So, it's a thumbs up for VegasDVDA2 and Espon .. YEaYYYhh! ... The Writing's on the Wall .. . er .. . DVD .. . Nice one Jay ..

Grazie

So, based on your first impressions, how does it compare to a commercial (i.e. screen printed) DVD?

I'm curious if people say it's so great mostly because of its price or its quality. Even though it's so cheap, if it produces subpar results, it's not worth it for me. What do you think?

I was an 'early adopter' and bought the 900, which ended up being fairly expensive by the time I imported it and bought a tranny for the 110V. So far we've printed around 500 DVDs and CDs, I have one client who just loves black on white, OK they're Mac people so that makes sense.
IMHO, the design of what's being printed will have more impact than how it's printed, it's never going to look as good as glossy photo paper but that has more to do with what you're priniting on than the printer.

Even though it's so cheap, if it produces subpar results, it's not worth it for me.

My concerns were the same as yours! It is certainly not "subpar" in my estimation. How does it compare with screen printing? It's different. I've seen some screen printing that was pretty crappy, though--course screen, cheaps inks, etc.

The only down side is that this is not for mass production. For my level of production thus far, it should prove to be just fine.

Jay

Sounds good, thanks for the info :)

I checked out this printer at CompUSA today and they had some discs that were printed with the r200. I've gotta say, the silver printable discs produced amazing results. It gives every color on the print a "metallic" feel. It seems the only problem with these silver printables is that the coating (on which the image is printed on) chips and scratches off very easily.

Anyone use silver inject printables? Any opinions?

Jay:
Was the quality any better than the "DYE FOUR" disc I sent you
a few months ago? I printed that on an Epson 960.

JJK

James, I'd have to say "yes" to your question. It appears, as is usually the case, that the technology has improved and been passed "down" to the less expensive printers.

For example, some years ago I paid over $800 for a "state-of-the-art" Epson scanner for the graphics work I was doing. Now, I can pay about $150 for an Epson scanner that surpasses the old one! The problem with "state-of-the-art" is that it never stands still.

Jay

I just got my R200 yesterday and am thrilled with the results. Unlike some, I've never had problems with Epson--at least with the Stylus Photo models, of which I've owned four. Now I've got two: the 2200 for fine art repros, and the R200 for CD/DVD printing. I would never use either as my general-purpose printer, since it's cheaper and faster in the long run to have a decent B&W laser around for that. But for photo-quality printing I have never seen anything better than the 2200 (including far more expensive giclee systems), and the lowly R200 definitely produces the best-looking disc printing I've seen (so far). In fact, I've had clients mistake my 2200 repros for their original paintings several times, which is pretty neat!

My 2200 will be two years old next month, and I haven't had so much as a single clogged nozzle in that time.

As for ink prices, although with six cartridges (R200) or 7+1 (2200) it would be pricey if you had to replace all of them at once, I find that I go through three of the "light" inks for every one "normal" one, so over time the 2200 has been far cheaper to run than earlier models with combined colour cartridges--especially after printing 150 sheets with a nice blue border.

Conversely, although I'm a big fan of HP's laser printers, I've never been fond of their inkjets. Although clogged nozzles aren't quite the issue they once were, I still find that the latest models are prone to little fuzzy bits on vertical lines--even with freshly aligned cartridges. And as their cartridge prices go up, ink capacity goes down. I recently bought a DeskJet 450 for my laptop, and was surprised to see that a large-format model (9750, I think it was) bought by one of my clients uses the same cartridges--which drop to 90% capacity simply by installing and aligning them. I shudder to think how much ink he'll go through doing primarily 11x17 prints!

>>"....the only problem with these silver printables is that the coating (on which the image is printed on) chips and scratches off very easily...
Anyone use silver inject printables? Any opinions?"<<


I'm using Prodisk silver (under $0.50 each) and I'm very pleased. I just scratched one with my fingernail and noticed no chipping. I could tell where I had scratched it but then I can tell on a white printable or paper-labled disk too....wait a minute ...I just scratched a printed silver disk (printed several days ago) and the ink did indeed chip off....Out of curiosity I just scratched a printed white disk and no chipping....uh-ohhh.

Randy

>" Now I've got two: the 2200 for fine art repros, and the R200 for CD/DVD printing"

I too am a great advocate of Epson, I have the 2200 for photographic work, something it's really good at. I'm also considering an R200 for DVD but that would take me to 3 printers (I have an old EX too that my wife uses) and ink management is likely to become a paiin.

I just wished Epson would release a kit to enable DVD printing om the 2200, as the UK version (2100) does do that.

I think we'll never get perfect results using inkjet printing. The surface has to be matte to get the ink something to soak into. That introduces two factors. Firstly a matte finish never looks quite as smart as a gloss one. That could be solved by laminating but that's pretty expensive. I do have some stick on 'protectors' that I've only tried once as a stick on thing kind of defeats the purpose of printing direct on the DVD but it does make the thing look way better.
The other thing that concerns me long term is the risk of the matte finish picking up oil with a lot of handling. Not much you can do about that and realistically if DVDs get that much handling that may prove to be the least of the problems.
I've said this before, mostly my clients are pretty impressed to get printing of any kind on their DVDs. The design of what you print on there also has a big bearing on how it looks. It's never going to compete with photo glossy paper but after all it is just a label.
Also I've done a rough costing of ink per DVD and I think it's arounfd 20 cents per DVD, now with the cheapest ones available here costing 50 cents it's getting a bit screwing adding 40% to the cost just to print the label!

Do you line in the US? I'm interested in buying some silver ink jet disks, but want to try one first. I'll paypal you $1 for it (I just want to see how they look).

If you would like to do that for me, you can e-mail me & the_happy_friar <at> yahoo.com

$1.00 plus $5.99 shipping and handling and you gotta deal (kidding)
I just sent you an e-mail Mr. Happy...send me your mailing address.
Randy

Jay,

I still doubt the safety of flying in an airplane.............

But still use my flyer bonus points!

Got the e-mail: thanks VERY much!