Anyone use a lightscribe DVD burner?

pahl

I need a external dvd drive for the laptop.

I am looking at getting a http://www.lightscribe.com/

Anyone using one of these.

If you have used one before did you like it?

I think it would be cool to put a basketball design on the DVD along with my website.

Same thing with soccer and baseball photos this spring.

Jeffro

I don't have one, but a friend does....he likes it. I think it would be cool too.

mikeshots

I have one on my desktop workstation, but I've never used it. I was excited to try it out but then realized you could only etch them on LightScribe discs. I never bothered picking up any LightScribe discs, so I'm not sure if they're any more expensive than standard CD-R's. Seems like a cool concept though!

HiSPL

I have used one once, and a complicated graphic takes a LOOOONG time to etch into the top. A little text doesn't take quite so long, but still plan on spending some quality time with your burner...

Pupator

I have a lightscribe drive and use it often. The discs are a bit more expensive (around 50 cents per), but for discs I'm giving away I find them quite useful and worth the extra cost.

It takes me about 2.5 minutes to burn even the most detailed images on the discs, even so, I find the more simple (and less feature-filled) samsung lightscribe software to be easier to use, so I normally burn pretty simple labels.

HiSPL

two and a half minutes is great for burning an image. It was taking me like 20 minutes to burn an image. The one I used was in an external case and was a first generation burner. That might have something to do with it too...

pahl

I would be happy with it only taking 2.5 minutes.

I don't plan on doing a ton of them, unless my photos really get good down the road and everyone wants them, lol..

I asked about the lightscribe sometime back on another forum and people said they were very slow, but that could have been with older models.

Pupator

Even though LightScribe has been around for a while - I just got the burner about 4 months ago. It's a Samsung internal DVD+DL burner. I can't speak for any of the external burners, but I can't imagine the new ones taking 10x longer than the internals?

Phyxius

I have a HP desktop and laptop, both have lightscribe. I love it! I first used on a video we did of a friend's wedding and it turned out awesome so I started using them for show pictures when people bought CDs. You'd be amazed at the detail the LightScribe can get. If I hadn't given them all away I'd take a picture for you.

The easiest way I've done it is by making a square image in photoshop, minding where the "corners" will be cut away and the center hole when you place text/images. Then I open the saved image as a "background" in the burn program. It works really well and allows for horizontal instead of warpped text.

Airedrifter

Phyxius wrote:

I have a HP desktop and laptop, both have lightscribe. I love it! I first used on a video we did of a friend's wedding and it turned out awesome so I started using them for show pictures when people bought CDs. You'd be amazed at the detail the LightScribe can get. If I hadn't given them all away I'd take a picture for you.

The easiest way I've done it is by making a square image in photoshop, minding where the "corners" will be cut away and the center hole when you place text/images. Then I open the saved image as a "background" in the burn program. It works really well and allows for horizontal instead of warpped text.

Good idea.

My use has been limited, but it takes me about 4 minutes to burn a photo on the label.

pahl

That sounds great!
Going to pick one up this weekend and give it a try.

Phyxius

Here are two rather simple ones we did.

This one was a picture CD -


And this one was a group of videos:


The wedding cover was a quite a bit more detailed than these two, but I figured these would give you an idea. Have fun with your new toy!

Art Scott

Phyxius wrote:

Here are two rather simple ones we did.

This one was a picture CD -


And this one was a group of videos:


The wedding cover was a quite a bit more detailed than these two, but I figured these would give you an idea. Have fun with your new toy!

Did it render these as duo tone...black on gold background....or is that just the older lightscribe burners???

In other words they don't burn in color do they???

Phyxius

Art Scott wrote:

Did it render these as duo tone...black on gold background....or is that just the older lightscribe burners???

In other words they don't burn in color do they???

Yes, gold duotone. They do not burn color, however using color images does not effect the quality or ability of the burner. I've used some extrememly dark, not very contrasty images and I've gotten great results.

My friend created a video for another friend of ours and used this rather bad picture on the cd. Somehow, it looked good. That's amazing since the quality of the digital image is so bad.

rosselliot

Phyxius wrote:

Yes, gold duotone. They do not burn color, however using color images does not effect the quality or ability of the burner. I've used some extrememly dark, not very contrasty images and I've gotten great results.

My friend created a video for another friend of ours and used this rather bad picture on the cd. Somehow, it looked good. That's amazing since the quality of the digital image is so bad.

what kind is your lightscribe exactly? I'm thinking about getting one now....

I use a mac, will your's work on it?

- RE

rosselliot

scratch that. what I said above

does anyone know of a really good external drive with lightscribe that will work on Macs?

- RE

Phyxius

rosselliot wrote:

really good external drive with lightscribe that will work on Macs?

I don't know anything about MACs

But, this site lists drives by seller. Here are the ones from B&H
http://www.nextag.com/BHPhotoVideo--300600/mac-lightscribe/seller-html

More googling reveals that everyone and their mother has LaCie.

cwphotos

I have a Lite-On burner in my PC that does Lightscribe. Its awesome for sending wedding picture DVDs to clients and for just making Mix Cds for the car () because you dont have to write on them with crappy markers.

chicodawg

I'm not sure what the draw is to Lightscribe - etch b/w (grayscale?) images to the disk.

I have an Epson inkjet printer that has a cartridge thing that accepts a CD. It runs through the back slot of the printer and prints on the top of the disk (disks can be purchased "printable"). In color.

Maybe I missed something with the value of Lightscribe?

Mike

pahl

chicodawg wrote:

I'm not sure what the draw is to Lightscribe - etch b/w (grayscale?) images to the disk.

I have an Epson inkjet printer that has a cartridge thing that accepts a CD. It runs through the back slot of the printer and prints on the top of the disk (disks can be purchased "printable"). In color.

Maybe I missed something with the value of Lightscribe?

Mike

Them look cool too. I know a wedding photographer in town here that uses one.

The reason I am looking at the lightscribe burners is that I need buy a dvd burner for the laptop anyway. I already have a couple printers. If I needed a printer I would look at getting one that prints on dvd's.

Phyxius

chicodawg wrote:

I'm not sure what the draw is to Lightscribe - etch b/w (grayscale?) images to the disk.

Maybe I missed something with the value of Lightscribe?

It's kinda like Atari. It's just cool

But, seriously I REALLY like the way it looks.

Pupator

I have lightscribe - I have an epson printer that can print on the discs.

I use lightscribe 99% of the time.

The "add-on" labels to discs are a bad idea. With use (especially with use in slot-loading players) the labels will peel off, usually in the player, and can cause serious damage. Sometimes they bubble as well, which can be problematic.

If using the discs which come ready to print on, I find the lightscribe discs to be a better value (disc + ink cost). This is marginal, but after many discs it adds up.

Also, for what little this is worth, lightscribe discs impress customers (probably because they haven't seen many?) where as color-printed labels seem to be pretty common and (unfortunately) unimpressive.

This is all my experience - someone else's may be quite the opposite.

twinsrus

Tried it on one disk, got rid of it for a color printer that handles DVDs. So much more attractive in presentation, and the software that comes with it is very user friendly.

Don't buy a lightscribe. Nothing like the ads as far as actual appearance on the DVD. You'll be sorry unless the store takes it back with the receipt, because you'll be doing that.

Pupator

twinsrus wrote:

Don't buy a lightscribe. Nothing like the ads as far as actual appearance on the DVD. You'll be sorry unless the store takes it back with the receipt, because you'll be doing that.

That's one view. I think you've seen from other folks in this thread that there are some (many?) of us who like lightscribe and prefer it to the color printer option.

It's all a matter of preference.

Phyxius

twinsrus wrote:

Tried it on one disk, got rid of it for a color printer that handles DVDs. So much more attractive in presentation, and the software that comes with it is very user friendly.

Don't buy a lightscribe. Nothing like the ads as far as actual appearance on the DVD. You'll be sorry unless the store takes it back with the receipt, because you'll be doing that.

Mine look just as nice as the ad shots. I was very impressed and surprised by that fact.

As far as software is concerned mine burns with Sonic Express Labeler. I just create a square image in Photoshop saved as a JPG And then set as "background". Easy. And, if something is out of place, you change the .PSD Save As again and it automatically changes the images.

Here's a screen capture of one I just threw together in about 2 minutes. There are a few tweaks that need doing, but they'll take just a few moments.



I don't know why yours didn't turn out nice, sorry.

Editted to add-
I went ahead and burned one real quick for myself, for videos of one of my horses. I took a picture of it afterwards, it's a tad more contrasty than this and the disk is goldish in color. That was lost a little in this picture (probably because of the flash?), but you can still get an idea of what one will look like.

Art Scott

Pupator wrote:

I have lightscribe -

The "add-on" labels to discs are a bad idea. With use (especially with use in slot-loading players) the labels will peel off, usually in the player, and can cause serious damage. Sometimes they bubble as well, which can be problematic.

Actually if you use a good brand of lable and put it on properly it will never come unstuck to the disk.....after 5 yrs of labeling cd's for university student recitals and other recording gigs we had...if it was put on correctly (using the proper stomper and using it correctly) those labels were not coming off no matter what without ruining the disk...and for disks, were using Mitsui Gold, so you wanted to make sure each and every cd was done perfectly.

But I did find that with lightscribe (at least my HP burner with light scribe)..I had to adjust the contrast to the max to get the exposure I wanted on the disk,,,yeah I scrapped afew in the begining...and the people that recived weddings and portraits on them were impressed and it was a rarity 2yrs ago to see anything done in lightscribe...........

pahl

Ok, I got a HP DVD 940 today.
It's been a long day and it was late when I got back with it, but I did two DVD with it so far.

I must say the first one was disapointing. I just took a photo I had and stretched it out to fit and did some text. The photo suck and the text was soft looking.

After doing some reading I took a basketball photo of my son and cut him out. Made the cut out a image and used it on my next DVD. The cut out of my son, full body with basketball looks much better then the whole photo with background stuff and all.

I also adjusted the text a bit different and it's better to.

Forgot I did bright up and sharped the cutout image of my son a lot as it looked much better in the preview. I think it help on the burn too.

I would guess it's going to be like my camera. My first images really looked like crap.

Not that they are that great now, but I feel that I am getting better with practice.

It does burn the .jpg files really fast on the other side.

pahl

Have been doing some more reading and I found this little program.
It did make things even a bit better then my last one.

EXTENDED LABEL CONTRAST UTILITY

pahl

Some samples of mine.

http://pahl.smugmug.com/gallery/2466317#129348287-L-LB