DVD Printing-The Good the bad and the ugly?

Bill Grant · February 18th, 2008, 12:42 AM

I have had my Epson R320 for a little over a year and had NO issues. I think I paid $79 for it. I recently bought a CD/DVD tray off of a company I found using that difficult GOOGLE thing, and it has worked great from the FIRST disk, and I am very happy with the disks I have done so far. If I did a lot of duplication I might get a primera or whatever, but at $79 - $150 these things are disposible. If I get a year of use out of a printer, then I am golden. This one has been great.
Bill

Ivan Snoeckx · February 18th, 2008, 11:27 AM

Hi guys,

I have had an Epson R300 and now own a HP D5160. Bad thing about the HP is that you cannot calibrate it when it is out of center. So, I'm looking for something else. Yesterday I found this link.

Please take a look at it!

http://global.dymo.com/enUS/DiscPainter/default.html

Anyone using this?

Alastair Brown · February 19th, 2008, 07:13 AM

http://dvcreators.net/discuss/showthread.php?p=62690

Pros and Cons review

Will be £249 in the UK (Good old rip-off Britain!) and is due for UK release around April.

Tom Tomkowiak · February 19th, 2008, 08:31 AM

I got an Epson R200 about four years ago and it's still printing disks just fine. Probably punched out at least 3 or 400 so far ... and all with brand X ink.

Last year I picked up a Lightscribe burner to provide a different look and for backup in case the R200 dies at just the wrong time. It doesn't use ink, but it takes about 20 minutes to inscribe an image on a disk, vs. about 3 or 4 minutes with the inkjet. The cost/disk is about 2x or 3x more than an inkjet printable disk.

Dave Uriarte · February 19th, 2008, 03:38 PM

I learned my lesson a few years ago with an HP CP1700 printer we used for printing DVD inserts. I hadn't used it in a few months, then went to use it and the output quality was horrible. I went through the motions of running the "clean print head" utility which is simply shooting lots of ink through the heads to flush them out, but it never recovered. I didn't want to shell out the $$$ for a set of replacement heads, so I got rid of it then bought an Epson R260. Since I don't use it that often, I have a reminder set in my Outlook every 2 weeks to run a 'test page' print just so it doesn't dry up on me. That methodology has been working perfectly for the past year or so :)

I guess it's sorta like your water pipes. If you let 'em sit for a couple months without turning on the faucet, you're gonna get all sorts of junk when you do turn it on. Of course, the water usually runs clear after a while. I wasn't so lucky with my old printer...

Peace!

Dee Reid · February 28th, 2008, 09:21 AM

I have had several Epson printers which worked fine for documents. I experienced problems with all of them after a short while when using them to print CDs and DVDs. All Epson printer models tend to have feed tray problems. Yes, many don't have these problems but fully 50% experience them. Also Epson printers ink jets clog over a relatively short period of time. Epson tech told me that I had to turn off the power to my printer when not in actual use printing a disc. When told this I was stunned. This is obviously some design flaw that Epson needs to fix. No device should require turning the power off to function properly.
A commenter above asked about the Dymo DiscPainter. I switched to it and now own several units at work and one at home. They are small dedicated disc printers that print full color image labels directly on any printable disc. The text feature is very easy to use and font, size, color and location of text are all intuitive selections. As this is a dedicated disc printer there are no configuration requirements to worry about other than switching from a regular disc to a mini disc. I have printed close to 1000 discs with my oldest DiscPainter and have never suffered any malfunction or ink head problem. I have been getting close to 200 discs per ink cartridge. All in all a very easy, fast, colorful way to make professional disc labels.

Steven Davis · February 28th, 2008, 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dee Reid

I have had several Epson printers which worked fine for documents. I experienced problems with all of them after a short while when using them to print CDs and DVDs. All Epson printer models tend to have feed tray problems. Yes, many don't have these problems but fully 50% experience them. Also Epson printers ink jets clog over a relatively short period of time. Epson tech told me that I had to turn off the power to my printer when not in actual use printing a disc. When told this I was stunned. This is obviously some design flaw that Epson needs to fix. No device should require turning the power off to function properly.
A commenter above asked about the Dymo DiscPainter. I switched to it and now own several units at work and one at home. They are small dedicated disc printers that print full color image labels directly on any printable disc. The text feature is very easy to use and font, size, color and location of text are all intuitive selections. As this is a dedicated disc printer there are no configuration requirements to worry about other than switching from a regular disc to a mini disc. I have printed close to 1000 discs with my oldest DiscPainter and have never suffered any malfunction or ink head problem. I have been getting close to 200 discs per ink cartridge. All in all a very easy, fast, colorful way to make professional disc labels.

Did you feel you were spending a lot more on ink with the disk printer? I tried to figure out how much ink costs, but after 15 minutes of looking gave up.

Marcus Marchesseault · February 28th, 2008, 10:28 PM

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...&O=&sku=528759

The ink is $40.

I hope I don't regret getting an Epson last week. I didn't know about the Dymo. I got an R260 and ordered a continuous ink system (CIS) for a total outlay of $120 for printer and ink.

Paul Leung · March 3rd, 2008, 04:19 AM

I have been printing my DVD with Epson R200. Nice print quality and cheap. However, the no-brand ink gave me a lot of headache. The print came out is very greenish. I figured out the Cyan ink is the problem. Tried another brand, it's the same. Now I need to buy genuine cyan ink. BTW, the epson print head gets clogged a lot!!

I will buy the Dymo printer if the quality is indeed good and the head does not get clogged for low volumn uses.

Reed Gidez · March 3rd, 2008, 09:19 PM

I have ben using an R200 for about 3 years and added an R380 about a year ago. I had problems with the 200's original tray and picked up a couple of spares and it has been OK but both printers like to cough up a hairball now and then. I use only Epson inks. The R380 has been more reliable than the 200 and it is a little faster. Mind you neither one will win any speed contests.

I had a couple of high volume disc jobs recently and decided to get a Microboards GX auto printer (just the printer, no duplicating).

Gotta say the ROI might be tough for some to justify but the speed and 50 disc capacity alone made it worth the $$. I've printed about 140 full color discs since I got it 6 weeks ago and I am still on the original cartridge. Not bad. HP inks with an HP print engine and less than 60 secs for a full color full coverage disc. Great image quality using Taiyo watershield discs. Start printing the next big job in a couple of weeks and I'll let everyone know how far the current cartridge goes.

Reed Gidez

Craig Terott · March 5th, 2008, 08:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ivan Snoeckx

Hi guys,

I have had an Epson R300 and now own a HP D5160. Bad thing about the HP is that you cannot calibrate it when it is out of center. So, I'm looking for something else. Yesterday I found this link.

Please take a look at it!

http://global.dymo.com/enUS/DiscPainter/default.html

Anyone using this?

I bought the disc painter 2 months ago. With their highest quality supplied media & highest quality settings - it was grainy looking. I was sooo not satisfied with the quality that I returned mine. So beware!

Alastair Brown · March 5th, 2008, 01:12 PM

Do you happen to have any of your "coasters" left that you could post an image of? Sure there would be a lot of interested in seeing what the quality looks like.

Don Blish · May 15th, 2008, 08:41 PM

I've been using my wide carriage R1800/Ultrachrome for almost 3 years now. For what it is worth I've done about about 200 13x19"s, a couple of thousand 8.5x11s and at least 250 DVD or BluRay discs, all with superb quality and no media feeding issues.

February 18th, 2008, 11:27 AM	#17
Ivan Snoeckx Major Player Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Belgium \| Europe Posts: 441	Dymo DiscPainter Hi guys, I have had an Epson R300 and now own a HP D5160. Bad thing about the HP is that you cannot calibrate it when it is out of center. So, I'm looking for something else. Yesterday I found this link. Please take a look at it! http://global.dymo.com/enUS/DiscPainter/default.html Anyone using this?

February 19th, 2008, 08:31 AM	#19
Tom Tomkowiak Major Player Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: On the NC Crystal Coast Posts: 203	R200 alive and well I got an Epson R200 about four years ago and it's still printing disks just fine. Probably punched out at least 3 or 400 so far ... and all with brand X ink. Last year I picked up a Lightscribe burner to provide a different look and for backup in case the R200 dies at just the wrong time. It doesn't use ink, but it takes about 20 minutes to inscribe an image on a disk, vs. about 3 or 4 minutes with the inkjet. The cost/disk is about 2x or 3x more than an inkjet printable disk. __________________ Tom T Mac Pro, Final Cut Studio 2, CS2, Merlin, DVRigPro, VX2100s, HV30

February 19th, 2008, 03:38 PM	#20
Dave Uriarte Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: University Place, WA Posts: 106	Letting your printer sit... I learned my lesson a few years ago with an HP CP1700 printer we used for printing DVD inserts. I hadn't used it in a few months, then went to use it and the output quality was horrible. I went through the motions of running the "clean print head" utility which is simply shooting lots of ink through the heads to flush them out, but it never recovered. I didn't want to shell out the $$$ for a set of replacement heads, so I got rid of it then bought an Epson R260. Since I don't use it that often, I have a reminder set in my Outlook every 2 weeks to run a 'test page' print just so it doesn't dry up on me. That methodology has been working perfectly for the past year or so :) I guess it's sorta like your water pipes. If you let 'em sit for a couple months without turning on the faucet, you're gonna get all sorts of junk when you do turn it on. Of course, the water usually runs clear after a while. I wasn't so lucky with my old printer... Peace!

February 28th, 2008, 09:21 AM	#21
Dee Reid Tourist Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Virginia Beach VA Posts: 2	DVD Printing I have had several Epson printers which worked fine for documents. I experienced problems with all of them after a short while when using them to print CDs and DVDs. All Epson printer models tend to have feed tray problems. Yes, many don't have these problems but fully 50% experience them. Also Epson printers ink jets clog over a relatively short period of time. Epson tech told me that I had to turn off the power to my printer when not in actual use printing a disc. When told this I was stunned. This is obviously some design flaw that Epson needs to fix. No device should require turning the power off to function properly. A commenter above asked about the Dymo DiscPainter. I switched to it and now own several units at work and one at home. They are small dedicated disc printers that print full color image labels directly on any printable disc. The text feature is very easy to use and font, size, color and location of text are all intuitive selections. As this is a dedicated disc printer there are no configuration requirements to worry about other than switching from a regular disc to a mini disc. I have printed close to 1000 discs with my oldest DiscPainter and have never suffered any malfunction or ink head problem. I have been getting close to 200 discs per ink cartridge. All in all a very easy, fast, colorful way to make professional disc labels.

March 3rd, 2008, 09:19 PM	#25
Reed Gidez Major Player Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Oradell, New Jersey Posts: 283	Epson printer woes I have ben using an R200 for about 3 years and added an R380 about a year ago. I had problems with the 200's original tray and picked up a couple of spares and it has been OK but both printers like to cough up a hairball now and then. I use only Epson inks. The R380 has been more reliable than the 200 and it is a little faster. Mind you neither one will win any speed contests. I had a couple of high volume disc jobs recently and decided to get a Microboards GX auto printer (just the printer, no duplicating). Gotta say the ROI might be tough for some to justify but the speed and 50 disc capacity alone made it worth the $$. I've printed about 140 full color discs since I got it 6 weeks ago and I am still on the original cartridge. Not bad. HP inks with an HP print engine and less than 60 secs for a full color full coverage disc. Great image quality using Taiyo watershield discs. Start printing the next big job in a couple of weeks and I'll let everyone know how far the current cartridge goes. Reed Gidez

February 18th, 2008, 12:42 AM	#16
Bill Grant Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: Columbia,SC Posts: 806	I have had my Epson R320 for a little over a year and had NO issues. I think I paid $79 for it. I recently bought a CD/DVD tray off of a company I found using that difficult GOOGLE thing, and it has worked great from the FIRST disk, and I am very happy with the disks I have done so far. If I did a lot of duplication I might get a primera or whatever, but at $79 - $150 these things are disposible. If I get a year of use out of a printer, then I am golden. This one has been great. Bill

February 19th, 2008, 07:13 AM	#18
Alastair Brown Major Player Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Glasgow/Scotland Posts: 626	http://dvcreators.net/discuss/showthread.php?p=62690 Pros and Cons review Will be £249 in the UK (Good old rip-off Britain!) and is due for UK release around April.

February 28th, 2008, 10:28 PM	#23
Marcus Marchesseault Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 1,961	http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...&O=&sku=528759 The ink is $40. I hope I don't regret getting an Epson last week. I didn't know about the Dymo. I got an R260 and ordered a continuous ink system (CIS) for a total outlay of $120 for printer and ink.

March 3rd, 2008, 04:19 AM	#24
Paul Leung Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Vancouver, Canada Posts: 173	I have been printing my DVD with Epson R200. Nice print quality and cheap. However, the no-brand ink gave me a lot of headache. The print came out is very greenish. I figured out the Cyan ink is the problem. Tried another brand, it's the same. Now I need to buy genuine cyan ink. BTW, the epson print head gets clogged a lot!! I will buy the Dymo printer if the quality is indeed good and the head does not get clogged for low volumn uses.

March 5th, 2008, 01:12 PM	#27
Alastair Brown Major Player Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Glasgow/Scotland Posts: 626	Do you happen to have any of your "coasters" left that you could post an image of? Sure there would be a lot of interested in seeing what the quality looks like.

May 15th, 2008, 08:41 PM	#28
Don Blish Major Player Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Portland OR Posts: 227	R1800 going strong I've been using my wide carriage R1800/Ultrachrome for almost 3 years now. For what it is worth I've done about about 200 13x19"s, a couple of thousand 8.5x11s and at least 250 DVD or BluRay discs, all with superb quality and no media feeding issues.