Funny, I saw those first come out at SIGGRAPH way the heck back in about 1993... they're just now getting commonplace.
And doing it that way is *the* way for mere mortals to put out CD's you expect to keep... Sharpie just doesn't look pro, and stick-on labels severely stunts the life of the CD... but print thine own frosted donut? Oh, hellyeah.
Many Epson printers, including the R200 that I have, will print on CDs. (As an aside, it turns out that there's a big difference between "printable" and "ink jet printable" that I didn't appreciate when I bought my last batch of disks.)
The big advantage of this critter is that it will crank out CDs unattended. The disadvantage is that the software's proprietary and GUI-based, so forget about trying to crank out individually-customized disks using a script.
It's still tempting. Think what you could do at a concert...
Where I work, we have several standalone machines like this - one is an 8-drive DVD duplicator, the other three are CD/DVD printers based on a modified HP printer chassis. Each can take up to 200 discs at a time, and the printer sytems have a CD reader for loading print files.
Of course, as it's a standalone system, there is a separate spike for putting failed disks - I notice that the unit you've linked to doesn't have that, so presumably the operator has to intervene when a disk fails.
Only real complaint is that the printers get through ink cartridges like they were going out of fashion, and we've found that turning off the ink level warning and keeping an eye on the printer means that we can print up to a 100+ extra discs before running out of ink. Saved us several thousand pounds over the last year!
Comments 3
Funny, I saw those first come out at SIGGRAPH way the heck back in about 1993... they're just now getting commonplace.
And doing it that way is *the* way for mere mortals to put out CD's you expect to keep... Sharpie just doesn't look pro, and stick-on labels severely stunts the life of the CD... but print thine own frosted donut? Oh, hellyeah.
Reply
The big advantage of this critter is that it will crank out CDs unattended. The disadvantage is that the software's proprietary and GUI-based, so forget about trying to crank out individually-customized disks using a script.
It's still tempting. Think what you could do at a concert...
Reply
Of course, as it's a standalone system, there is a separate spike for putting failed disks - I notice that the unit you've linked to doesn't have that, so presumably the operator has to intervene when a disk fails.
Only real complaint is that the printers get through ink cartridges like they were going out of fashion, and we've found that turning off the ink level warning and keeping an eye on the printer means that we can print up to a 100+ extra discs before running out of ink. Saved us several thousand pounds over the last year!
Reply
Leave a comment