Epson R800 ($200 refurb with full 1 year factory warranty) with TY printable discs, either silver or white surface, always 100% perfect. Never sprayed the discs, never had a head clog.

Never labels.

Do the disks have a nice finish? Do they look pro? Are you spraying over them?

Jeff

Canon IP3000 (bought on eBay for ~$120) with TY "Watershield" DVD and CD glossy white blanks.

Gorgeous gloss finish, completely waterproof without any need for overspray. I have retired my Stomp alignment tool for good and have used up my considerable stock of Meritline glossy adhesive labels.

Another nice feature of the Watershield disks--they are full-face, with only a small non-white hole in the center, so your graphics look nicer.

If you contact Diskmakers they can send you a printed sample. The only drawback is price, and really it's not much higher than regular blanks + the Meritline labels. Besides, the price is gradually dropping.

I highly recommend the IP3000. It is a four-color printer and uses the non-chipped Canon cartridges, so you can easily refill them yourself if you want to eliminate ink costs. Even buying them new is not that much money. The IP3000 and other Canon printers can easily print to disks, but the feature is disabled in the USA due to patent issues. Do a search on this board for more information about how to re-enable it; it's very easy and it's a great printer.

I have no experience with the Epson printers mentioned above, but I did have clogging issues with the C80, C82, and two C86's that we used over the past 4 years. I'd have to assume it was the pigment ink, which was until the Watershield breakthrough the only way of getting a waterproof job outside of overspraying. The other issue with the Epsons we had was that a clogged nozzle was fatal--there was no cheap way to replace the head. On the Canon, it's a separate $40 part.

TY Watershield's are super, just like riredale says. I have an Epson R220 and have been extremely happy with the output.

Check THIS out for more of what I've previously wrote on the subject.

I use the Epson R200 and the Ty G02 discs (I need to try the Watershield discs some day). I have been pleased with the quality.

Knowing that the images aren't going to be bright and photo quality, I design my DVD label image to minimize the ink useage and take advantage of the white background.

Steve Mann

I've used epson, but now I have canon.... got tired of epson with all their little rip-off attempts with the ink. I find Canon MUCH better.

I use Verbatim disks.... the only double layer printables that I can find!?

I use an old Epson 960. No problemo. (with two hands loading)

JJK

The quality with my Epson R260 is great, but it gulps $80/6pack ink at a rate that is about 10x what my various HP printers use. Also, the tray jams every 10 discs or so, slowing down workflow and eating lots more ink (because it insists on a recalibration after the jam). I've contacted Epson, but no satisfactory answer. Lots of other people complain about this as well.

But, as to the initial question, the quality is top-notch (and I am usually pretty critical).

From what I gather here, the disks have a lot to do with the process as well. I'd hate to spend the money on the upgraded printer if the disks are going to do the trick. Is Watershield a brand or a type of disk?

Is Watershield a brand or a type of disk?

It's a type of TY (brand) disc. I buy mine from rima.com.

They're awesome discs. For discs that I distribute, I won't use anything else.

The quality with my Epson R260 is great, but it gulps $80/6pack ink

John, for a little more than the price of 1 set of cartridges, get a CIS. I've been using it on my R220 (and R200 before it died) and it works great. I love not having to replace cartridges. I just recently had to purchase a Refill Kit

I've also done the Waste Ink Modification to my printers. (You have to register on Steve's Forums to see the photos[/url]

Oh, here's a discussoin on TY Watershields

Thanks everybody
Jeff

Before I wore out my Epson R200 and R320 printers, I had all kinds of DVD tray feeding problems that were testing my patience on a regular basis.

These printers also drank ink like like sophomores at a kegger party.

Then I got an Epson R800, and found it to have a very sturdy DVD tray that never jammed, and it was sipping ink at a fraction of the rate of the R200/300 series.

I get 400-500 DVDs out of a set of ink cartridges (G&G from Supermediastore, about $27 for the set on sale), and that's with printing other stuff too.

I wouldn't hesitate to buy a Canon either, but HP is the up-and-comer right now, with high capacity cartridges and some excellent solutions in the slightly higher end printers.

Epson is going after 3rd party ink suppliers very aggressively in court, and I have to hold that against them. For critical photography I would buy OEM cartridges anyway, but for DVDs and CDs, no way.

Note that when you design graphics for discs, it is OK to use the color "White".

When used judiciously, this can really add to the design.

And, the Price Is Right!

I use the Epson r220 & have no complaints. The discs I've printed look as sharp as any photo.

The drivers I downloaded a few weeks ago also let you 100% exhaust the ink in the cart, so you CAN urn out & it will keep printing.

I buy generic cart's for ~$30 per 6 after shipping. Used them for years & am very happy. I also spray my disc's. NOTE on spraying: let them dry ~1 day before spraying them. if not they will yellow. Any disc that's dryed for 1+days hasn't yellowed.

John, for a little more than the price of 1 set of cartridges, get a CIS.

Whether I go for continuous or whether I buy generic ink, do any of you have a feel for how this compares to genuine Epson in these three areas:

1. Color accuracy. Are the colors indistinguishable from those created by the genuine ink? You'd have to have printed on the same disk media and have printed the same artwork to know for sure.

2. Color fade. Have you put anything in direct sunlight for a few days to see how it fades? My old HP inks would disappear very fast in sunlight. The Epson inks are supposed to be "pigment based," whatever that means, and therefore quite resistant to fade.

3. Water resistance. This on is easy to test, either with a moist cloth or a dunk test. The Epson inks are definitely extremely water resistant compare to my older HP inks.

For me the generic Meritline ink is probably the easiest solution (I'm not sure my volume is high enough to justify the CIS investment), but once I go down that path, I think I have to change out ALL the ink at once (can you mix/match Epson and Meritline ink?).

Finally, I am not sure whether the ink pad mod and driver change works with the r260. I couldn't find any links to drivers or update/mod utilities for this later generation. Most seemed to be oriented at the r200.

For what it's worth, a 6-color set of genuine Epson ink cartridges for the Rxxx series printers is around $50 at Costco.

For what it's worth, a 6-color set of genuine Epson ink cartridges for the Rxxx series printers is around $50 at Costco.

Thanks for the tip!

I've looked several times, and each time I looked our local Costco (in Monterey, CA) didn't carry ANY ink for Epson; only Canon and HP.

The next time I'm up in the San Francisco/San Jose area, I'll check there. $50 would be quite a good deal. I checked Fry's, Staples, and Office Depot, and they were all $85-95 for the complete 6-cartridge set. Even the eBay gray market is usually about $45-50 for the genuine ink.

My guru buddy says there is a lot of problems with HP printer software drivers in IE7 and IE6 with SATA drives, same with Norton stuff. I don't know the details but he says he has to go back to IDE boot drives to get the Norton stuff to work.

JJK

My guru buddy says there is a lot of problems with HP printer software drivers in IE7 and IE6 with SATA drives, same with Norton stuff

Any guru who recommends to use IE7 should be turned around and asked to close the door from the outside anyway imho.

And using anything from Norton? When Norton can't even give their stuff away, but has to bundle it with PartitionMagic and more, and then give it away (Free After Rebate)?

IE7 is well known to have caused a huge pile of problems, even to the point of no return, i.e. for some unfortunate souls necessitating a complete reformat to be able to use the computer again.

He says the customer insists on HP and Norton, and he took the HP printer back and got a Lexmark, of course after about a week of time involved trying to get the stuff to work. He really tries to get things to work the way the customer wants which involves many telephone calls to manufacturers.
JJK

The accuracy/fade of the generic inks seem to be the same, but the newer epson inks say they are more fade resistant & won't smudge. Never tested it though, I never leave discs in the sun because of the whole melting disk thing. :)

But photo's I've printed with Epson & Generic look great & don't fade on the living room wall.

I'm running IE7 on 9 of my 11 machines and haven't had a bit of trouble. The other two machines are running IE6 on Win2k.

I like HP printer hardware, but their drivers have always been problematic. The only HP printer I have currently is an old LaserJet, but it's running the generic Windows drivers and works fine (as it has for the last 10 years or so.)

Don't get me started on Norton...

John