I would say TY media too and the speed kept at max 8x then it should be ok.

The problem with labels is that you have to apply them 100% in the center, if not it might result in disturbens when the disc is turning inside the player.

Both Epson and Canon have some reasonable printers for printing direct on discs, you might want to take a look at theese too.

/Ulf

test the disc before you put a label on it. :)

try a different burning program. I use nero first. if the dvd doesn't work for someone I try DVDA. One of those normally works.

Putting labels on DVDs are for playing Russian Roulette only.

The slightest deviation from perfect centering creates a wobble that many DVD players can't handle.

Just buy inkjet printable DVDs and stop worrying. Hub printable white inkjet DVDs look best, and TY non-Value line are the most reliable disks.

Design hint: it is OK to use white as part of your disk design. This saves ink and speeds up drying.

I'll also point out that DVDs spin fast enough that an off center label can cause the drive to wobble enough to shatter the disc. This pretty much ruins the player and will probably lose you a lot of customers through word of mouth.

DO NOT EVER put a label on a DVD. Just don't do it. Nope. Never.

Good points about labels. If you want glossy, nice images etc on your disks, get the cheapest Epson PhotoPrinter you can get that prints on disks, most of them do, and get printable disks.

So, go to meritline.com or supermediastore.com, buy TY printable disks and an Epson printer, and you'll probably be fine.

Before switching to Taiyo Yuden "Watershield" glossy disks last year I made many hundreds of labeled disks. I used glossy Meritline labels, printed with Epson pigment ink and applied with a Stomper tool, then cafefully fixed with a rolling pin and two thin cloths. They worked great on nearly all DVD players, but that was the problem--there were a few players out there that just hated the additional mass of the label. I don't think it was so much an issue of balance; I did experiments with applying small labels on just half of the disk, and found many players could still handle the imbalance.

I also wouldn't worry about exploding disks. Home DVD players don't spin up the disk very much, and even high-speed PC CD/DVD burners have no issue with spinning up a disk with a centered label on it.

But the results are better and more professional-looking with the Taiyo Yuden Watershield disks. There's really no reason to use labels any more, now that there is an inkjet-printable disk that's glossy and waterproof. You can buy them at meritline.com and supermediastore.com for maybe $0.60 each in quantities of 50 or more.

BTW any of the Canon IP series inkjet printers can be adapted to print disks. Even though the function has been disabled for US-bound printers, you can easily enable that capability with a driver download and a couple of parts bought from eBay. The results are excellent; I use two Canon IP3000 printers here to print my disks.

One thing nobody's mentioned yet -- unless I overlooked it -- is +R media vs -R media. What kind did you burn, Auggy? If +R, perhaps try -R. If -R, try +R. (I've always used -R, because I heard it was supposed to be most compatible with older players, but I've also seen items on the web that claim +R is supposed to be most compatible.)

How old are the DVD players that won't play the discs? And when they don't play, do they load and play somewhat, but have freezes? Or do they flat out not even start up. Is there a menu on the DVD?

I'm not sure I have any answers for you -- just questions...

Tim L

From my personal experience, and from what I have heard from others, labels are just plain trouble. Stay away from them.

I think it is fair to open up the list of possible solutions a bit more -- you aren't limited to Epson, Canon, and Taiyo Yuden. I use an HP printer with Verbatim disks and have had no complaints.

No Labels!

I use White or Silver printable DVD-R's. Print them w/ an Epson Stylus in the Disc printer tray... then spray them with a very light Clear Coat Lacquer to keep the ink from running if it gets wet.

They look absolutely professional in either Silver or White. Just depends on the look you want. I intentionally design my labels so the Silver or White will show through.

I learned my lesson w/ a CD & press on label that got stuck in a client's Slot Loading CD player. When we went to eject it... the heat had separated the label which then got stuck on the inside of the player.

Things I have personally found to help disks work reliably:

1.) Burn at 2x
2.) Do not exceed 6 MB/S.

#2 is a biggie. I know it's nice to have the higher bit rate, but I had a DVD once choke on the FirstPlay (auto-start video that plays), when I reduced the bit rate to 6 MB/S, all worked fine. I think I might have had the bit rate at 7 to 8 MB/S. #1 item may not matter.

While I don't use labels, I have in the past successfully. I now print the DVD's (Epson R200.

I have seen where some people have a pretty cheap DVD player and the bit rate seemed to make all the difference. According to the DVD spec, I think all players are supposed to play at something like 8MB/S...whatever. When I limit to 6, I have only had one disk not play on a really ultra-cheap DVD player.

I would rather have a reliably playing 6 MB DVD than a really nice one at 8, but sometimes chokes.

That's what I do. Always works...except that one time. :)

It is not possible to say that all DVDs will burn more reliably at 2x.

Some blanks will burn more reliably at 8x than at 2x.

My advice? Just buy TY Premium 8x disks, burn them at 8x in a GOOD BURNER, and stop worrying.

"BTW any of the Canon IP series inkjet printers can be adapted to print disks. Even though the function has been disabled for US-bound printers, you can easily enable that capability with a driver download and a couple of parts bought from eBay. The results are excellent; I use two Canon IP3000 printers here to print my disks."
======================================
I got rid of my stinkin' Epson. I now have a HP C5280. Does good disks better... MUCH,MUCH better on ink too.

I love canon printers as I've owned a BJC8200 that for about 6 years still rivals the best ones out there. AMAZING printer it is!

I'm looking at epson for the disc tray.

Any recommendation on which printer to pick up.

I am going to abandon the labels as most have recommended and I've ordered some verbatim glossy discs. Sorry I already had them ordered before everyone dropped Toyota on me (kidding taiyo).

I love canon 6 color however I don't want to buy one then I can't print on a DVD. That would just plain suck. : )

Any advice on a printer selection would be appreciated.

Aug

Don't know about others... but I have had Canon as well as Epson. But I love the HP I have now.

Epsons are good printers but I STRONGLY object to the attempts they're making at ROBBING you every time you need ink. They have fixed it so that when one tank runs out, the whole printer ceases to function until you refill. The final straw for me and Epson was when I badly needed to print a document and I was on a deadline. I had lots of black ink but I couldn't print because I was out of the PHOTO MAGENTA ink. They have also fixed the new tanks so that you can't refill them or reset the ink counter chip. Heck... you can't even get all the ink out of the tank. When the chip counter reaches a preset number, the printer shuts down, even if there is still ink in the tank. You can get around these things if you try hard enough, but the point is that they have done everything humanly possible to legally steal from you with these ink systems and the prices they charge for them. I simply refuse to honor Epson with my business anymore with the attitude that they have taken.

Canon is a good printer as well... unfortunately they're sliding down the same greasy sneaky track that Epson is on.

HP on the other hand doesn't have these things. In fact, they've gone the other way and developed systems that attempt to get every drop of ink out of the tank. It warns you when it thinks you're out of ink, but continues to run until you're DEAD out of ink. You can also continue to run when one or more tanks are empty. Of course there is also the advantage of the printing heads. The HP print heads are built into the ink cartridge so they are changed every time you change the ink tank.

I will say that I am NOT in love with the HP software. That's not to say that it's garbage... I just think Epson's is a little better.

Blink,
While I do appreciate your take on HP and Epson, you failed to really help my dilemma.

First let me ask, Does HP print direct to CD?

I have a few probs with HP's quality being that they love to (still today) use dithering (on a larger scale) for shadowing and it looks completely like an inkjet print.

Epson and Canon (both utilizing Canons technology) both seem to print so find in detail that dots become invisible and shades really do fool the eye (of course I wear glasses hahah).

Perhaps others have noticed this about HP and it's shadows when printing. Dark scattered dots are used to simulate. Of course I have not really shopped a printer for about 3 years so perhaps HP has changed but about 3 years ago my work got a new HP and my holder BJC8200 smoked it like a cigar! I don't remember the model number but it was a descent (not cheap) model.

I tend to lean against the HP thing but if there is one a careful eye will vouch for I would be interested.
As of my search I'm looking at the R380 for 104.00 from epson direct.

Aug

You might want to do a search on this board for more info on printers and such. As you can already tell, there are lots of different opinions and this is a lively but friendly group.

As for me, I've never had a DVD label fail in any of the hundreds of disks that I've put out, but inkjet is a simpler and better way to go. Maybe my good luck with labels was due to my roller pin adhesion technique.

I burn at the rated speed of the disk or maybe one notch slower. You can run the finished disk through Nero's CD/DVD speed utility to get an accurate graph of the error rate. Burn speed is never an issue here.

I've burned many disks at 8 avg, 2 min, 9 max. They play fine. The only time I ever had playability issues was with a disk with a CBR of 9.5, right at the limit.

The Taiyo Yuden Watershield disks have a remarkable waterproof glossy surface. I can't vouch for the brand of disk you are buying; maybe others are now using the same coating and/or they are Taiyo Yuden rebranded disks.

Well, I will chime in here, not really in defense of Epson, but more in defense of the printers. Blink is absolutely right that Epson will try to ram something hard and knobby up your, well, I don't have to paint you a picture, when you buy their printer.

I remember when I picked up mine, there was an Epson representative in the store at the time, and I asked him which one to get, he said essentially: Doesn't matter, the print mechanism is the same on all of them depends on what extras you need. I said I needed to print, so he said: Get the cheapest one. I jokingly said I've never had a sales person recommend the cheapest product before. To this he responded simply that Epson doesn't make money on printers, they make money on ink.

Now, to the defense.

They have fixed it so that when one tank runs out, the whole printer ceases to function until you refill.

This is not the case with my printer, I can print if one, two or more of the tanks are out of ink. It won't look terribly nice if I need the missing color, but it will still print fine. Don't know where this comes from.

Blink is correct that it is hard to re-fill Epson tanks though, and that they charge you an arm, a leg and ten years of servitude from your first born just for a drop of ink. That is why I don't buy Epson ink. You can buy ink for the Epson printers at supermediastore and meritline too. Works fine.

I also agree with Blink that HP is not trying as hard to screw you over as does Epson, but my experience with HP inkjet printers is not good, they tended to stop functioning far too soon for my taste, so I dropped them. Until my Epson Photo printer, which was the only reasonably priced printer at the time with a disk tray, I tended to go Canon, but I have no problems with Epson now. Now that I know how to stop them from pumping cash straight out of my wallet.

Oh, and btw, I also have Lightscribe on my DVD burner, and I kinda like it. It's different. Not great, but different.

I have the Epson R-1800 and while spending a bundle on ink and photo paper I have never seen a printer that can take a small, crappy, dull photo (2" x 3") and blow it up to 13 x 19 and actually make it look better using an Epson 2450 scanner and Adobe Elements 2.0. And when printing one of these huge photos if an ink color runs out the printer stops in the middle of the picture, you replace the cartridge, then it starts up where it left off and completes the picture without missing a beat. It is also blazing fast. And I don't have any problem with drivers as HP does. I also use an Epson 960 for printing DVD's.
JJK

Just want to say, I use an Epson R340 to print DVDs. I bought a refill kit consisting of "chipped" empty cartridges and bottles of bulk ink. The chipped catridges work fine, the printer gives me a warning that I'm not using Epson cartridges and the world could come to an end when I remove refill and replace them, but after that, smooth sailing. I do have to tweak my color settings (I print at +6 magenta), but everything works fine and ink costs end up being next to nothing.

Quick reply on printers. I have been using an Epson R200 printer for around 2 years now, with no problems at all. I purchase replacement ink cartridges from blankdvdmedia.com in Canada. Cheaper than Epson cartridges and work extremely well.

As for DVDs, I have been using Ridata -R inkjet printable single layer DVDs and have not had one coaster in the past two years. Every DVD that I have made has worked in any player they have been tried in. I use Nero for burning and always set the book type to ROM. (I thought you could only set the book type on +R DVDs, but it seems to work on the -R as well.) I can even play my burned DVDs in my original Panasonic DVD player when the book type is set to ROM, where the player will not normally play burned DVDs.

Good luck with your endeavor...
Al

I have used Ridata a lot too, but I am now staying away from them. The reason is that I got an HDV camcorder and a Playstation 3 to play AVCHD disks authored with Ulead DVD Moviefactory. Since the PS3 has to spin the disks at 3x to play the AVCHD stuff, it has become clear to me that there is a significant quality difference between TY and Ridata. The Ridata disks will fail, stutter or in other ways have problems, about 50% of the time. The TY disks never have problems.

Does this matter if you only create regular DVDs? IMHO, yes, it means that over time the TY disks will probably hold up a lot better than the Ridata ones.

"First let me ask, Does HP print direct to CD?"
================================================

Yes.... printing cd/dvd is mostly what I have a printer for.
Of course I'm in Canada so it's easy to get cd printers OTHER than Epson... (Epson isn't holding Canada for ransom with sole patent rights the same way they are the USA)

As I said, I have had Canon, Epson and HP and to be honest, it's hard to tell which prints a better quality. I have no complaints in that area with any of them.... in fact I favored Canon at one point. But like I said before, they seem to be following the same path that Epson with their ink.

The HP I have now is MUCH faster than the Epson R320 I had, and it prints disks better. The R320 did some funny and strange things with the disk tray while trying to line up the disk. On occasion it would roll the tray so far back that it would spit out the back side of the printer. I have no problems at all though with the HP. It's fast and accurate.

Maybe the older epson printers don't have the same ink limitations... but my R320 would stop dead if any of the 6 ink tanks went empty.

I do think HP lags a bit in the software department though. The actual FUNCTION of the software is superb. You don't have to run test sheets and make manual head alignments... HP aligns the head automatically everytime you remove/replace an ink cartridge. But the options and flexibility that the epson software offers is not there with HP.