What CD/DVD Printer do you recommend?

vbimport
#1

Well I’ve got a pretty decent stash of burned DVD movies and I recently picked up a Label Maker. I must say, it looks awesome and way better than me scribbling the movie title on with a sharpie. However after some googling I learned that the paper stick on labels is a big no no for DVDs. Thus, I want to try a CD/DVD printer.

What printer do you recommend? After scanning some threads I saw both the Canon ip5000 and the Epson R200/R300 mentioned. Right now I lean toward the epson simply because of its price and it is availible at Best Buy (I get employee discount there.) What should I be looking for in CD/DVD printers? Does anyone have a picture of a printed CD/DVD, I’d like to see the quality of it, as I’m a tad skepticle.

Also while I’m on the topic, does anyone know of a website that hosts scans of DVD movie labels? Thus far I have just been scanning in every DVD that I copy and then printing that label, but I’ve got a lot of movies that I didn’t scan in, and rather than dig them up again, I’d rather find a website that hosts the dvd labels.

#2

I would recommend the R200/R300 but they do have a couple of major problems.

The 1st is the design of the tray which you use to load CD/DVD into the printer its badly designed and sooner or later will either refuse to load properly or will require manual intevention to make it work.

The 2nd is a sensor the printer uses to get the said tray aligned, its prone to eventually getting dirty (ink splatter reportedly) again causing problems loading the tray.

The 1st problem can be fixed by bending the transparent plastic on the end of the tray, this will work for a short time but not for long. Various kludges have been tried by people but rarely do they work. The buying of a new tray from ebay or free from epson (if you happen to find the right person to talk to).

The 2nd problem can usually be fixed (but not always) but requires an amount of dismantling of the printer.

The printing quality is on the whole superb, just a shame Epson is still pumping out these R2x0/R3x0 printers out with known design flaws.

My R200 has both these problems and unfortunately the cleaning the sensor didnt work for me, this is p*ssing me off something rotten as the printer still works fine for sheet printing. I dont want to buy a replacement which will likely go the same way again either.

As for the Canon, then on the one and only disk I seen printed I would still prefer the Epsons output. But as 1 disk isnt much of a comparison its harldy fair to tarnish it.

#3

Problem reports with the Epson printers are all too common, and they are expensive to operate. If you are concerned about cost, ignore the price of the printer and look at the costs to operate.

But I’m a Canon junkie. I did see a side by side comparison of disc printing between the R200 and Canon IP4000, and the IP4000 won for quality. (according to that person)

For downloading artwork, I like http://www.cdcovers.cc/covers.php .

#4

rd they are not expensive to operate if you use compats only, a complete set for my R200 is only £7. THough be warned the R300 is being phased out and replaced with the R320 which is a tad more expensive, though I see no difference in them, can’t say if this applies to the 200 as well as there were none on display. I was looking at them side by side in Dixons today, R300 £99.99 R320 £129.99. Go figure.

AS to sites, I use CD covers, you will have to search for it on google as I am not sure if we are allowed to link directly to it. Though this site no longer hosts audio covers, they got threatened or some such thing.

#5

Thanks for the advice thusfar. After hearing the horror stories, I think I would still go for the Epson and simply buy the service plan from Best Buy. However, it would be great to see a side by side comparison of the two printers, if anyone has them. Also, are there any other printers I should be considering? Or are these pretty much the only two that are even worthwhile?

Thanks for the website tip too, its exactly what I was looking for.

#6

I got it the other way round when I compared the two models. Nevertheless I bought the Pixma. I think the Epson is king of quality,… BUT:

is horribly noisy (if you like going to the dentist, you will like the Epson)
is horribly slow (if you like looking at snails moving, you will like the Epson)
is more expensive
induces more cost (inks).

The Canon Pixmas are better all-around printers, are cheaper, (much) faster, (much) quieter and have lower running costs.

#7

Also, are there any other printers I should be considering? Or are these pretty much the only two that are even worthwhile?

There are no others, unless you want to look at high-end commercial machines.

CLICK

#8

Don’t bother with the service plan, waste of money. Epson is good customer service wise and you have a year warranty with them. If the printer packs up they will ask you to go to a servicce center, if you can’t they will make arrangements to send one out to you and pick up the broken one, just remember when they ask you only use legit epson cartirdges. Even though it is illegal for them to do say they will try to say it voids the warranty, it is just easy to say you use only legit than argue the toss.

Epsons can be noisy, but I was supprised at how quite my R200 is compared to the C64 I have. It is also a quicker printer. Speed depends on quality realy, draft is fast photo quality is tediously slow but great, I tnd to stick with standard which is a good quality print.

Again, Franck, as I said it in reply to rd, Epsons are not expensive if you stick with compats. I have used nothing but compats when the originals you get with the printer run out and there is no difference in the print quality. I can get a complete set for £7 which is roughly €10.29. THough if you stick with brands like JetTec they are expensive though still half the price of the original.

#9

I refil my Canons for about $0.50 per tank.

#10

:eek: Er… pleeeeeaaase, I’m VERY interested… I buy JetTec tanks for about $2.50/each here… :bow:

#11

I got the R300 more than a year ago. Good stuff - not a single problem and well printing. These days 2 sets of Datasafe ink (14 “tanks”) is 8,99£ @ SVP so i have put a little a side for the rest of this little printers life :wink:

#12

Bulk Formulabs ink runs about $12 for 240cc. Each tank takes about 10cc per fill, so that’s 50 cents per tank. Replacing the tank every 6 fills adds about 50 cents to each fill. I get far more than 6 fils per tank, so I probably average 75 cents per fill per color.

The real beauty of Canon is that they are SO easy to fill, it takes about 2 minutes and there’s no resetting or chipped carts to worry about.

#13

Thanks rdgrimes :smiley: - will be looking for refills then.

#14

In the USA, most reliable source for Formulabs ink is www.alotofthings.com

#15

I’m in Europe… :wink: - never mind, I’ll work it out somehow :iagree:

#16

Search for Formulabs, it’s the best stuff. It’s not always easy to get sellers to tell you what’s in the bottle/cart, often they don’t know.

#17

I had a lot of problems with the Epson R200 cd tray being rejected, until I pulled the paper out tray all the way out, so the cd tray rests on it. No more problem, well maybe 1 in 50 times.
I saw the Seiko version of the same printer on a German website (Kronenberg); it is hard to find in Europe and costs 400 euros. It has a metal cd tray. According to a heavy user on another forum, the Epson’s cd tray will wear out after about 1000 prints, while the Seiko has a much longer lifespan.

#18

Obviously, some people are using the Canon printers to print on DVDs, but Canon doesn’t claim this as a feature of the printer. How is it done? Must be a hack of some sort.

I am about to buy a printer to be used exclusively for printing on DVDs and would love to use Canon over Epson. I already have a Canon I9900 so I could probably use the same ink tanks, thus cutting down on the number of spare tanks. I doubt the I9900 could be used in any way to print DVDs, so I’d need to buy another Canon model.

Any thoughts or advice?

Thanks

Deane

#19

You have 2 choices, either shell out the extra money for a UK version fo the Canon, or mod a USA version to print discs.

Consult this thread.

#20

If you call Epson and tell them that you have a problem with your CD/DVD tray, they will send you out the newer version (doesn’t have the clear plastic tab on the end). My old version is doing fine, PLUS I have the new version on standby…