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Mutt Joined: 09 Sep 2004 Posts: 140 Location: TX

I see that some of the new computers are coming with Light Scribe DVD burners, where you can burn an image on the disc itself, provided you buy the Light Scribe type discs...

Opinions?

Like them?
Don't like them?

Do you think this is a fad type feature that probably won't catch on?
Or do you think that most dvd burners will have this feature down the road?

Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 11:06 am Post subject:

I like the idea. I don't like the idea that the media costs extra. My drive is lightscribe capable, but only because it was on sale such that it was cheaper than the similarily spec'ed non-lightscribe drives. I would not have spent extra money on the drive to get lightscribe. I've also only used it once, because I only had the sample lightscribe DVD that came with the drive.

It is pretty cool, and I like the way it looks. The way I figure it, if you don't have to spend extra to get the drive, then go for it. Then you have the option of using it, especially if you can find the lightscribe media on sale at some point.

Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 11:37 am Post subject:

I don't know why it hasn't caught on yet. Can you say BetaMax?

Mutt Joined: 09 Sep 2004 Posts: 140 Location: TX

I read some reviews of people who bought some from newegg and 2 people had them go bad after a few months... So I wonder if they are as stable as a regular burner... but, any equipment cna fail I suppose.

Leg Humper Joined: 01 Jun 2004 Posts: 4702 Location: Utah

They're kind of cool - but WAY too expensive.

I can get a normal one and just write on it with a Sharpie for *way* less than it costs to get the Light Scribe drive and proper media to burn on...

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 4:36 pm Post subject:

Seems like a lot of expense and trouble to do something you can do quickly, easily and for free with a magic marker.

Guide Dog Joined: 08 Nov 2003 Posts: 8256 Location: MN

ok I just googled it, to find out exactly what your talking about.

Seems I had a friend in collage (almost 4 years back now before dvd burners became reasonably priced...) who had something like that in his CD burner that could put an image (or text) on the unused space on the CD, or he could wast a CD and just put a image on the whole thing... it would appear only as light and dark coloring (i.e. it just turned the 0's on the blank portion of the CD into 1's where the image was black as opposed to white) but it was sweet for putting track listings on audio CD's around the outside edge.

Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 7:49 am Post subject:

Doomhammer wrote:
They're kind of cool - but WAY too expensive.

I can get a normal one and just write on it with a Sharpie for *way* less than it costs to get the Light Scribe drive and proper media to burn on...

It's more expensive, but I don't know about *way* more expensive. I figure it costs around $0.50CDN extra per DVD. So that's a half dollar for something that looks a lot nicer than my chicken scratch with a sharpie. Sure you can do it cheaper with a sharpie, but you can't do it as nicely. Of course, the sharpie method is also much faster than lightscribe ....

Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 1:38 pm Post subject:

I use my LightScribe pretty regularly And I love it.

I think that eventually the price will come down for the media.
And they have actually released(over in Asia) colored Lightscribe Disks so soon you will be able to make colored labels.

Price Wise I have been able to get my disks for roughly a dollar a disk for DVDs and a little less for CDs.

The only thing I can sugest is spend the 14 bucks for a 25 pack of Lightscribe CD and download some images and see how they turn out.

Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 3:19 pm Post subject:

hummer010 wrote:
It's more expensive, but I don't know about *way* more expensive. I figure it costs around $0.50CDN extra per DVD. So that's a half dollar for something that looks a lot nicer than my chicken scratch with a sharpie. Sure you can do it cheaper with a sharpie, but you can't do it as nicely. Of course, the sharpie method is also much faster than lightscribe ....

$0.50 per DVD ?! I'd be broke by now if i had a LightScribe thingy. I burn at least 4 DVDs per week. 4x52 = 208 * $0.50 = 104$.

Well ok, maybe not broke... but i'll stick to the Sharpie option for a while now.

Posted: Fri Sep 29, 2006 1:04 pm Post subject:

dstg_II wrote:
$0.50 per DVD ?! I'd be broke by now if i had a LightScribe thingy. I burn at least 4 DVDs per week. 4x52 = 208 * $0.50 = 104$.

Well ok, maybe not broke... but i'll stick to the Sharpie option for a while now.

Yeah but it's cool for CDs

Actually if you keep an eye out at Geeks.com I have seen a 25 pack of Lightscribes go for 8 bucks

I still buy regular DVDs for Regular backups but if I want to make a DVD of Vista Beta RC1 it's cooler to use Lightscribe and make an awesome cover for it. And when I make a copy of one of my DVD movies for my friends at work it makes me feel cool that I can put the actual Movie Label on the DVD.

But that's just me

Leg Humper Joined: 01 Jun 2004 Posts: 4702 Location: Utah

Wow... Paying extra money to make CD's look pretty... Laughing

99.9% of the time, all my CD's are either in a case on my shelf, or in my drive (I can't see them!).

Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:54 am Post subject:

[quote "Doomhammer"]Wow... Paying extra money to make CD's look pretty... [/quote]

Yes but it's just like Fine China. I only use it for Special occasions.
Besides I am in the process of backing up all my CDs so I don't have to use the original I would like it to look a little neater since my handwriting is so horrible that I can't even read it sometimes. Crying or Very sad

Butt Sniffer Joined: 09 Nov 2000 Posts: 1883

I usually catch the Lightscribe disc on sale and only use them for specific stuff, but what I do use it for I love it.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 5:52 am Post subject:

I don't have a lightscribe burner, but I have something similar in a SCSI Yamaha burner that uses something called DiscT@2 (which is a really stupid name), which allows you to burn images and text around the unburned portion of any media. Granted, this put the label on the READ side (aka 'bottom') of the disc, but it would work with any media, although some media showed up better than others. It used some sort of plug-in for Nero that somehow would estimate the available free space left over on a disc after the data was written, and then you could design the label around it. I played with it for a little while, made a few discs, and decided that the results weren't worth the 10 or-so extra minutes screwing around with it.

I suppose if you had batches of CD's to make you could set up a template or something, and the Gee Whiz factor is pretty high, but for casual use it just seems silly to me.

Lycander wrote:

Doomhammer wrote:

anglachel wrote:

hummer010 wrote:

dstg_II wrote:

anglachel wrote:

Lycander wrote:

anglachel wrote: