Even though it is "just a printer" that would seem to be the way to go
for what I want to do. (No one has mentioned thermal bonding rather
than just printing with ink--presumably that's some highly
sophisticated professional process the cost of which is out of the
question?) Using water-based ink is definitely straying deep into the
territory of hidden costs.
Sure, with Lightscribe, the output looks comparatively crummy, takes 20
minutes per disk to produce, and the disks cost twice the amount of
inkjet-printable disks, but when you do it, it's done.
Or rather variable costs. The area of given CD is about 1/3 the area
of a sheet of paper. Yields on cartridges are typicaly given in terms
of 5%, A given 13ml tank for an r800 @ 5% yield is 400p. CDs,
assuming this number is accurate, assuming 5% yield and 1/3 the area
this would be 1200pieces. Assuming 25% yield this would be 240pieces,
assuming 50% yield this would be 120pieces, and assuming 100% yield
this would be 60pieces. Assuming 13.50/tank * 7 tanks (IIRC it only
uses one black at a given time) this is $94.5.
5%=7.8c/per 25%=39c/per 50%=$1.30/per 100%=$1.58/per
Do keep in mind that the cleaning cycles on the epson are quite
massive.
There is lightscribe, plus on the grey market there is "labelflash".
Mail ordering a drive overseas isn't an issue, but getting the media
would be. The last time I checked it was double that lightscribe.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/02/14/labelflash_vs_lightscribe_dvd/
There isn't a consumer level thermal solution beyond monochrome
ribbons, with your choice of color. There are wax transfer CD printers
but I believe these start in the $4000 range. I'm sure no one brought
these up as the title of your post was "best inkjet".
Sure, with Lightscribe, the output looks comparatively crummy, takes 20
minutes per disk to produce, and the disks cost twice the amount of
inkjet-printable disks, but when you do it, it's done. With
water-based ink going onto a disk, when you don't know what brand of
disk may work best with what brand of printer and ink, then how long
are you taking experimenting with different brands, then taking the
chance that they'll smear, or how much time and money are you putting
into spraying fixative on each disk, making sure no dust gets stuck to
the fixative, not to mention no fixative running onto the other side of
the disk, and waiting for it to dry? Might a 5-minute disk not quickly
become a 20-minute disk that way?
I personaly have not found a spray that will work well on DVDs. Water
based sprays i've tried orange peal too easily, and spar urethane
reduces data to ashes. Epsons offer a "gloss optimizer" on the r800
but it's limited to the printed area. I've somewhat considered looking
into adapting my old r200 to use the gloss optimizer in all 6 tanks and
applying it to discs, i.e. print on my canon, then print in clear on
the epson.
But... though lightscribe offers fixed costs, there is no way it can
compair to painting discs. Lightscribe is limited to one disc per
drive at 30min a pop in high quality mode. Painting discs is limited
to your desk space which can be optimized by putting your discs in
trays. The offical drytime of the r800 for paper is 24hrs.
I'm thinking of producing archival-quality images not only for myself,
family, and friends, but for placement in libraries and museums--where
it stands to reason they *will* get handled by somebody, sometime. It
looks as if this would also be a good option for printing high-quality
CD inserts which may also be handled (by people reading titles.)
A sprayed dye based inkjet print would do pretty well too... but given
the choice I'd lean tward pigments. Technicaly speaking I believe the
durabright series of epson inks outlasts the ultrachrome of the r800 in
terms of lightfastness, i.e. their cheaper series of printers. But...
the ultrachrome should it self outlast the archive life of a quality
home burnt CD/DVD.
Canon will release their own pigment printer come September, the Pixma
pro 9500. Again the american version will have cd-printing disabled
and enabling it is not documented. It's a wide model sporting 10 ink
tanks.
Although the ink for an Epson Stylus Photo R800 costs less than for the
Stylus Photo RX500, of course I'd have to keep that for all the other
features. What are the opinions of people who have used the Epson
Stylus Photo R800, particularly for printing directly to disks? How
does the ink look and act, and how easy or hard is it to set up and
print a label, keeping in mind I'd be taking images mostly from photo
CDs or capturing them from a digital source such as a frame from a
movie, or possibly scans?
Label printing I can speak of to some degree from my r200 experence...
the r800 isn't going to be any different on the software level. The
application included is rather limited, but it's good enough to take
your image edited in another application and printing it.
Still, consider one of these solutions
http://www.acoustica.com/cd-label-maker/
http://www.magicmouse.com/h_discus_detail.html
http://ww2.nero.com/enu/Nero_6_Ultra_Edition_InfoPage.html
http://www.surething.com/ST/
I use acoustica my self. It supports edge printed tracks.
