| A thermal CD printer uses pressure and heat to apply text and graphics to the CD-R printable surface. The resulting print is waterproof and scratchproof and does not require any additional coating. The major limitation of a thermal print is it's inability to adequately produce photographic images. A thermal print should only be used for simple text and graphics. An inkjet CD printer works very much like a regular paper inkjet printer. The ink is sprayed from nozzles onto the inkjet printable CD-R surface. After printing, the CDs are coated with a lacquer or laminate to ensure the CDs are highly water and scratch proof. The print quality is superb. In fact, the vibrancy and detail of an inkjet print can only be matched by an offset print (not even a screen print comes close!) Photographic images, text, logos and other graphics are all rendered superbly. The main drawbacks of an inkjet print are the inability to produce Pantone colours, some degree of difficulty to precisely colour match and time. It can take up to 4 minutes to print one full coverage CD! We use an inkjet print as standard for all our short run CD and DVD runs. The quality print out and the low price make it the best and most cost effective option for your projects with quantities below 500 units. We would always recommend an inkjet print instead of a thermal print for all short run work.
NOTE: This Guide is assuming that you have a Printer that is able to print on top of Inkjet Printable DVD R Media
Here are the 4 Easy Steps to print on Inkjet Printable CD or Inkjet Printable DVD Media
Step 1: Put The Printable CD or DVD R Disc onto the Tray  Step 2: Stick Tray into Printer and align it with the Arrows  Step 3: Print using the software/picture of your choice (Safest to use the printing software included with the printer) Step 4: Done!  Multimedia Center
Some Animated Videos on Inkjet Printing
Here is an animation of how the printer prints on the media (prints as the tray moves):
How An Inkjet Printer Prints on Printable Media Animation (Pop Up)
Here is an animation of how the printer feeds in the tray (front to back):
How the Tray Moves Animation (Pop Up) |
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Difference between DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+R DL, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM and other formats.
What format does your burner burn on? DVD+R, DVD+R DL, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW, or DVD-RAM? [Download DVD-Identifier to Check]
DVD-R Media definition:
A write-once, recordable format. DVD-R drives can write DVD-R discs, which can be written only once, as opposed to a DVD-RW drive, which can write and rewrite to RW media. The authoring use drive (635nm laser) was introduced in 1998 by Pioneer, and the general use format (650nm laser) was authorized in 2000. DVD-R offers a write-once, read-many storage format akin to CD-R and is used to master DVD-Video and DVD-ROM discs.
DVD-RW Media definition:
DVD ReWritable. A rewritable DVD format that is similar to DVD+RW, but its capability to work as a random access device is not as good as +RW. It has a read-write capacity of 4.7 GB.
DVD+R Media definition:
Short for DVD+Recordable, a recordable DVD format similar to CD-R. A DVD+R can only record data once and then the data becomes permanent on the disc. The disc can not be recorded onto a second time. DVD+R and DVD+RW formats are supported by Philips, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Ricoh, Yamaha and others.
DVD+RW Media definition: The DVD plus RW Alliance is a group of companies, including Philips and Sony proposing a standard of recordable and rewritable
DVDs DVD+R DUAL/DOUBLE DL LAYER Media definition:
Double Layer DVD+R media has an amazing 8.5GB of storage capacity. This incredible capacity is enough for up to 4 hours of DVD quality video, 16 hours of VHS quality video or over 120 hours of MP3 audio. Compatible with all current DVD video players and DVD-ROM drives as well as new DVD+R DL drives, the disc is ideal for virtually any business or household application. Dual-layer
DVD-R media offers genuine advantage over the current single layer 4.7GB DVD. The new dual-layer recordable DVD-R disc allows users to read, write or view almost twice the amount of data that is currently possible with the single layer and the advanced technology means that material can be read or recorded on one layer without affecting the other. No need to flip sides or change discs.
DVD-RAM Media definition:
DVD Random Access Memory. A rewritable DVD disc endorsed by Panasonic, Hitachi and Toshiba. It is a cartridge-based, and more recently, bare disc technology for data recording and playback. DVD-RAM bare discs are fragile and do not guarantee data integrity. The first DVD-RAM drives had a capacity of 2.6GB (single sided) or 5.2GB (double sided). DVD-RAM Version 2 discs have double-sided 9.4GB discs. DVD-RAM drives typically read DVD-Video, DVD-ROM and CD media. The current installed base of DVD-ROM drives and DVD-Video players cannot read DVD-RAM media. |
