If the EZ/DV printer is the Casio thing I'd give it a miss.
You still need media with no screen printing on it, you can only print one color at a time and only to a limited area and I suspect the ribbons are rather expensive.

Epson 900 works very well (Ihave one so I'm biased) but also Cannon now have an even cheaper model that does muc the same job, I'd be looking into either of those.

The EZ/CD Printer Plus is an Epson engine. It prints 6 colors and has dpi up to 5760x720. I found it for a low of $$260 but wanted to order through Mertiline along with all my other supplies, and talked them down from their $339 price to $299.

JCG

Wel... not that I would disuade you from your purchase... but the Epson 900 seems to be the same sort of capabilities and the list price is $199 already. Not sure what you gain from the EZ/CD... but who knows. The Epson 960 also prints onto DVD's and it's price is around the $300-350 mark and has higher resolution.

Either way... it is great to print directly onto DVD's... everyone who gets one from me is amazed at how good they look.

Hey Farrs,

Do you need to mbuy anythig extra for the epson 900 to print on DVDs/CDs ?
or does it do it out of the box ?

are the ink cartridges black + color or is it black + 4 separate colors ?

regards
Jaime

I'll throw another Epson into the mix.
The Epson Stylus Photo R300 is relatively new and prints directly to inkjet printable CD's/DVD's using an adapter tray which is included.
Max resolution is 5760 x 1440. Very happy with it so far.

Anybody know when "glossy" injet printable DVDs will hit the market??

Mark

Yes, I had seen the Epson 900 and R300 as well. Hard to choose. I went ahead and ordered the EZ/CD. If I don't like it, I'll send it back (Meritline will take it back) and get one of the Epsons. Thanks to all who have contributed comments.

I do have some concern about drying time as I have read some horror stories in this regard for probalby all of this genre of printer. Also, I understand that the ink, even when completely dry, is not permanent - e.g., getting any wetness on the DVD will smear the printing. Any experience with these issues? Thanks.

JCG

I only know about the Epson 900 as I have one, it's sitting right next to me as i type this!

It comes with all you need to print onto CD - DVD media. Media is loaded into a plastic tray, you use the paper thickness lever to lift the rollers while you slide the tray into position, hard against one guide and in the direction you lineup a mark on the carrier tray with the rollers. The tray seems to have a registration mark to get acurate positioning.

Printer uses 1 x Black cartridge and 1 x 5 color cartridge which are the same as the ones used in quite a few Epson printers so easily obtained.

Printer can print at 5760 x 720 dpi and does good service as a photo printer and comes with a roll feeder and software for designing the artwork for the CDs as well as calibration.

You can only used it with Inkjet Printable CDs or DVDs, these are NOT the same as thermal printable, they have a porous surface. Which answers the other question, I don't think you'll ever see a glossy inkjet printable CD!

I do have some clear glossy stick ons that you can use if you want a glosy finish but that kind of defeats the idea of printing straight onto the DVD. I have heard of people having success spraying a clear lacquer finish onto the DVD after printing but haven't found a paint rated for that purpose.

So in summary the 900 seems to retain Epsons reliability, is a half decent general purpose printer and prints CDs.

BTW I had to import mine from the US, local Epson didn't think it worthwhile to sell in Oz. Since then I've found out I can get a 240V version from the UK.

What prices are you getting for printable DVD media? And which brands do you recommend? I may have to move up to printable soon.

Ritek makes good stuff. You can view their products on Meritline (www.meritline.com). To see all their printable media, just enter “printable dvd” in the search line and it will give you a long list (goes over more than one page, so be sure to see all pages). Ritek makes printable +R, +RW and –R, but I don’t know if they make –RW printable (I have not looked at the site for this). I think, but am not sure, that they only make a 2.4x burn rate in the printable (at least in the + genre). I am a 2.4x, +R/+RW person, so this fits me. To give you an idea of price, listed below are the prices for 4.6GB, 2.4x, +R (the +RW are of course more expensive).

25 for $37.25 ($1.49 each)
50 for $69.50
100 for $129.00
200 for $254.00
500 for $625.00 ($1.25 each)

They are running a 10% discount on this and other blank media right now. Need to enter coupon code “mr10pct” when you check out (you’ll see the place for it).

JCG

any one use this CDR/DVD pritner from canon ?

regards
Jaime

Try rima.com. They have a sample pack of 10 or 12 printables from different manufacturers that you can try and form an opinion.

As far as the ink on the Epson 900, I'd always heard it was susceptible to moisture, 'til I screwed up printing a DVD and tried to salvage it. It hadn't been out of the printer 5 minutes when I tried to wipe the ink off. Water didn't faze it, alcohol was useless. I was ready for kerosene and battery acid until i realigned it and re-printed it, came out OK. I'm not too sure that these things are as fragile as reported. YMMV.

Dave

" The optodisc media comes out a lot lighter so you have to crank up the ink output to compensate"

Love the Epson 900 myself but it does print kind of light. What do you mean by crank up the ink?

-Jason

There is a setting in the Epson Print CD software that determines how much ink is output. When you select File-Print there is a section called "Print Color Correction" with a scale going from Lighter - Default - Darker (numeric scale below that from -3 to + 3).

I found that on the optodisc I had to set it on +2 or even +3. On the Ritek discs I set it at 0 (default) or maybe +1. The prints look much more vibrant.

This to me seems to imply that the media has a big part in the printing properties.

I have done a lot of printing on glossy labels with our Epson C80, which uses pigment ink. I am leery of sticking on labels for the long term, however, and would assume that a white DVD would ultimately make sense.

BUT, let me understand this: at present , you can only get matte finish disks? Certainly better than nothing, but a gloss finish really deepens the blacks. What is this material made of? Is it just a label of some sort that is applied at the factory, or some sort of white paint? Does the Epson 900 produce results that are smear-proof, or would a moist fingertip leave a trail?

As I said, I think that white disks are the final solution, but I'm not sure the technology is quite there yet. The gloss Meritline labels produced by my C80 look terrific and are truly smear-proof, but one always wonders about the adhesive 10 years down the road. On the other hand, would anybody want to watch what I produce 10 years from now?

These are white ink-jet printable DVD's... I have only found Matte finishes. The print surface must be applied as part of the manufacturing process (at least I cannot see the join!). It does not appear to me to be a label that has been stuck on.. rather it looks like an embedded surface (if that makes sense)

I have had no experience with the ink ever smearing (and I have tested it by putting a moist cloth over the surface after the ink dried). The recommendation is that you do not play the DVD for at least 24 hours after printing. I always burn my DVD's. Test in a player... then print the label onto the surface.

I prefer printing direct onto the DVD's as that removes the reported problem with putting "sticky" labels onto DVD's and that impacting the playing of them (possibly due to slightly off-set labels and therefore out-of-balance causing problems).

I mostly buy online through SuperMediaStore.com

They have lots of DVD-R printables here

I use the RITEK G04 media ($1.17 per disc for 100) and my Sony burner (500U or something) with the latest 2.0g firmware burns at just over x4 speed. I have had no reports of the DVD's failing (just over 100 distributed now... so not a VERY large sample).

I get my Ritek 4X Inkjet Printables for $1.21 each. www.genesysdtp.com

Hi Jaime. I recently bought the Canon i865 which is similar to the i905 in terms of CD printing. The cost was around US$170. The results are very nice, with stronger colours than the Epson 900 samples I saw a few months back (maybe the Epson samples were not set up properly, but they were so washed out they put me off buying one).

The Canon comes with its own CD label creation software for printing on discs. This means that there are no alignment issues, it is matched to the disc tray already. I haven't actually used this software to author any labels yet, I just export as a bitmap from my normal label software, and then use the Canon program to print the bitmap to disc. So far it is working great, but it's too early to comment on whether the disc surface will be durable without some additional protection.

Richard Hunter

This morning I called Canon support spoke to them about CD printing, the guy was very helpful and confirmed the following

I865, I965 and I905D models support CD printing and come with a caddy for CD/DVD and business card cds.

I hung up and then called ww.programmersparadise.com.au and bought the I905D. Ill have it tonight and will send a mini review after I print a few discs.

I really wanted a cd printer and thought that the EZCD printer was the only one and then id have the problems of bringing it back to australia and 240v vs 110v etc ...


Cheers
Jc

Looking forward to the review. Thanks, Jamcas. I'll do the same when I get the EZ/CD Printer Plus and have it working.

JCG

I ordered the Canon i905D printer on Friday right after speaking to Canon support who confirmed it was the best printer they had that prints directly on to CD/DVD media and it contained everything I needed to do it.

Much cheaper than importing an EZCD printer and getting a 110/240v converter.

To print on a CD is very simple and within minutes of installing the software I printed my first CD. There is an attachment that plugs onto the front of the printer that acts as a guide for the CD caddy. all you do then is

1. Put CD in caddy
2. Put loaded caddy into guide and line up arrows
3. Open software import an image onto the CD template
4. Click print (printer sucks in the loaded caddy and then pumps it out as it prints

5. 20 seconds or so later your done.


Print Quality - Great, met my expectations. used the supplied cannon software to import a JPG and then utilise text facility to add a title name
worked well. text was pretty good.

Softawre - The software does the job easily, interface is a bit clunky and it only supports JPG files. so do your fancy work in PShop then save as JPG and import it.

Speed of cd printing - seems to be same as printing to paper

conclusion - itll do a good job, if you need something better then get your media professionaly screen printed.. I think you could do small manual runs on his printer without a problem as well. its that easy to put a cd into the caddy and load it in.


cheers
jc


Please post any specific questions you have.


Regards
Jaime

Where did you get your Canon Printer from? and how much was it?
Thanks