CD Label Burner

Does iMac support lightscribe for burning labels directly onto CD's or if not, can anyone recommend a Mac compaible option for this short of printed paper labels?

farmcock said:

Does iMac support lightscribe for burning labels directly onto CD's or if not, can anyone recommend a Mac compaible option for this short of printed paper labels?

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Yes and no. You need a LightScribe burner, LightScribe discs, and special software to print the labels. If you're looking at the new iMacs (everything in the monitor), those only include a standard SuperDrive as an option. You will have to purchase an external LightScribe drive seperately (Firewire is the best option for external imo). You can either buy one or build your own. If you want to buy one, LaCie has a nice one for about $140:

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10071

If you want to build one, you can save about $40 depending on what you get. You will need a 5.25" LightScribe DVD burner and an external enclosure for it. I used a BenQ LightScribe internal DVD burner and a 5.25" Firewire AMS Venus case for it. Works great and cost about $110 total. You can get the BenQ drive for $55 here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827101006

Or an HP drive for $85 here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827140014

Here is a link to the enclosure I purchased: ($57)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145654


As far as software goes, disclabel from SmileOnMyMac is available for $30 and will do the job. It's available here:

http://www.smileonmymac.com/disclabel/index.html

If you buy a LaCie drive, they include a Mac version of their own LightScribe software:

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10096

It's probably best to buy the LaCie drive because it will cost about the same to build it after shipping expenses, plus they include software for making labels.

Keep in mind that LightScribe is slow and photos don't turn out great on it. LightScribe is great for making text labels and printing vector-style graphics such as logos. Right now the discs are only available in the gold color and the LightScribe drives can only print in monochrome (basically grayscale but on a gold disc). I've used the Verbatim brand of DVD discs with good success:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817130996

The discs are more expensive than normal DVDs ($36 for a 30-pack make them just over a dollar a disc). With my BenQ, I have to burn the disc twice to make it dark enough that its acceptable for me. It takes up to 30 minutes per disc and is usually not less than 20 minutes, even for basic text labels, so you're looking at about an hour per disc. I mainly use my LightScribe drive for making restore discs for Windows system (looks really professional) and for doing labels for my home DVD movies.

Alternatively, you can pick up an Epson R200 (now R220) printer (or R320, which has a little LCD screen on it), which is a standard 6-ink inkjet printer that also prints on white & silver printable CDs and DVDs. You get excellent color (photo quality) and fast speed with this printer, and you can find it for about $100 anywhere (like Staples). I prefer using this printer for most projects. It also prints really great photos on 4x6, 5x7, etc. photo paper. It kind of stinks as a document print because the text comes out fuzzy, but it's a fantastic photo & disc printer.

If you go for the printer option I'd go for a Canon printer. I have a friend who has a Epson, i think it's the R200 the software for printing cd's was rubbish and then they seemed to have stopped making it (so check out the website and make sure that it's still downloadable) also the canons are cheeper in ink and last longer. I've got through so many Epson printers in the past.

I have a canon pixma mp780 all in one and it prints really nicely onto CD's and the software works well. Gives CD's that professional look.

Mr Bobbins said:

If you go for the printer option I'd go for a Canon printer. I have a friend who has a Epson, i think it's the R200 the software for printing cd's was rubbish and then they seemed to have stopped making it (so check out the website and make sure that it's still downloadable) also the canons are cheeper in ink and last longer. I've got through so many Epson printers in the past.

I have a canon pixma mp780 all in one and it prints really nicely onto CD's and the software works well. Gives CD's that professional look.

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Are you located outside of the US? I haven't been able to find the Canon printers that have the disc printing feature in the US yet. The software that Epson includes, PrintCD, is very basic but it gets the job done. You can use other software such as SureThing (for PC) or disclabel (for Mac) if you don't like it. However, I find that PrintCD works out great for me (I'm using the PC version; I don't know if the Mac version is different). You can also use Illustrator or Photoshop to create the CD template, import it into PrintCD as an image (bitmap or whatever you like), and print from there.

kaidomac said:

Are you located outside of the US? I haven't been able to find the Canon printers that have the disc printing feature in the US yet. The software that Epson includes, PrintCD, is very basic but it gets the job done. You can use other software such as SureThing (for PC) or disclabel (for Mac) if you don't like it. However, I find that PrintCD works out great for me (I'm using the PC version; I don't know if the Mac version is different). You can also use Illustrator or Photoshop to create the CD template, import it into PrintCD as an image (bitmap or whatever you like), and print from there.

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Yes i live in the Netherlands. Didn't realise that you can't get them in the US how strange ? I always make the sleeves in Canvas X myself and then just print them. But my friends Epson printer doesn't seem to have an option to do that, he's resorted to putting the image on a flash memory card and printing it directly from that in the printer.