Burn quality photo labels onto your CDs and DVDs from using just your existing drive

[Corey]

HP claims to have a way to do this, they call it lightscribe. It uses a special laser sensitive ink embedded into normal cd/dvds. You simply turn over the disc and run it through the lightscribe enabled software to translate laser light from your drive into a precise chemical reaction on each point of the CD face, this reaction of course causing a controllable color change at each point. Apparently it's very accurate with vivid colors which are highly durable. Supposedly it's silkscreen quality.

http://www.lightscribe.com/flash_video/Lightscribe1.swf
http://www.lightscribe.com/index.aspx

Anyhow I have no idea how good it works but preliminary reports are positive. From their site:

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With LightScribe, your disc is your label. This amazing technology is the no-hassle way to create awesome-looking labels for all your music mix CDs, digital video or photo archives, and for any business application. And they're labels that last and last. The sky's the limit in designing and producing labels that express your creativity and personality.

Soon you will be able find this amazing technology supported by all your favorite computer, labeling software, and disc brands. Look for the LightScribe symbol on the packaging of these products & it's how you know you can create direct disc labels. Only LightScribe-enabled products let you burn direct disc labels.

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I can hardly wait!!!

[Josué Alba]

for the tip Corey

[eric_darling]

Drawbacks:

1) It's monochrome-only
2) It's probably slow. They don't pitch how fast it works, so it's probably not.
3) Inkjet printers are cheap. You can buy an Epson 200 for $99 USD that will do a full-color job, probably faster to boot.

Cool technology to be sure, but not earth-shaking.

[Josué Alba]

Of course is monocrome but it's actually burned on the cd must be as slow as burning a cd. and if not I'll wait up to 10 mins to get a this-look shapped cd.

I'll keep this tech on my sight

[sside]

Drawbacks:

1) It's monochrome-only
2) It's probably slow. They don't pitch how fast it works, so it's probably not.
3) Inkjet printers are cheap. You can buy an Epson 200 for $99 USD that will do a full-color job, probably faster to boot.

Cool technology to be sure, but not earth-shaking.

I don't think technology will stop there (monochrome-only). In a little time you will have all kinds of devices out there. You may wanna label you CD with a copy of rembrand or piccaso ... van gogh perhaps?

For my opinion - Good product (what took them so long)
sside

[Ted Sullivan]

It's certainly interesting stuff. I'm not really sure why it would replace other solutions like inkjet, but I do think it is pretty neat.

[Corey]

Most people are printing their CDs with 1-2 colors anyhow. I think it's groooooovy cats. [do the mashed potato]

[Adam]

I wonder what the disks are going to cost? I think that it is a cool idea nonetheless

Adam Kapilik

[Corey]

I think the marketing model is that they would eventually cost roughly the same as blank discs, with CD manufacturers offsetting license fees with increased market share, i.e. non-inky discs will not sell if you can get inky ones for roughly the same price. There's lots of real world examples of this type of model both succeeding *and* failing, so it should be interesting to see how things play out.

[do the boogaloo]

[Adam]

Personally I would love this technology for home use. It is very seldome that I would actually need to print a CD so a printer is not very economical. If it is done properly then I could see it being a great new product.

I wonder if you could use a duplicator to print multiple CDs at once. Now that would be cool because you could print and burn with the same duplicator just by flipping the disk. That could actually be useful for businessed that print and duplicate their own CDs.

Adam Kapilik

[Corey]

It will definitely be targetted at home users. Home users will pay way more "per unit" than institutional or business, i.e. .30 cents per unit is nothing to a home user but big business will be looking for .5 cents per unit or less before they start using this to print the CDs they stuff in cereal boxes, etc. Super big difference between what a home user will pay and what an institution will pay.

Should work fine in duplicators or multi-drive systems as long as the software supports it. Obviously each licensing vendor will develop their own software so I'd imagine at first it will be fairly simple and then grow from there.

This seems like something which will be very well received once the costs are in line.

[eric_darling]

Cool is the word. It definitely will find a home in the marketplace. I agree about consumers vs. corporations. Consumers look at one-at-a-time pricing while corporations look at jobs on a much more macro level - time and cost per item have everything to do with who adopts a technology product.

[Corey]

Ergo the spectacular failure of my executive venture, "Security-on-a-Stick". (jar of bees on boom pole, $19.95) I'm still picking ashes out of my soup from that one, put every cent I had into it plus a gigantic high-interest bank loan. Pheeeeeerrrrrwwwwwwww-plunk... Never should have listened to that psychic chiropractor. The thing was they didn't want to *feed* the bees. So it's *exactly* like Eric says, macro level...

Because the consumer version, "Pocketful of Bees" did really super well as I'm sure you've all read in your local newspapers. No better way to greet pickpockets and snoopy grandparents! Yes, I actually made millions off this one however I spent every last penny on Tony Robbins motivational videos, leaving me with nothing but a burning desire to succeed and a *vantastic* handhsake. So...

Anyhow what I'm looking forward to is the "wand" version of this which will allow me to transfer photoshop graphics onto skateboards with a quick swipe. Also I would like a mid-70's Green AMC Pacer with a Hawaiian beach scene burned on it someday. (who wouldn't?) I see this as one important step toward that if nothing else.

[kpsmith]

Pretty cool!

If this takes off I'm sure they will start making burners with Dual lasers that can burn the Data and the label at the same time.

Of course it does remind me a bit of the Printer that prints smells. There was a lot of talk about installing them in movie theaters to make it more "realistic" but I don't think anyone wanted to smell the trash compacter on Star Wars or the fat man vomitting on Monty Python's Meaning of Life..