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LightScribe:

On January 4, 2004, HP announced an innovative new technology to address the problem of labelling CD's and DVD's. LightScribe technology allows consumers to create silk-screen quality labels on their CDs or DVDs by burning text and graphics directly onto a disc, eliminating the need for adhesive labels.

But, before we continue - Let us first take a look at some information found at the LightScribe site:

CREATE SILKSCREEN-QUALITY LABELS FOR ALL YOUR CDS AND DVDS, RIGHT FROM YOUR COMPUTER.

Until now there hasn't been much choice when it comes to creating labels for your CDs and DVDs. Messy markers or sticky adhesive labels were pretty much the only affordable option. But imagine creating professional-looking labels using the same laser that burns your data-right inside your CD/DVD drive! Well, now it's easy with LightScribe Direct Disc Labelling technology.

LABEL-MAKING REDEFINED.

LightScribe technology is an integrated system that combines the CD or DVD drive of your LightScribe-enabled computer with specially coated discs and enhanced disc-burning software to produce precise, laser-etched labels. You can design and produce labels to express your creativity and personality-the sky's the limit!

With LightScribe, the disc is the label. This amazing technology is the no-hassle way to create elegant labels for all your CDs and DVDs. Simply burn your music mix, digital-video/photo archives, or business application. Then flip the disc and burn your own unique label.

LightScribe Direct Disc Labeling technology is now available in PCs, external USB optical DVD writers, labelling software, and a variety of brand name discs. Remember, the LightScribe logo indicates a LightScribe-enabled product, so be sure to look for it at your favourite retail locations. Also check out the Looking for LightScribe page for a list of companies that make LightScribe-enabled products

A RADICAL REVOLUTION IN DISC LABELING.

Once you've burned your first LightScribe label and experienced the amazing result, you'll never want to use a permanent marker or sticky label again. LightScribe makes it easy. It truly is a revolution in disc labelling.

JUST HOW DOES IT WORK?

How can you burn a label onto your disc right from your computer? Suppose you have just created a music CD of your favourite songs. Now you want to make a label that contains the song titles, artists' names, and some personal information and design elements to make it special.

Burn your tracks onto the data side of the disc. Flip the disc over to the label side and put it back in the drive. Burn your label by opening your favourite LightScribe-enabled label-making software and going to the CD template work area. Now you do all of your creative design work-imported pictures, copy, and artwork. When you are satisfied with what you have done, click "print." It really is that simple! No ink, no messy markers, no clumpy adhesive labels, just an amazingly beautiful label right before your eyes.

LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

Your LightScribe-enabled CD/DVD disc drive contains a special laser that pumps light energy into a thin dye coating on the label side of the disc. The light from the laser causes a chemical change in the dye coating that shows up as a visible point on the disc. With laser precision, LightScribe delivers closely controlled light energy to multiple points on the disc as it spins in the drive. The result is a high-resolution reproduction of the artwork, text, or photos you composed in the software application. Seeing is believing!

The LightScribe Media:

The surface of the LightScribe media is Gold-brown also referred to as sepia coloured.

If we take a closer look at the inner ring of the LightScribe media we can see a bar code indexing system, which the drive's laser use to recognize the LightScribe surface but also for the indexing (for later re-burns).

In this review we will use one LightScribe media from Verbatim, thanks to BenQ and Verbatim UK for providing it.

Designing and burning with SureThing Labeler:

While we were browsing the LightScribe site, we came across a free version of SureThing CD/DVD Labeller SE LightScribe Edition, which we downloaded and installed.

The SureThing program tends to be more professional and easier to work with. We created a layout here to test out the LightScribe feature. After we were satisfied with the layout we pressed Print Label (LightScribe).

We selected 'Best quality" and OK to print the label in the Print Dialog windows.

The program gave us a notice 'Please ensure that you have a LightScribe disc inserted in the drive with the label side down". (As you can see you can choose - Don't show me this message in the future." We went on with OK to print the label.

The SureThing program estimated a time of 28 minutes and 49 seconds for writing the LS disc, but our stopwatch clocked it to be around 32 minutes. All lightscribe tests we did needed around 32 minutes for the best quality setting.

Writing process finished; let us take a look at the result.

Verbatim Lightscribe CD-R, first write at best quality setting.

Verbatim Lightscribe 8x DVD+R, first write at best quality setting.

As you may see there is a big difference in quality between the CD-R and DVD+R disc, the DVD+R disc is less sharp and almost 'holographic". That is due to the nature of DVD media - which is two plastic layers glued together. According to verbatim, this causes the holographic / blurry effects. Let us try to write the same discs once more:

Verbatim Lightscribe CD-R, second write at best quality setting.

Verbatim LightScribe 8x DVD+R, second write at best quality setting. Ignore the text and image to the left, SureThing crashed before we had saved the compilation - and thus we misplaced the text and image.

This time we could see that the images are a lot sharper, but the CD-R disc is still much better than the DVD+R disc.

We hope that you have gotten some more insight in the LightScribe feature/technique now, after reading this section. And according to the LightScribe site, it looks like there will be an interesting update coming soon.

• Will I need to purchase a new LightScribe DVD drive when the new media with the speed enhancement is available in the market?

LightScribe has just announced a 50% speed enhancement to be available in the next quarter. The enhancement comes from changes made to the discs themselves, and these new media will be compatible with the existing drive. So if you were to buy a drive now, you would be able to take advantage of the faster discs when they are available.

Sounds like an interesting update indeed, but at the time being we have to wait for it though.

If you wish to read more in-detail about lightscribe, please read our Philips LightScribe review.

Before we complete this review, let us run the drive through some advanced tests at next page…