and R300 do the good job on printing but it's not waterproof. I gave the CD to my costumer , they called me weak latter complain about it .
 
The R200 gets my vote. I've been using it for reels for about 18 months now. You do have to let the discs dry completely, and they aren't waterproof, but the quality is hard to beat for the price. I think you can find the r200 for even less now that the r220 has come out to replace it. I also like using hub-printable discs to get more image onto the DVD or CD. Both of which are so cheap now that I don't even bother buying non-printable media anymore. The rambling ends now.

Fox
 
r200 rocks, until i bought some ink off of ebay.. now its mess up. but get the r200. lightscribe has ways to go, color would be nice
 
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