CDFreaks’ “first look” at Verbatim Glossy Printable 16x DVD-R

The discussion of which photo prints look better and why will probably never end (it has been going on for years in paper printing), but I can only confirm that when printing on true glossy photo quality dvd media, the results look spectacular.
I tried every possible combination of driver settings and more or less protection spray on Verbatim and TY type full face white printables (even including a disc that I printed twice with my Epson R200, giving it a 'rich' image quality), but the glossy prints just look different and can produce results that you would never reach with non-glossy surfaces.

Do these DVDs suffer bleeding from moisture? Anyone have a solution for that problem?

SVP now stoch these 'Verbatim Glossy Printable (16x) DVD-R' at £9.99 for 25
http://svp.co.uk/products-solo.php?pid=1041

The discs are not waterproof so you would still have to be careful in that regard. Only thing that can stop that using an inkjet printer is to coat the discs in some sort of protective coating, eg a spray lacquer like Pressit Sprayfix in europe or Krylon in usa.

Have done a little review of my own at http://www.disc-info.com/content/view/173/29/

Basically same conclusions as Dee and Jan's one.

Really nice review.

Finally, printable discs that will look as good as the shiny originals that have that silk screen finish.

Btw, printing a disc with a Canon Pixma 5000 on high quality takes about 1 minute or less.

Anyone heard about a replacement for the Epson R800? It's been on the market since 2003. I wish Epson would upgrade this model to a printer that uses the new K3 UltraChrome ink. Epson doesn't offer a printer with this ink and CD/DVD printability.

Anyone know where to get theses in the US?

In a few days I should be receiving my shipment of these Verbatim DVD-Rs!

I ordered them from www.blankmedia.ca last week. 20 pack of Verbatim Glossy DVD-Rs in slim jewel cases.

I also asked the blankmedia people if they could get a hold of the Verbatim Glossy DVD+Rs that hopefully will be available.

I will be using the Epson R200 to print.

How do they compare to old widescreen printable Verbatims? I have Canon IP5000 as well.
The review is lacking comparison to the old printable surface.

Microcenter carries them instore. They're probably the only retailer in the States to do so.

The print quality is quite good - I love glossy printables!

With my Plextor 716UF, I'm getting an average PIE of 6 when burning at 8x. I'm having trouble duplicating the results from the review article. How on earth do you gets get a PIE avg of 1.0 or less?

Burning at 4x gets me a PIE avg of 4. What am I doing wrong?

Anyways, to sum up, these are pretty good - not as good as the Verbatim 16x DVD+Rs I have - MCC 004, PIE avg of 1.2, SKU 94971. But far far better than TDK DVD+R glossies (PIE avg of 40) and the horrid Ritek G05s (PIE avg in the 100 area, AND they degrade and fail verify).

BTW, I am using Plextools XL Pro version 3.09. The TA test (media quality test) says excellent in the inner, middle, and outer areas of the disc - rating of 5/5 in each. Much better than the Verbatim printable MCC004s I have (matte surface).

The only thing you are doing wrong is that you're comparing averages calculated in a completely different way.

The PIE averages in the article (KProbe scans) are calculated as the total amount of PIE divided by the amount of PIE blocks on the disc (approx. 140.000 PIE blocks), so anything lower than 140.000 PIE will result in an average PIE below 1.

PlexTools used to perform average calculation in the same way, but in recent versions (don't know exactly when this happened) the average calculation is based on the highest PIE seen in the number of ECC blocks that is shown as one vertical line in the graph, and then averaged over the graph.

Since each vertical line in the graph represents the maximum PIE per 8 ECC blocks measured over hundreds of ECC blocks, this alternative way of calculating averages gives much higher averages!

So if you have an average of 6 PIE in a PlexTools Sum8 or Burst scan, there is nothing to worry about!

Hey, thanks for the reassurance! It's been driving me nuts, because I saw such a low PIE average for the MCC04s I have.

There are lots of spikes in the graph, but then again I just upgraded from Plextools 3.05 to 3.09 before I tried these discs.

Strangely, last night I was able to get Plextools to give me an average of 1.00 PIE - and I have no idea why that is so! The PI/PO scan went very very slowly - so I'm guessing that the 2x CLV DVD read setting actually started to kick in. But this morning I cannot duplicate this even after rebooting and power cycling the drive. I've tried the USB and the Firewire interface on the 716UF. Perhaps this is a bug in Plextools - according to the documentation it is supposed to slow the drive down for the scans. I even went into the drive's Basic Settings and forced the DVD Read Speed setting to 2x CLV.

I'm having trouble getting KProbe 2.5.2 to work - I guess it only works on Lite-On drives (after reading the docs!). Damn.

I also found another problem with my system - for some reason, burns cannot sustain a write rate of 12x - I get massive buffer underruns when the burn reaches the 2/3rds mark, so now I'm stuck with burning at 8x.

It didn't used to be this way - I was able to burn at 12x no problem before. Ah well. The 8x burn quality seems ok.

Some observations on the print surface:

Drying seems to take a long time - however, it has been raining steadily out here in the prairies the last 16 hours. Relative humidity in the house is around 45% now.

My prints were done at around 8 PM last night, and it has been more than 12 hours. I touched the surface of one of my discs and it still feels wet to the touch. It doesn't help that I put the disc back in the slim jewel case.

These discs do not seem to be waterproof - I lightly wet my finger and touched the surface, and ink came right off. I guess that is expected - there is no claim of water proofing on the packaging. This is not a Primera Tuffcoat with Aquaguard, that's for sure (no, I don't have any Tuffcoat discs - but I did see a review!).

I'll check the surface again in another 12 hours.

I used an Epson R200. One disc I used Best Photo - which leaves nasty bands on dark areas, and another disc I used Photo RPM with Super Microweave. The latter feels a little bit more wet after 12 hours than the first disc. Next time, I will just use Photo RPM without Super Microweave.

I will probably have to continue spraying these discs with the Krylon UV Glossy Spray I have - we'll know in a day or two.

More observations:

These discs definitely need a protective spray - touching the surface if there is some water on it will definitely smear the ink!

For a moment I thought that I would be better off with the matte white hub-printables Verbatim makes (SKU 94917s), but I did a side-by-side comparison between them, where both discs have the same image and both have the UV glossy spray. These glossy DVD-Rs beats the matte-white hands down! The matte-white discs have a bit of speckles in them giving them a film grain look - the spray unfortunately makes them much more visible. This is completely gone with the glossy discs!

BTW, another advantage of the sprays is that it hides the bronzing effect. When you print an image that has many dark shades on it, you may notice an almost 3D embossed look to them since the printer lays down so much ink in those areas. It's like looking at the darker parts of an oil painting - you can see the ink ridges! Using a spray smooths them out and hides the effect.

Thanks for the info, Rectal Prolapse. I have the same printer and a box of these Verbs waiting for a really good label.
I noticed those bands you mention when printing in Best Photo also on TDK's Photo Quality dvd's, but there they appeared no matter what printer setting I chose. At least now I know what setting to avoid when I use the Verbs.

BTW, I always use spray, if only to be able to view the dvd within minutes after printing.

What kind of spray do you use?

I'm having trouble with my spray technique - I use two light coats, but after it dries I see a small amount of speckling - I guess the spray droplets are clumping/globbing up a little. Maybe the spray I am using just isn't appropriate for photo work.

If I spray too much it gets far too glossy - oh well...maybe I'll do a 3rd or 4th coat next time.

I may have to drop by Walmart for the Patricia Nomack spray - another poster in this thread mentioned that the Krylon UV spray is a bit clumpy - "orange peel effect" which is what I am seeing.

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=146242

hey guys well i was wondering i have epson r300 ( i think best settings not sure i can screen shot) but i always buy vertim and rida ritaka? anyways i scan my original images from my epson 620 and my prints dont much my exact disc... so like if i compare side by side , i will notice that the new printed disc looks like lower resolution compared to my regular dvd.

basicly i back up my dvds and store my originals but since i have soo many i started to think about printing their image rather then wriiting on it .

any ideals?

I use Colour Protection spray. It's a Dutch product; I don't think it's available in the USA.

Sometimes I get some speckling too, but not too bad. I just use 1 coat, making a circular motion at about 20-25 cm distance.

The "orange peel effect" is typical for too much spray. I apply at least 3 to 4, but very light coats (some left to right, some top to bottom - or rotate the disc - and some circular). If you see "speckling" from droplets, the spraying nozzle isn't very good or you start/stop the spray aiming at the disc or maybe you're spraying too close to the disc.

Hi,

Would you recommend this spray for this type of CD. Is it really waterproof?

Also roughly how many coats would it need??

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Colour-Protect...QQcmdZViewItem

Ebay Item Number: 8827214554


Thanks

At the local Michaels arts and crafts store I picked up a can of Krylon Preserve It! spray. I think it is the matte spray though - I matched part of the UPC code with the one on Krylon.com. Oops. I may give it a go anyways.

Cressida, it could be that the nozzle is messed up on my other Krylon spray. Also, I didn't realize that the best way is to have the discs standing up instead of flat on the floor. I didn't catch on because a few of my attempts worked well without orange peel effect, but that may have been luck.

I'm not ready to pony up $24 CDN for a can of Sureguard Pro-tect-a-cote UV Clear Gloss spray - although that seems to be preferred by photo enthusiasts.

Xterminator, I guess it really boils down to technique. Ihave to work on my skills.

David, no clue - never heard of the stuff.

That's the Dutch spray (they have a website, just google for "colour protection spray", if you want more details. I also use a fixative/plasticizer spray from the crafts & arts dept. in a local DIY store.

@Rectal Prolapse: I tilt the disc at maybe 45° as it's on top of some coasters in an empty CD/DVD cakebox-base (easy to rotate with the central hub and you can put the cover on to keep dust away while it dries).