New HP Drive Lets You Burn Your Own Label

way2trivial writes "Wow -- remember Yamaha's DiscT@2? now HP has a invention to use the DVD laser to etch the flip side of CDs and DVDs. I own a nice Epson to print on CD-R/DVD-Rs, it does full color -- but this looks impressive as hell, even if it is in monochrome"

Comments

Cool !!

[varunrebel]

Cool idea...

Only downside it seems is that you cannot use normal CDs. You have to use CDs which can actually are designed to allow this 'burning' on the flipside...

Re:Cool !!

[tx_mgm]

I hope this catches on and the special CDs/DVDs become prominent. I'd shell out the extra dime per disk for this, just as long as they have plans to keep producing them. This looks really badass!

Re:Cool !!

[Kent Simon]

I pretty much figured that would be the case. The data on a CD is stored very close to the label. If you have a CDR you don't mind wasting you could scratch part of the label and see that it goes straight to the plastic protective layer. I imagine the special CD's have an extra layer between the top and the data layer that does not exist on a normal CDR.

Re:Cool !!

[superhoe]

And this makes me wonder:

If the burners with this new technology are just $10 more expensive - and the media required to burn to the flipside is just a 'dime more expensive'.. Where's the added value to the sales?

My guess is that we end users are going to pay much more than just a dime xtra for those CD medias.. :(

Re:Cool !!

[-Speade-]

Yep, really cool, I hope this will get popular and other drive manufacturers will not be stop by patents / legal stuff... or it might end up like that sony double-density (1.3GB) disk which doesnt seem to be too much used.. I own one for really long time and still I cannot lend any of these cds to any of my friends. (felt like we're heading to a world where cd burned with XXbrand-burner can be read only by XXbrand-drives) I really like that idea anyway.. Maybe we'll see soon some technology to cut shapes into cds... very interesting for cheese company advertising ;)

Re:Cool !!

[Threni]

> Only downside it seems is that you cannot use normal CDs. You have to use CDs
> which can actually are designed to allow this 'burning' on the flipside...

Why don't they sell blank labels you can stick onto normal CDs and then etch them with a laser? Or is that too obvious?

Re:Cool !!

[mirko]

I don't, I own a laptop and I plan to keep using a cheap pair of markers to obtain the bichromy this will not get me.

Re:Cool !!

[no longer myself]

My guess is probably not. It's got a little extra nift value, but it's really all in the software. They're using the exact same laser, so the hardware isn't any different except for maybe an extra bit of firmware to prevent knock-off CD-Rs from entering the scene. Everything else is handled by software, so the extra $10 on top of a DVD burner is the only hope they have of getting people to consider it. Much more and who would bother?

For the other end, the consumable disc, an extra $0.10 has a huge fudge factor. Prices vary greatly so they're probably basing it upon the highest priced premium brand of DVD/CD-R (which isn't necessarily any better than the low cost cheepy-brand) so yes, you'll end up spending $10 for about 25 discs, while someone else is going to be paying $15 for a spindle of 100.

My biggest gripe (and you know I'll get flamed for saying this...): Since (I'm only guessing) it's all based in software, it will probably not be a feature availble to Linux users.

Looks like Sharpie isn't going to lose any of my business anytime soon. ;-)

Re:Cool !!

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Only downside it seems is that you cannot use normal CDs

Perhaps glueing 2 regular CDs back to back would work?

Re:Cool !!

[GORby_]

Let's see:
1. it would probably be more expensive, since it would need a layer of plastic and glue in addition to the special etchable layer
2. it's easier when the layer is already on the disc
3. no problems with balance... labels that aren't positioned exactly in the middle will cause unbalance and lots vibration.

Good enough?

Re:Cool !!

[Nicolas Pillot]

But i like drawing caligraphic text on my CD ! Does it imply i'll be surpassed by TrueType quality text on my CDs ?! If only i was a font, i'd never run out of job. (sigh)

Re:Cool !!

[Threni]

> labels that aren't positioned exactly in the middle will cause unbalance and lots vibration.

I like vibrations!

Re:Cool !!

[Big Nothing]

"Only downside it seems is that you cannot use normal CDs. You have to use CDs which can actually are designed to allow this 'burning' on the flipside"

True, but for those of you too lazy to RTFA:

"HP estimates that a drive that uses LightScribe will carry a premium of about $10 over the going price today, and that a disc will cost about a dime more than today's discs. There are no consumables like ink or ink jet cartridges; the only consumable is the disc itself"

So price shouldn't be an issue here, although availability might be. Anywho, Imna get me one of these...

Re:Cool !!

[GORby_]

LOL, vibrations can be fun indeed... but I prefer them OUTSIDE my computer most of the time :-)
like my force-feedback joystick for example.

Re:Cool !!

[Lumpy]

Um, yes there IS a big difference in DVD-R's when it comes to compatability.

the good piodata or other high end discs are immensely better at playing and burning than the el-cheapo no brand spindle of 100 for $49.95 DVD-R's

some of the dirt cheap knockoffs are utter crap.

Re:Cool !!

[Junior J. Junior III]

While it is cool that CD writers can do this, it's a feature I don't think anyone asked for or needs. It's really just a gimmick.

It's a fairly cool gimmick, but it's like painting useless stripes or graphics on the side of a car and calling it a "Special Edition" and charging $3000 more for it -- it doesn't really make the product any more useful at accomplishing its intended purpose (storing data in the case of the CD drive, getting you from point A to point B in the case of the car.

It's as though suddenly storing data is insufficient, and now you have to do it while "looking good", which is just silly. Really, it just serves to mask that they haven't managed to innovate beyond 54x write speeds. The car looks faster, but the speed limit on the roads is still the same as if you bought a standard edition car.

Re:Cool !!

[jigyasubalak]

Can't you already do this? Like, using a laser printer to print on paper and stick it to the disc?

The cool factor, here, imho, is that the etching is gonna be on the golden/silver layer behind the CD.

Re:Cool !!

[Chalybeous]

My guess is that we end users are going to pay much more than just a dime xtra for those CD medias.. :(

My guess is that the only people who'll pay are the ones who the RIAA decides to get mean with. For example, when I buy an album, I burn a copy to use in the car (basically so my expensive CD doesn't get damaged, and it's no great loss if the car is stolen - it's fair use IMHO, since it's not passed to anyone and I'm not ripping the manufacturers off), and scan the cover and track list to make an insert. With this technology I'd be tempted to either pop the track listing *on* the face of the CD (my handwriting is near illegible, worse if I'm using a marker), or to replicate the on-disc logo or art.
CD pirates will have a field day making use of this device. And so will the lawyers...

Re:Cool !!

[squiggleslash]

Presumably if you're selling media burners and blank discs, you'd like people to chose your products over the competition's. That may well be the "added value to the sales"...

Re:Cool !!

[cayenne8]

Let's see, I'm basically getting CDR's for free these days (plus sales tax and stamp for rebate). I'm guessing in about a year...these will be free too.

Right now, its DVDr's I'm waiting to come down in price. Is anyone getting them for much less that $1 (US) each? That's about the best price I can find on sale/rebate...at least for the DVD - R's...the +'s are getting cheap....

Re:Cool !!

[swv3752]

This is a feature differentiation. With CDRW and DVDRW drive getting very cheap, Hp wants to make itself stand out more. If you have a basic drive for $35 and an HP with this Scribe tech for say $50 it becomes a tougher choice than before where the only apparent difference was name brand.

Re:Cool !!

[Zeinfeld]

This is a feature differentiation. With CDRW and DVDRW drive getting very cheap, Hp wants to make itself stand out more. If you have a basic drive for $35 and an HP with this Scribe tech for say $50 it becomes a tougher choice than before where the only apparent difference was name brand.

No, I think this is a patent license play. The DVD and CD world is full of patents. The main Philips/Sony patentson CD expired some time ago but there are still lots of patents on CD-ROM and DVD. HP want to make a small amount off each drive and each disk no matter whose name is on it. Think about it, neither HP or Sony have manufacturing plants for the drives, it is all outsourced.

Big question is whether this feature is big enough to change the supply chain. I think so, the media manufacturers have a big interest stopping HP becomming a media supply brand (they already are in print cartridges).

Most important of all is the fact that DVD-RW is still in a limited deployment stage. I have not seen the same low cost spindles of DVD-RW disks yet.

Re:Cool !!

[Junior J. Junior III]

Yeah, but if the added feature adds little to no value to the product, then the obvious choice is to buy the cheaper model.

Only, it's not so obvious because marketing conditions us to believe that more expensive = better quality and more features = more useful. If a market is supposed to serve customers, I'd have to say this is the wrong direction for HP to be taking. I hope at least that they continue to offer the lower cost models.

It's worth noting that Yamaha dropped out of the optical drive business shortly after launching their Disk T@2 technology -- they made excellent quality drives loaded with practical features as well as the T@2 gimmick, but their mistake was to charge around $200 for them when the rest of the market was in the $50-100 range, so it's really no surprise they bowed out of the market.

I've got one of Yamaha's 44x drives with the T@2 feature in my system right now, and I love it, but I picked it up for $99 on clearance, and I've never used the T@2 feature, not even to try it out and see if it works.

Re:Cool !!

[jafiwam]

It probably would work if it was an audio CD.

I have caught my wife putting a second CD in the tray more than once. The first time, she even had the balls to get mad a me because I was fooling with it.

(Strange how that ELO Greatest Hits sounds a lot like TMBG if you stack it right on top of the TMBG already in the player.)

Spin-up time sucks though, so you probably couldnt do that for data CDs.

Re:Cool !!

[Anonymous Coward]

1) You can already do this with inkjet printers... (Neato, et al.)

2) The labels come off over time. Heating/Cooling rapidly shortens the lifespan. (Put it near an air conditioner. The label ripples immediately, ruining the disc.)

3) The adhesive damages the underlying discs, shortening their lifespan.

Re:Cool !!

[74nova]

this is often the case with things. they come out and then they come out in a better version. this is shortly followed by them coming out not much better, but much prettier. i have absolutely no idea how they are selling(not well, i would assume), but ive seen "vinyl" cdrs at walmart. this is just another gimmick, but its not the first time and it wont be the last.

that being said, this idea seems much cooler to me. if its still easy to see and not much more money, i might give it a shot. oh, it woudl have to burn regular cdrs as well as the special ones, i didnt see that in the article.

Re:Cool !!

[slimak]

I would have to say value is added in the form of me begin able to easily differentiate discs and being able to burn a disc for a friend and have them be able read the label (as opposed to to my handwriting)

Re:Cool !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me introduce you to the word "dense"...

Re:Cool !!

[HoldmyCauls]

Well, I've noticed a formula for open source software production that goes something like this:

Linux Programmer + Time = Some Really Kickass Shit.

Yup, there's lots of deserted crap out there, but the biggies (GNOME, KDE, XFree^H^H^H^H*, OO.o, OpenUniverse (which nary ever gets mentioned!) xscreensaver, XMMS, Mplayer, Ogle, Xine, VLC...) do keep improving with fantastic results.

One other thing to bear in mind is that this technology produces monochrome prints; i.e. the choice of color is *binary*. How much does it take to get the CD burner to print a 1 or a 0 on the data side? The only thing we need to be sure we're doing is putting these 1's and 0's in the right order (also already done) and maybe starting at the right first point (but this is automatic, too, isn't it? I mean, it's required that your data start at the beginning and work outward...) What's left? Software that takes a picture, organizes the color pigments to arrangements in B&W, converts that to 1's and 0's (isn't that what a tiff file is? I assume because that's what my p/s/c uses for faxes. How hard is it to convert a bmp, jpg, png, etc. to a tiff? Boesn't lib.so do this fairly easily? (I need more programming experience, but I believe this is true!)) and then cut out the parts that wouldn't go on the disc (a circular template with another circle cut out in the middle) right before sending it to the burner.

So, not that hard. Wish I had programming skills right now.

Re:Cool !!

[Mr.Zuka]

Since they are basically double sided discs I wonder if you could burn data on both sides? or have a small (10mb) hidden data burned at the very center and the rest of the top with some pretty picture. Just another idea of hiding in plain sight.

Re:Cool !!

[Flamingcheeze]

The added value comes from people who already have burners going out and buying new ones just to get this technology.

Re:Cool !!

[Dravik]

There is a difference between the cheap and expensive disks. I had to throw away 50 DVD's because I bought the cheap stuff and found there was a 70% failure rate in certain low-power consumption laptop DVD burners (failure rate determined through personal expierence). I went out and bought the expensive stuff and have never had a problem since.

Re:Cool !!

[Annamite]

It's a fairly cool gimmick, but it's like painting useless stripes or graphics on the side of a car and calling it a "Special Edition" and charging $3000 more for it -- it doesn't really make the product any more useful at accomplishing its intended purpose...


You apparently haven't seen the market for "Type-R" goods.

Besides, who said it was targeted toward slashdot geeks? Your intended purpose might solely be the storing data, gettingfrom A to B... However capitalism and the force of market also give subburban SUVs, cars with seat warmers, and cars with those annoying flashy stripes.

I'd vote for white-box, no-frill car.


Really, it just serves to mask that they haven't managed to innovate beyond 54x write speeds.

Why? Is there a need to shave 15 seconds off the time it takes to write a CD?

The car looks faster, but the speed limit on the roads is still the same as if you bought a standard edition car.

Sport car segment, hot rod market would not exist in your universe then. What is the point of 0-to-60 mph in a few seconds if you can't do it on the road?

Re:Cool !!

[Junior J. Junior III]

I'm familiar with "Type-R" goods... Unless you actually *buy* a Type-R car, it's not going to go any faster with a Type-R decal. Fancy labeling is more like a decal than it is an actual performance enhancement.

You're right, 54x CD burning is "fast enough" for anyone, so there's little to be gained from further speed innovations.

I'd say the next most important innovation of tangible benfit to the consumer would be in

• making CDs more durable, so they can actually last the "lifetime" we were told they would last when CDs first hit the market in the early 80's.
  
• Making them truly compatible so that there aren't problems with finnicky players only reading certain brands of media or not liking discs burned with certain writers.
  
• Making the drives quieter, so it doesn't sound like a jet is taking off when I'm reading or writing to disk at high speed.
  
• Better support for circumventing copy-protected disks so people can make legitimate backups of their media. (Yeah, I know, that one will be controvercial, but from a consumer's standpoint it's definitely a needed feature.)

See, not much imagination put to work and I already came up with four crucial areas where the current market's needs are not being met well enough to merit no further improvement.

There's still room for sports cars and hot rods. The 54x CD-RW is a hot rod. It maybe a hot rod with a flat gunmetal gray paintjob, but it'll still blow the doors off of any other CD-RW out there. This labeling stuff is more like the flamejob. Which, while attractive on a car, I doubt having a fancy label on your CDs is going to help you score with the opposite sex. So I think my criticism that this innovation doesn't really add value still stands.

I'm pretty sure there's no law limiting acceleration, so as long as you hit 0-60 in a few seconds and then STAY under the speed limit, I think you're good. But perhaps if you're a smart consumer you go with something more economical or with more cargo space or better safety or comfort features. All those things add value to the product. But a loud, garish paintjob really doesn't, (unless you're compensating for some other inadequacy, I suppose).

Re:Cool !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm...

If it uses the same laser, then would it be possible to manually tell the CD drive how long to hold the laser at a point? If so, you could use current CD drives to do it.

And if that is the case... you could probably find a way to convert current cds intro "label-burner" compatible ones.

piracy is fun

[hellmarch]

maybe it can copy the do not copy label while you're copying the data

That Rocks

[paganizer]

I actually read the article, and THAT ROCKS.
The porn applications alone are mind-boggling.

Re:That Rocks

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually read the article...

Alright buddy, do that again and we're gonna revoke yourt membership.

Re:That Rocks

[FrostedWheat]

You can have porn on the CD, and porn *on* the CD.

Re:That Rocks

[Lord Kano]

The porn applications alone are mind-boggling.

Just imagine, 600+ megs of big bouncing titties with the flip side T@2d to look like a bumpy nipple. It's pure genius!

LK

Re:That Rocks

[HawkingMattress]

personally i'll wait for the next which wil allow me to have port *outside* the dvd

Re:That Rocks

[GORby_]

personally i'll wait for the next which wil allow me to have port *outside* the dvd

hmm, like... a bigger hole in the center of the DVD?

Re:That Rocks

[Blue Stone]

"The porn applications alone are mind-boggling."

The hole in the middle of the CD.

Goatse man.

Oh the horrorr.

Re:That Rocks

[Anonymous Coward]

dipshit

Other uses

[CleverNickedName]

I'll bet it makes perfect toast too.

Re:Other uses

[cpjackso]

Toaster - or pizza oven. Or even a sink.

Seen it all before - next.

Is it more than cosmetic?

[__aatgod8309]

Have to wonder if this process will shorten the life of the cd the way adhesive labels are rumoured to do...

Re:Is it more than cosmetic?

[abionnnn]

IANAC (I am not a chemist ;)) but that would probably depend more on how they implemented the "layer of coating" on the flip side of the CD-R. Even if you don't make use of it, if it isn't designed right it may very well shorten the life of the CD. It sounds like a good idea though, since it would make life easier if you want to maintain a collection of data CDs.

Re:Is it more than cosmetic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, this is basically the same as what we have now on the data side.

All they need to do is use a different dye that turns darker than the one on the bottom.

Use a computer? No thanks

[ObviousGuy]

The real leap forward will occur when this is built into camcorders and other media recording devices. The whole idea behind connecting the camera to a computer just so you can save the data on a disc that won't be played on a computer anyway, not to mention printing labels for the disc, is crazy and redundant. Though it is a necessary stopgap until we get these technologies into the cameras, the computer is just another barrier to the development of user-created media.

Good idea!

[Nogami_Saeko]

This is a great idea - granted, it takes special media (which sounds like it's just basically double-sided), but if it gets popular enough, it should be cheap and easy to find.

Although I like colour inkjet printable CDs/DVDs that the new epsons can produce at low cost, this is a great way to label something that doesn't need to be in colour with the associated ink costs, etc.

Wonder what the resolution of the printing is, and how long it takes...

Maybe the top side could be used for additional data storage as well if you don't need a label?

N.

Re:Good idea!

[_Shorty-dammit]

considering the scale of the regular data they write with the laser, one would assume that the resolution of the image possible would be well beyond something someone would reasonably use. I guess it's a matter of how restrictive they'll make the process, really.

Re:Good idea!

[AndroidCat]

This would be good for family parties. In my family, extended to aunts, uncles, cousins, cousins' kids, (coming soon) cousins' kids' kids is a scary number, and there are already video tapes copied and circulating of events. (The techoscenti exchange digital photos via email. We need a web site.) A labeled CD/DVD of each event's pictures and videos would be cool.

Hmm... How about xmas cards with a personalized CD rather than a "our news for the year" paper blog letter?

I could see something as simple as good looking labeling acting as a trigger for a lot of home production work, with spin-offs into do-it-yourself audio/video production software. (And small gigs for people who do do-it-for-them work.) Most of it will be junk, but at least labelled nicely! :^)

10$ = Rs 500 approx

[varunrebel]

A CD Drive costs about Rs. 1200-1500 in India.

An increase of 10$ (=Rs. 500 approx) is a bit too steep. Obviously the good old felt-tip pen is much cheaper !!

But the basic idea/concept is very user friendly and cool. Wish they can make it a bit cheaper... :)

Re:10$ = Rs 500 approx

[Anonymous Coward]

What about combo drives: DVD/CD-R/RW?
The increase would be not so steep.

Re:10$ = Rs 500 approx

[hattig]

This applies to DVD writing drives, which are at least 3 times as expensive, and commonly 5 times more expensive still than a CDRW drive.

A 6 increase to not have to worry about my bad handwriting, my CD pens running out of ink, and for a cool effect would be worth paying.

I'm sure the cost will drop to negligable within a year anyway.

Re:10$ = Rs 500 approx

[vnsnes]

The article also doesn't specify if the $10 extra is for the OEM or the consumer. $10 OEM can translate into a much larger number for the consumer. The article also doesn't cover the extra cost of media, which can be used to hide the drive premium the way it's done with printers and ink cartriges.

That said, seems to me that the cost premium would have to be less than, say, 10% of the drive or 10% on the media. Personally, I don't see spending more than that for the labeling feature.

Re:10$ = Rs 500 approx

[jigyasubalak]

I am from India, as well.
But I personally feel that $10 is not such a high premium for an innovation like this, though not much of a functional value. And considering that such big companies(like HP, IBM,etc) don't usually have countries like India in their minds when they bring such innovations in the market, it is still an affordable nift.

Considering that, inspite of cheap 2GB mini harddrives from toshiba, IBM continues to charge a royal $360(or whatever is the high price of it now) for the 1GB Microdrive.

Re:10$ = Rs 500 approx

[xargoon]

It would be cheaper if they outso.. oh wait..

This is old stuff

[pieterh]

It's just thermal printing with another twist. The good news is that there are no ink cartridges to replace. The bad news is that the paper is _really_ expensive.

Re:This is old stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

It's FUNNY not INSIGHTFUL

Tell you the truth

[SyKOStarchild]

As potentially useful as it would be to use one of these things for CD/DVD Labeling, I am awful fond of saving money and will continue just using a sharpie or an adhesive.

I don't need new tech and new burnable media to keep doing that.

Re:Tell you the truth

[ajs318]

Absolutely. CDs are for listening to {or at any rate, perceiving stored content through some kind of electronic reading device with sensory stimulators}, not looking at. I'll stick with an indelible marker pen. As for DVDs, I don't ever write anything on them anyway; I just write on the card in the box, because -- at four quid a pop for DVD+RW media -- sooner rather than later, they're going to get recorded over.

Re:Tell you the truth

[KikassAssassin]

I don't see this being much use for average users who just wants to make backups of their data or copy a music CD to listen to in their car, but it'd be a really nice thing to have if you want to distribute something on a CD/DVD. You could give it a nice professional looking label without the cost of having it done professionally. For a small business, this could be very valuable.

Re:Tell you the truth

[AndroidCat]

It'd be good for organizing things. For music, you might want labels that show how the contents are grouped. ("Warning: Contains Everything ABBA.")

For re-recordable stuff, I used to put labels on floppies like "Ron's Scratch Disk #4" so I could find the right one from a pile. At 10 cents a disc, it's not much for reusable, and I have trouble making marker look good.

Re:Tell you the truth

[SyKOStarchild]

I have gotten professional looking lables from Adhesives before, and so have a few of my art school friends. I am still down with saving money on not buying a new piece of tech that I feel I don't need and continuing using my $2 Sharpie for my CDs and a Label Maker for "professional" CDs.

Small business use....

[MagicDude]

This will help small software businesses lower their costs of production. My family has a business where we sell software, but where it's not practical for us to use mass production because we have to make 1000 copies minimum, since our market is so small. It's easier and cheaper for us to simply burn DVD's everytime an order comes in and print the labels ourselves, and then shrink wrap it. So this will be a real benefit to us and potentially other small business too.

Re:Small business use....

[Kent Simon]

I agree. I think many labels you print off with the "CD labelling software" tend to look rather amateur. I would definitely consider buying something like this if I wanted to showcase software I had written to friends or potential employers.

Re:Small business use....

[notestein]

A word of advice... Don't label the pirated software your "family" sells.

You will get caught.

Re:Small business use....

[AndroidCat]

Development too. One-offs and limited runs like betas or release candidates can be labeled with accurate versioning without mucking around with labels or markers. And it'll be a lot easier to find the right one with different graphics rather than a pile of identical discs with some marker squiggle.

Re:Small business use....

[printman]

Buy silk-screened CD-Rs/DVD-Rs. They are cheaper than CD-Rs + labels ($500 for 1000 the last time we ordered them, with 4-color artwork + white overcoat) and look a whole lot more professional. When that order comes in, start burning as many as you need...

novelty

[_Shorty-dammit]

I don't know that I'd pay $5 or $10 more per 50 or 100 spindle for it though. I imagine you wouldn't necessarily use one for every burn either, though. Definitely got that novelty factor. The premium for the feature in the drive is very attractive. Hopefully it's well thought out and there's no chance of bleed-through while making the label to threaten the data. Although perhaps the regular reflective layer itself would be enough.

Prettier Coasters

[Kent Simon]

Well, at least if you make another coaster out of a CD you are trying to burn, You can at least pass it off as some new age art movement. Hell, get a spindle of these things, and you even have your coaster holder :-p.

Re:Prettier Coasters

[AndroidCat]

Hmm, personalized novelty coasters... "Joe Sixpack Live at the Hollywood Bowl" I smell profit!

Re:Use a computer? No thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because we all know video editing on a tiny little camcorder would be so easy and user friend. I can't wait to put a custom title on my movie, that'll be fun to type it.

burning images onto normal cdrs

[slart42]

if you look closely at a burned CDR, you will notice that there's a visible difference between written an non-written parts of the surface. In other words 0's look different then 1's. I always planned to write an app to take advantage of this in order to burn images to a disc surface (just normal CDRs, without burning any useful data to it, of course), but never got around to really investigate this thoroughly.

Re:burning images onto normal cdrs

[_Shorty-dammit]

To do so requires special writing capability in the drive itself, you not only need to be able to control the regular user data, you also need to be able to control all the bits that get generated in addition to regular user data. All the bits that are involved with the error correction, etc. This is why you don't see Yamaha type 'tattoos' with just any old drive, because Yamaha so far is the only manufacturer that gave you that much control over the drive. Without such deep control, I don't know how easy it would be to get your desired image, considering you normally have control over much less than half of how many bits are actually contained on a CD. I vaguely recall doing the math one day to see how many raw bits are on a CD, and I think it adds up to around 2GB of raw data to store your 700MB of user data. Very vaguely. Figures may be off, but it is in that ridiculous ballpark. And I'm not in the mood to go digging through specs. Basically, 2048 bytes of your data first goes to 2352 bytes, maybe another step here, and then every 8 bits gets translated to 14 bits encoded on the disc. Even just the 2048->2352 and 8->14 steps gives you almost 1407MB raw data for 700MB of user data.

Re:burning images onto normal cdrs

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this a troll?

I had no idea that a CDR that is 50% written is 50% 'zero' and 50% 'one' !!!

The reason you can see the difference is 50% of the disk has been burnt. If you can see the difference between the real unburnt disk and burnt disk within the burnt area you have better eyes than me!

Re:burning images onto normal cdrs

[smellystudent]

The reason for the 8 -> 14 bit encoding is to make sure that long runs of 0's do not exist. If they did, the laser would be unable to follow the track accurately.

Re:burning images onto normal cdrs

[Arminator]

This has nothing to do, that 1's look different than 0's. Its only the difference between written parts (consisting of 0's *and* 1's) and unwritten parts (*nothing* on the disk, not even 0's and 1's. Only unmarked dye).

What you're trying to do was already done with Yamahas Disc T@2(spoken: "Tattoo"). The story even has a link to an article about this technology.

So if you want to get sued by Yamaha for patent infringement, go ahead and write your Disc-Labeling Program. *grin*

Re:burning images onto normal cdrs

[slart42]

>This has nothing to do, that 1's look different than 0's. Its only
>the difference between written parts (consisting of 0's *and*
>1's) and unwritten parts (*nothing* on the disk, not even 0's
>and 1's. Only unmarked dye).

i was under the impression, that unwritten parts and 0's would be basically the same. i might be wrong on that one, though. IIRC it was also possible to spot 0 area's (like a long silent break before a "hidden track" starts) on audio cd's. you can definitley see visible lines between songs on some audio cd's.

Re:burning images onto normal cdrs

[lxs]

There are simpler methods to ensure that a long string of 0's doesn't occur, without 40% redundancy.

The real reason for the encoding is FEC or Forward Error Correction. It ensures that if you lose a bit here and there, there is enough redundant information spread around the damaged part to reconstruct the original data stream.

Re:burning images onto normal cdrs

[ASkGNet]

Unwritten parts are actually 1's
a 0 is defined as an area (well, it's more like a transition between 2 areas), which is less reflective - 25-30% of the laser light is returned
a 1 on the other hand (again, it's too a transition, but in the other direction now), is the more reflective, around 75-80% of the light should be reflected.

Re:burning images onto normal cdrs

[smellystudent]

/digs out notes/
So it is. Show's what I learnt in that course...

Re:burning images onto normal cdrs

[HTH NE1]

It ensures that if you lose a bit here and there, there is enough redundant information spread around the damaged part to reconstruct the original data stream.

"Around the damaged part"? Haven't they learned the value of having off-site backups? They should be storing the redundant information half way around the disk.

its brilliant

[katalyst]

because they are giving a new lease of life to an already saturated market; i'm happy with my 32x burner and would not have thought of investing in another cd-burner... and would have upgraded to a dvd-burner whenever i could afford one... but now.. I'll HAVE to consider this...
we'll have happy cd-writer manufacturers, happy cd-manufacturers, happy geeks and very happy software pirates :D
I missed this detail, but what speed does it burn the label at? :p how long would it take to burn a full gfx rich label?

Re:its brilliant

[steve_l]

As someone who was on the software team I would point you at the 15 minute number for a full label.

Print time is proportional to the number of rings that have dark bits; head seek time is a major factor in the delay.

I will say this though: a full label looks *excellent*. Almost on a par with what you get from monochrome silk screened music. I plan to label all my music disks this way.

Re:its brilliant

[reve]

> i'm happy with my 32x burner ... and would have upgraded to a dvd-burner whenever i could afford one

DVD-writer prices havn't exactly bottomed out... but the prices arn't going to move a whole lot more in the near future. (Though media prices will still drop further...) I bought a lite-on 4x +/-R about five months ago for $80. It seems like every week frys is pushing some rebranded BTC for like $79...

So the time to buy is pretty much now.

i love mum

[Anonymous Coward]

as soon as the printing department hear about this we'll shortly have do it yourself home tatoo kits.. now that'd be cool.

Re:i love mum

[LMacG]

You mean like this?

(I chose the .mx link because it had the best graphic. I got my boxes of said kits from the big eToys flameout.)

Re:i love mum

[beef3k]

So, you think having your arm spin at 3400 RPM while being laser etched will be any less painful than the real thing?

Excellent for musicians

[nmoog]

I would LOVE something like that for the CD-R's of my music I sell, and send out as demos. Stick-on labels look like stick-on labels, and are barely better than magic markers.

The most impressive result I have gotten so far is by laying the cd's on the ground and spray painting them all white. Then when that layer dries, lay a stencil of an image over each disk and spray black. Leaves a cool ghosty image that looks like it was pressed. The disks play fine, and it doesn't look like your music is sponsored by TDK.

Re:Excellent for musicians

[Hungus]

You can of course buy printable CDs and DVDs and use a printer like the one I use which is an ezcd4200 it costs me about 12 extra per cd or dvd but I do get full colour with it. Oh and if you are going to do any volume remeber to buy a continuous flow system for your pritner. In fact here is a tutorial I found on hacking your own CFS System

Re:Excellent for musicians

[Sven The Space Monke]

I've done a bit of work with spray paints (don't ask), and I would think that if the glue in labels is enough to corrode the data layer, wouldn't the all the chems in spray paint be at least as damaging over time? I've also had bad experiences trying to use spraypaint on plastic (vinyl dye is much better for this, but you definately do not want to use that on a CD). IANAchemist, so there's a good chance I'm wrong. I'd love to put some Dupli-Color Mirage or Krylon Mystique on some of my CDs.

Re:Excellent for musicians

[pubjames]

Alternative, if you just need say 100 to 500 of the same design, you can get that put onto a writable CD for you by a CD duplication house fairly cheaply.

Re:Excellent for musicians

[Nogami_Saeko]

Another one to look at is the new Epson Photo R800 - it can print both regular media as well as CD/DVD, and has seperate ink tanks for each colour. Prints with glossy ink, but has the capability to insert a "flat black" cart, or a "glossy" cart to modify how the output looks. Interesting...

I've got a slightly older Epson model at work which handles CD/DVD media, and it does a beautiful job. About 3 min per disc to print.

I also still recommend people use a CFS system for high-volume colour printing, but it's not as much of an issue if you're just doing disc labels.

N.

Re:Excellent for musicians

[Hungus]

Absolutely assuming you have the money to drop on it duplications houses are the way to go definately. However if you are a small band like Factories => Shameless plug for my friends band then you can't get 200+ disks done at a time becaus eyou can't pay for it ... of course then you couldn't afford the printer and cfs either but think of it as a one time cost.

yeah its geocities :(

Brilliant idea

[Realistic_Dragon]

The problem with CD printers is that:

You must buy one (these drives are $10 more than normal)
You must buy ink for one (at $970 a cart, lasts for 1 week)
You have to use it often enough that the Ink doesn't dry out.

At the moment I label my CDs with a permanent ink pen, but this would save the rest of the world from my handwriting. I'm sure the Linux driver will also ship with a perl script to dump a directory listing onto the front of the CD as well.

Re:Brilliant idea

[Woogiemonger]

You must buy ink for one (at $970 a cart, lasts for 1 week)

Umm, the article says there are no consumables, including ink. Yer either a troll, or only commenting about previously existing CD printers (I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say the latter). Anyway, what I think would be interesting to investigate is the same thing being applied to paper. It'd interesting to investigate being able to print black n' white on specially treated paper without using ink or toner.

Re:Brilliant idea

[binford2k]

The first line of the comment you are replying to:

The problem with CD printers is that:

Re:Brilliant idea

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm sure the Linux driver will also ship with a perl script to dump a directory listing onto the front of the CD as well."

Great idea! Should have pattented this while you had the chance.

Re:Brilliant idea

[Anonymous Coward]

fucking idiot.

Re:Brilliant idea

[Spolster]

It'd interesting to investigate being able to print black n' white on specially treated paper without using ink or toner.

This is already possible, they are called thermal printers and use heat-sensitive paper that goes black when heated. they are commonly used in label printing and early fax-machines.

Re:Brilliant idea

[ygthb]

And thermal paper tastes NASTY!!!!!!

Hmmmmm, just up the power a bit

[slycer9]

Am I the only one thinking about yanking the laser and throwing a nice high-power supply on it?

C'mon guys, instant Lightsaber!!!

*insert maniacal laughter*

Re:Hmmmmm, just up the power a bit

[Cybrr]

*was thinking of Akira*

Lightsaber? How would you limit the beam to the length?

Hmmm

[Realistic_Dragon]

Anyone remember the CD bomb from the days when the Anarchists Cookbook circulated?

Take a CD, cover with gunpowder or phosphor scraped from match heads. Varnish. Insert into CD rom drive.

Now immagine how well that would work with a laser set to a power high enough to carve images into plastic.

Kaaaaaaboooom.

Re:Hmmm

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I believe it was a floppy bomb, not a CD bomb.

You would peel the disk apart, cover the black disc inside, varnish and reassemble.

The friction from the read/write head would set it off...

Not that I have any experience in this field, mind you...

Re:Hmmm

[REBloomfield]

yes, it was a floppy :) a cd wouldn't work.

Re:Hmmm

[Mr.Mysteriosity]

Actually, the heat of the laser affects a diffferent variable than size of explosion, it woudl affext how fast the reaction occured. With a laser that powerful, it would happen almost instantaneously. If one wanted to create a larger explosion, more gunpowder, a more powerful explosive, or more layers of varnish is required.

Re:Hmmm

[Carl T]

Not to mention that back then CD-ROM drives were not something people generally had.

Re:Hmmm

[Cybrr]

That was a diskette...

If you want to sabotage a CD drive, overclock the motor so any CD would explode. ;)

What I'm curious about

[Kent Simon]

is how the disc burning software detects that you have their proprietary CD. I'd assume some sort of data on either hte top or bottom of the CD that the Drive must read before allowing it to tatoo the cd.

Re:What I'm curious about

[lxs]

AFAIK all CDRs have an information block on them containing maximum recommended burn speed, size, vendor code and media type. If you burn a CD with cdrecord, you can see it for yourself as it echoes that data to your terminal. So I guess it's part of the media info.

Re:What I'm curious about

[vena]

the drive could easily just assume you're brand conscious (you just bought a cd burner with a feature that can only be used with certain cds, after all). the process which "writes" to the top of the CD doesn't etch anything or put ink anywhere it wasn't already. it's the same method used to burn the cd itself - that is, the laser heats up inks which change colour. if you're using a cd that doesn't have this ability and you flip it when the drive asks and try to write a label, no big deal. you just won't have a label.

Re:What I'm curious about

[filmsmith]

In the LightScribe FAQ.

What if I make a mistake and try to burn a label on a non-LightScribe-enabled disc? Will it wreck the disc?
LightScribe-enabled discs are "recognized" by LightScribe-enabled computers. If a non-LightScribe disc is put in the disc drive, the LightScribe system won't proceed with the labeling process. Nothing will happen to data stored on the disc.

fs

I wonder...

[CliffH]

... what the reality of pricing is going to be on these things as opposed to the probable $10 premium quoted in the article. If they really stick to that, these things are going to take off liek crazy. The one big problem with the Yamaha was the price (at least here in NZ). If this thing truly has a negligible (???) price increase, I can see them selling like mad and being put into every branded system and whitebox known to man. Can you think of an easier way of labeling small DVD backups of your data than to write it directly to the DVD through a script. No more forgetting labeling of important data.

The flipside of this is, how long will the drive actually last with the extra etching duties of the laser? Will these have a shorter warranty period than their non-ethcing counterparts? Through the first run, will we see unusually high failure rates? I haven't heard of anything like that with the Yamaha's but, then again, I haven't looked. I haven't had to. I haven't sold one yet and I think that's mainly because I haven't bought one (if you don't know the product or the brand intimately, or are unwilling to learn it, don't sell it).

Anyways, I'm done with my rant now. You can get back to reading truly thoughtful comments. :)

CliffH

Re:I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you think of an easier way of labeling small DVD backups of your data than to write it directly to the DVD through a script. No more forgetting labeling of important data.

Whoah there a sec... as much as I wish the labeling could be scripted, remember that it etches on the upper side of the disc. So there's still user intervention needed to physically flip the disc over after the initial burn.

Re:I wonder...

[swv3752]

Basically all it is writing to to a disc twice. So the lifespan of the drive is at worst half of a normal drive. My previous cdrw drive lasted 5 years. I doubt this will affect those 1 year warranties.

HP invent

[turgid]

HP sure may have given up true innovation years ago, such as servers, processors and operating systems, but it's reassuring to know that they can churn out cheap marketing tricks like this to please the Great Unwashed. Well done HP.

Re:HP invent

[Moofie]

What makes this a "cheap marketing trick"? Sounds like a pretty clever, useful product to me.

But what the hell do I know?

Re:HP invent

[Mr.Mysteriosity]

It's no cure for cancer. What it does happen to be, however, is a clever method for labeling CDs that only requires a different type of CD with a near nonexhistant price increase. It's still a useful idea with merits for accomplishing one small task.

not glued on

[KalvinB]

the problem with regular CDRs is that if you bang them around enough the silver stuff (what the data is burned to) flakes off because it's not encased in the plastic. Those glue on labels help to weaken it. If you try to take a label off, chances are the data goes with it.

Presumably this new method has the label part manufactured on and not attached to the part of the CD the data is written to. Or it's a second layer that more painted on than glued on. However it's done, it's probably much more sound manufacturing than putting a sticker on a CD.

Ben

Re:not glued on

[Anonymous Coward]

it is. try scratching off the top layer, and see if you end up with a clear disk! I bet you will.

dye layer between plastic. ahahaha. cute.

Re:not glued on

[Zeddicus_Z]

The pits are burned into substrata, not the reflective coating. Reflective coating is there to, as the name implies, reflect the laster back towards the drive so it may be read. Pits and lands alter the beam such that the reader detects the difference and thus you get your 1 and 0 signals.

Re:not glued on

[Anonymous Coward]

Like I said, what sort of extra-cheap ass CD-R's are you guys buying?

Re:not glued on

[Penguin2212]

the problem with regular CDRs is that if you bang them around enough the silver stuff (what the data is burned to) flakes off because it's not encased in the plastic. [...]

If you buy your CD-R's at CompUSA for $2.00 for a 100 pack on the bargain rack.

Re:not glued on

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know... Verbatim, Kodak, Maxell, TDK

Re:not glued on

[WD]

All the CD-R's and CD-RW's I've ever seen have the dye layer sandwiched between two polycarbonate discs and the top of the disc is printed

And they all happen to say "DVD" on them instead of "CD", huh?

Re:not glued on

[HTH NE1]

the problem with regular CDRs is that if you bang them around enough the silver stuff (what the data is burned to) flakes off because it's not encased in the plastic.

All the better for when you really need to totally destroy the CD: rub steel wool over the label side until the disk is clear (apart from the scratches). Good luck trying to reconstruct any data from the remnants. Should be even more secure than using a CD shredder.

Re:not glued on

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather than have us list the hundreds of cheap-ass CDs that do this, why don't you tell us the one non cheap-ass brand YOU'RE using?

HP CDRs have this problem, as do just about every other brand I've used.

Hmmm ...

[the bluebrain]

Now if it were holograms, I'd be impressed.

:-)

/ I mean, what we got freakin' LASERs in these things for anyway?

Re:Hmmm ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The correct term is "frickin' lay-ser", please get it correct in the future.

Re:Hmmm ...

[cur3]

what do you mean, no shark?

Re:Hmmm ...

[BillyBlaze]

How dare you want to copy Windows CDs? Pirate!!!

Resolution

[Inda]

I know what a 600dpi image looks like printed out on paper. I know that 300dpi gives a reasonable quality image too.

What sort of resolution can we expect from this?

Have many pits per inch are burned into the data side of a disk at the moment?

Can we expect the same?

Re:Resolution

[Rakishi]

Rough caculations put it at over ten thousand for me. You can either convert 700mb to bits, dividing by a cd-rom's area and taking the root (gace around 18k for me) or by looking at actual dot size: 300 dpi => 84.67 m 4000 dpi => 6.35 m (Wikipedia) cd-rom: pit size seems to be around 1~2 m which gives a dpi of 10 to 20 thousand.

Re:Resolution

[amyhughes]

What sort of resolution can we expect from this?

Since it'd be burned in circles rather than lines it'd probably be best specified in dots per square inch, and since burned dots on the label surface are likely much bigger than dots in the recording medium the effective resolution may be a lot less than on the data surface. The burning software would have to convert a scan-line square image into a circular representation.

Amy

Re:Resolution

[Anonymous Coward]

The circles are just a dithering scheme... 1200 DPI on a laser printer looks a hell of a lot different than 1200 DPI on an inkjet, on a dot-per-dot basis.

If, as a sibling to your post suggest, the DPI is about 18K, the fine structure of the pixels within that inch simply doesn't matter. At an 18,0000th of an inch across, you won't be able to tell if those dots are in concentric circles, in ordinary scan-line-squares, or little tiny swastikas without a microscope.

When DPI gets that high, it becomes a measure of the smoothness of greys and how many pixels/inch you can pack on before you start dealing with moire.

Incidentally, for that reason, the circle arrangment probably helps. The chance of having picture structures in ordinary labels which actually cause moire with a CD are far less likely.

In capitalist England...

[turgid]

...10k RPM UltraSCSI drive really does burn you. Ouch.

Seems brilliant...

[odano]

I can't imagine any better way to produce a professional looking CD than with technology like this. Sure it is no better than a sharpie for home users, but for people who burn demo CDs or sell software online and want to make it look professional, this is about as good as it gets.

Re:Seems brilliant...

[TummyX]

What about CD duplicators that print directly onto the CD? You can buy media with surfaces designed to be printed on with an inkjet. They come out looking pretty damn professional to me.

Re:Seems brilliant...

[vena]

though for the price of a new drive you could set up for one-colour silk screening and have enough ink to last you to 2007 :)

Re:Seems brilliant...

[i love pineapples]

I'm a musician, and will definitely be looking into getting one of these things when they hit the market. My band gives away demos in small quantities at our shows-- the idea is just to give people something to remember us by, so maybe they'll consider checking out our site or going to another show. Since we try to keep costs as low as possible, everything is DIY. We manage to make some pretty sleeves for the CDs, but the actual disk always looks like a POS. Right now we only have two options 1. make a pretty label that can wobble the CD or worse, or 2. write on the disk with marker or inks, which takes time and effort, and the inks usually rub off after heavy handling anyway. Neither give a very good impression of the band.

Chicken or Egg situation

[varunrebel]

An with a number of things in the real world CR-Writers with LightScribe technology and the special CDs are obviously prone to the chicken or egg syndrome

The special CDs won't become popular until the special CD Writers become common and the CD Writers won't become common until the special CDs become common enough...

Re:Chicken or Egg situation

[MC_Cancer_Pants]

Chicken or Egg situation (Score:5, Insightful)

The Chicken/Egg situation doesn't work at all. You have a pseudo-valid argument and prepended an arbitrary wikipedia link in order to get modded up. Someone should write a book about the subtle triggers that make the difference between -1 and +5 mods.

maybe the non-data layer is thicker

[varunrebel]

or maybe the non-data layer (top layer) is a bit thicker or is actually made up of 2 (or more) layers of differeing materials ...

uber cool

[drfishy]

Sweet! I'm sure glad I've been holding onto my 8x SCSI burner... This would make me sad if I had just bought a new one...

What will the output product look like?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the appearance going to be similar to that of the data side of a CD (ie. light distortion where it is burned) or rather a 'printed' appearance?

Re:Not a HP invention

[Rakishi]

...the article mentions that...read it.

DVDs still not popular in India

[varunrebel]

DVDs are still not popular in India and they have a long way to go before they can come anywhere close to the popularity of CDs

Any new technology generally takes longer to sink into the Indian market because of the relatively higher entry level costs by Indian standards...

However once DVD Drives become popular maybe the costs will be a smaller % of the overall cost and therfore more affordable. However another question bothers me : Do CDs and DVDs have basically the same physical structure so that LightScribe technology can be used with DVDs too or are they different enough to not make this possible ??

Re:Not a HP invention

[professor seagull]

... or at least read the post, which also starts off with your comment

But PC is the digital hub for our modern lifestyle

[blorg]

Sincerely, Bill G

Seriously, though, it makes a lot of sense to store and manage all our digital media on one general purpose device (ergo, a computer). The usability isn't there today for all media; Tivo is currently a better option than any PC-based PVR. This will however change in time; it already has for music (computer+mp3 player vs cd/minidisc and a pile of media) and both Apple and MS are putting a lot of effort into usability in this area.

Compare how many computer CDRW drives have been sold against standalone components - it's not that the standalone option wasn't there, just that people went with the cheaper and more versatile option.

Cool

[barfarf]

Now we can get our AOL discs with even MORE style!

http://www.lightscribe.com/

[Anonymous Coward]

The official website has more info and photos of labled disks.

Re:http://www.lightscribe.com/

[brian728s]

360 degrees of wow! What example english of good!!!?

Cool

[Underholdning]

This is a great little feature. Not that I plan to burn great images on the disk. Rather, I plan to burn the contents of the disk - maybe just do an ls -lR | burnlabel. I don't use jewelcases for my CD's or DVD's. They take up too much space. I just keep them in sheets in a binder. The downside is, that the small slip of paper telling me what's on the disk has a limited life span (i.e. I lose it somewhere). This little gimmick will rid me of that problem by fixing the contents to the disk.

Holograms

[tonywestonuk]

Are DVD lasers sharp enough to produce diffraction patterns, insead of a standard image?.... Could this tech be used to create you own hologram, from a 3D File?

Re:Holograms

[Mr.Mysteriosity]

No, the special disks have an ink impregnated on the label side, and when the drive burns the label side, it uses a laser powerful enough to cause a chemical change in the ink that turns it a darker color.

All your image ...

[elronxenu]

Now the RIAA will get all concerned about pirated album covers ...

Re:All your image ...

[AndroidCat]

In Canada, they'll just add a bit to the tax on media because no one but pirates ever records to CDs/DVDs/tape...

Re:All your image ...

[steve_l]

too damn right they will. There is some deep irony that this got launched at CES, the same place that carly fiorina got on stage with the RIAA people - I note she didnt announce 'by the way, we will soon be introducing CD burners that can label disks like retail CDs'.

heh.

[Niacin]

This one time, in band camp, I etched a CD...

All humor aside, sounds promissing if the media isnt too much expensive, might even replace my plextor 12x

shrug

Premium price?

[Anonymous Coward]

HP estimates that a drive that uses LightScribe will carry a premium of about $10 over the going price today, and that a disc will cost about a dime more than today's discs.

And for a premium of $100 it also does LASIK!

"There are no consumables like ink or ink jet cartridges; the only consumable is the disc itself," says Daryl Anderson, project manager and HP engineer

He sounds disappointed. Probably because HP makes loads of money from consumables??

What about rewritables?

[m1chael]

Is it possible to have another layer of whatever they have sandwiched in their (but different of course) so that the label can be erased and rewritten?

Here is a PDF from HP all about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a PDF from HP all about it

Re:Here is a PDF from HP all about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Much more information (and more/bigger pictures) here

DVD crispy

[FraggedSquid]

Takes the fun out of using branding irons though

India not so good at hardware

[varunrebel]

I believe that only a small % of software related jobs are being migrated to India, not a very big number.

Anyways the hardware technology scenario is an entirely different ballgame. And India is a small player in this field. Consequently new developments in hardware WILL be in general quite costly for Indians, at least in the near future...

Re:Not a HP invention

[Mr.Mysteriosity]

Please read before posting. Please

here ya go.

[Niacin]

http://www.lightscribe.com/user/labelTips.aspx

Closeups of different labels using this thing.

Re:here ya go.

[Anonymous Coward]

Link here

CD would have much higher resolution

[blorg]

Imagine this - how much space does a 600-dpi bitmap the size of a CD take up? Well under 1mb. And that's disregarding the fact that the encoding on a CD means that the number of pits is far in excess of 700m x 8.

a band's friend

[dAzED1]

even at monochrome, this is great! Handing out demos of your music can be done with a semi-professional look, instead of the sticky label crap. Then, if a few are well received, you send them to be mass-produced.

That, and you can shuffle things around...if you have a couple dozen songs recorded, you can make a mix of 2 or 3 (all a demo for a club should have) that fits the club better. Harder club, put your harder songs on. And then label it, so it looks a lot more professional.

I'll certainly be trying one out.

Re:a band's friend

[Anonymous Coward]

people really need to see if something is in a deep thread before they label it "redundant." Just because I didn't post in the first thread, instead replying to the post itself, doesn't mean its redundant. Change how you view messages, if you must :P

It's only a matter of time

[trveler]

until they manufacture a drive that doesn't require you to flip the disc in order to burn the label. Eliminating that annoying step would be worth extra $$.

Re:It's only a matter of time

[Cynikal]

maybe some day they'll have a burner that takes an inserted block of plactic, mold it into a cd, burn it, lable it, and then mold a labled case at the same time huh?

no.. now its just the crack talking

Re:It's only a matter of time

[evilviper]

I have to doubt that very much...

CDs are so wide that they can barely fit in CD-ROMS as is. And there isn't much verticle room, so including a second laser might not be possible because of space.

Then consider that it would cost 2X as much (or more) for that minor convience.

Besides, we don't even know if this method will catch-on in the real world. If it's a flop, who's going to even attempt to improve it?

Re:Lord of the king

[Mr.Mysteriosity]

what?

I want one!

[p_millipede]

I like to label my disks, but hesitate to do so with the normal stick on labels after a couple of bad experiences. When I used such a labeled disk in my laptop once (which can get rather hot) I smelt burned, popped the disk and found the edge of the label smouldering slightly. I also know people who've had the labels peel off slightly and gum up the drive. This sounds like an ideal solution to the problem.

A better idea, which works with all burners

[oingoboingo]

Instead of wacky proprietary CD label burning systems which require expensive media, I have a suggestion. Just burn a JPEG onto the data track of your CD-R which depicts the label you would like. How the fuck do you all like that, huh? No Linux drivers required.

Re:A better idea, which works with all burners

[dave420]

muppet.

HP is looking for the next ink cartridge cash cow

[holy_smoke]

That's all this is... sell you a special CD-writer at-cost and rake you over the coals on the CDR's. Don't fall for it folks. Just use a perma-marker. ;-)

Figures....

[Jaysyn]

... seeing as I just bought a DVD+/-RW.

Jaysyn

ink and burn = cd tatoos.

[Anonymous Coward]

I mess around as a artist time to time with different media.

This is very similar to etching print plates.

After you burn the CDROm and etch the flip side, guess what?!

You take various colored inks, fill in the etching and then wipe off the excess.

I bet you could make some realy neat looking designes with it.

Re:ink and burn = cd tatoos.

[i love pineapples]

This is very similar to etching print plates.

After you burn the CDROm and etch the flip side, guess what?!

You take various colored inks, fill in the etching and then wipe off the excess.

It doesn't produce actual etches in the disk. Heat from the laser is used to cause ink in the "label layer" to change color to produce an image. It would require a lot more powerful (and expensive) laser to get scratches in plastic that would hold ink.

why flip the disc?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's an idea when the software prompts you to flip the disc to "print" the label - don't. Put another disc in data side down. Now it does tattoos as well.

Your CDRs are not cheap enough!

[John Harrison]

I have a stack of 100 CDRs that I bought from CompUSA for cheap. They have nothing on top of the aluminium. If you rub it vigorously your finger turns silver. If you scratch it you get flakes of metal under your fingernail and you can see right through the resulting hole.

Re:Your CDRs are not cheap enough!

[DigitalDragon]

If you rub it vigorously your finger turns silver. If you scratch it you get flakes of metal under your fingernail and you can see right through the resulting hole.

mmmkay.... somehow this does sound dirty :(

Re:Your CDRs are not cheap enough!

[gantrep]

Somehow your joke was quite unfunny.

Re:Your CDRs are not cheap enough!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got some good quality TDK DVD+Rs, and these have a full second layer of plastic above the data layer. It's transparent, and if your write on it with a sharpie, you can clearly see the depth beneath your writing. (Come to think of it, it might have something to do with that whole "blue has a shorter wavelength than red" thing. They're the same thickness as cheap CDRs...)

But I've got cheapo CDRs that you can scratch the data layer off of which I bought years ago. They learned that trick real quick. Sometimes you can see right through them without scratching anything off.

Bonus for software producers...

[16K Ram Pack]

I've thought about producing some Open Office CDs to share around, but the production costs of getting a proper CD done would require me to shell out real cash.

With one of these, I could put OOo artwork on it and give it to people, making it look more professional.

The challenge

[KalvinB]

The problem with lasers is that they don't stop.

What you would need to do is find a way to attract those particles back. You have the light "magnet" along with the source behind a mirror in the grip so that the particles reach zero velocity at a reasonable distance and accelerate back at the mirror, reflect back to the maximum, repeat.

By having the laser particles move in such a fashion it would basically be a chainsaw with a infinite number of blades moving in two directions.

Due to the speed of light it would go back and forth at such a rate that you wouldn't have to worry about moving the saber around leaking very fast and dangerous particles as you went. You couldn't move the handle fast enough to get any significant number of particles to hit the mirror at such an angle they bolted from the system or miss the mirror entirely.

Ben

cdrecord works with T@2

[Compact Dick]

Since (I'm only guessing) it's all based in software, it will probably not be a feature availble to Linux users.

The feature need not be software-based. I believe cdrecord can utilise the aforementioned T@2 on endowed Yamaha burners, with the tattooinfo and tattoofile parameters [cdrecord manpage.]

I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

While this is absolutely cool technology as it is now, I couldn't stop wondering if there is any possibility of making color labels as sharp as this. (Hey, don't laugh at me and read on) Mutuality of this technology seems to be at the same stage as black and white picture in still photography, where light sensitive emulsion and intensity of light played roles. If it is possible to lay down three (or four: cyan, magenta, yellow and black) layers of light sensitive material to the face of CD/DVD, it *might* be possible to produce color labels with controlled laser output.

Though I don't think this will ever become mainstream, it still is a cool technology for a consumer level device. Then what came up to my mind is Kodak, whose business has been in decline since digital camera began taking over regular 35mm in low-mid priced market, but who possesses vast knowledge in science of photography. If I were working for Kodak, I would propose development of color disk label technology, for which they can exploit their expertise.

just my thoughts.

Re:Use a computer? No thanks

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

but there IS a sony camcorder that DOES burn to mini-DVD-Rs.

And for your information, i've been using my DVD-R for archival purposes.

*coughporncough*

How about text on the /data/ side of the CD?

[usrerco]

Has anyone figured out how to burn text on the /data/ side? That'd be sweet.

Often my CD's have a lot of unused tracks in the outer rings that seem ripe for use.

Surely someone out there has made a patch for cdrecord(1) to burn short ascii text messages to the data side, or if it supports multiple lines, and there's enough free space, one could go nuts with banner(6) or figlet(6) %^D

Re:How about text on the /data/ side of the CD?

[Anonymous Coward]

great idea! oh but wait - it looks like yamaha beat you to it!

rtfa next time.

Re:How about text on the /data/ side of the CD?

[devaudio]

How about you reading the article? There is a paragraph on how exactly it's different from Yamaha HP's technology differs from Yamaha's DiscT@2, introduced a year ago on the CRW-F1 CD-RW drive (see "Tattoo You: Burn Your Own CD Labels"). DiscT@2 burns a label on the disc's underside, reducing the amount of data the disc can store; and the exposure of the data side renders it more easily scratched or scuffed

Re:HP is looking for the next ink cartridge cash c

[static int]

Permanent markers are always best, unless you need to write more information than a few simple words. Which is what I suspect most people need. Labels are much easier, when you want to list multiple items that are on the cd. The problem, however is that the labels can cause lots of problems. Causing the media to wobble and reduce read times, or worse coming loose while spinning in the drive. This "new" printing tech, sounds like it can fix these problems quite well. I'm sure drives (and media) for this will become much cheaper over time as the ever increasing drive speeds warrant using it.

Just FYI, to anyone who has newer cd roms/writers: #1 use all 4 screws #2 don't use labels unless absolutely necessary

No more chewing off labels.

[Zeromusta]

This sounds stacks better than print 'n' stick on labels.

My poor little 8x Creative CD-ROM didn't take to one of those, ripping it off and doing wonders to it innards.

But now I have no excuse for leaving thousands of unlabeled CD's floating round the house.

*smiles*

Speed

[Tomato3]

The FAQ at: http://www.lightscribe.com/ says it can take 1-15 min to burn a label depending on how detailed the image is.

Already been done??

[Recovering Anonymous]

Didn't Yamaha have something like this a few years back? Anyone, anyone, Bueller?

Re:Use a computer? No thanks

[Lord Kano]

The real leap forward will occur when this is built into camcorders and other media recording devices.

Have you ever tried to edit video using a camcorder?

Trust me, you don't want to.

The whole idea behind connecting the camera to a computer just so you can save the data on a disc that won't be played on a computer anyway, not to mention printing labels for the disc, is crazy and redundant.

I guess that if you shoot the video just like you want it,down to the frame, you'll never have to edit it.

Though it is a necessary stopgap until we get these technologies into the cameras, the computer is just another barrier to the development of user-created media.

Until we have huge stores of flash memory and a psychokinetic UI, the computer is the best way to manage and prepare "user-created" content.

LK

You must buy the cheapest discs on the market!

[Anonymous Coward]

Any good (expensive) discs would have the reflective layer covered with plastic. TDK, Mitsui and what have you are some of the brands that make "regular CDRs" and believe me, the silver stuff doesn't flake off.

steganography...

[GuruHal]

You have to wonder with the imaging application for doing graphics and the nature of CD data - tis this could lead to some steganography applications. The laser will be able to output data in such a way as to create graphics while the CD is rotating, so it can probably be programmed to read that same data and you get some pretty cool steganography applications....
I would think it would be easy to hide data in a picture made of 1s and 0s.

Nice Idea but Wrong Company

[f0rt0r]

Remember who we are talking about-HP. Aka offshore outsourcing, firing Bruce Perens, selling half-full inkjet cartridges...I wouldn't buy anything from them in a million years.

Re:Nice Idea but Wrong Company

[nettdata]

Add to that the fact that I've had nothing but problems with their device drivers, especially with my OSX box, and I'd have to agree with you.

I, too, will never buy another HP product.

Why did it take them so long.....

[tiger99]

I was rummaging around trying to find a ribbon for my CD label printer some time ago, and wondered why I needed one at all. The solution was obvious. It could have been implemented in the first CD writer, long before I thought I would ever need a CD writer for backup. It needed no new technological breakthrough, just the application of what was well-known at the time.

I expect that a few thousand (million?) others had also had that same thought at some time.

The sad fact is that millions of people have good ideas and are far too busy trying to survive to be able to get embroiled in serious product development. In any case, only a large corporation could afford to do this, the prototype would likely have cost millions.

It is unfortunate that the principles of open source can't work in hardware development, where mechanisms, mouldings and precise little bits are concerned. Otherwise, we could have lots of things sooner.

It is only going to get worse as technology advances. What gets developed depends entirely on the whims of the marketing men, an area where people of the greatest imagination are rarely to be found.

It is worth remembering that a boy called Humphrey Potter created the first self-acting steam engine, and therefore laid the foundation for the Industrial Revolution, because he had better things to do than open and shut valves sequentially all day. Humphrey Potter actually achieved what the Convicted Monopolist has never achieved, and never will, he really invented something useful and innovative. It is sad that such real grass-roots innovation is scarcely possible nowadays, even the simplest thing involves far too much expense. Humphrey Potter's requirements were simple, and within reach of most people: string and pulleys for example.

Now this latest "invention" will not have the effect of Humphrey Potter's work (he caused massive unemployment of engine boys, including himself!), but the fact remains that it is late, and was not spotted by any of the large corporations who make CD and DVD writers, until recently.

Manufacturing industry needs to find a way of listening to the modern-day Humphrey Potters, not the ever so slow marketing men.

a dime more

[gumpish]

...and that a disc will cost about a dime more than today's discs.

In other words, twice as much.

According to the FAQ....

[TheWart]

I went to the site for the company licensing the technology, and according to their FAQ, a "simple" image/lettering takes about a minute, but more complex ones can take up to fifteen.

I am guessing the one in the PC World article, the Vacation one, would take ~15 as it is fairly intricate.

I think this is really neat, as it is basically free when comparing it to the ink that my printers seem to guzzle.

Printable CDs?

[merphle]

How do you get them to roll through the typewriter? Every time I try, the data keeps flaking off...

Re:Printable CDs?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I had mod points. That was the funniest thing I've read all week. Generic diet soda came out my nose.

don't bother

[RMH101]

great burner, but T@2 is rubbish: near enough invisible even on the high contrast disks supplied with the drive. complete waste of time.

*yawn*.. Old news..

[helf]

Jeez, info about this drive has been around for weeks now.

That gives me an idea

[Phurd Phlegm]

I'd really like one of these, but I should be able to put anything in there and etch it. And while they're at it, remove the CD size restriction by just letting me set it on something. The possibilities for custom brand/tattoos are obvious, not to mention the vandalism potential.

There's this guy that keeps parking his crap SUV (a Ford Extrusion) in two spots near the door. I could cover his windshield with etched-in fake parking tickets (you know, the ones that say something like "you are guilty of excessive rudeness and low genetic potential).

I'd go to a thousand bucks for a unit. For CDs, I'll just keep using a Sharpie, thanks.

Sanford has been making these for years

[wondafucka]

They're called sharpies and you can get them for less than a dollar.

I can't wait...

[switcha]

to start burning discs with "This side down" etched into the top.

new dvd burner - now with blue crystals!

[Anonymous Coward]

fnord

Labels GOOD

[jridley]

The only time I've had the reflective stuff come off is when I DIDN'T put labels on. Then it has a chance of getting scratched off. The sticker actually protects the top layer from damage.

I'm not using great (Mitsui, etc) media, I'm using cheap but not crap (Imation, Fuji, etc).

I have literally THOUSANDS of discs with sticky labels on them, and have never had one fail.

Re:Cool !! REALLY BLANK CD Blanks

[Glasswire]

One positive effect from this is that the writeable top CD disks will have to be free from manufacturer logos either etched or printed. I'd almost pay 10 cents more per disk right now for if I could find really "blank" disks with no marks on them. Verbatim used to have some wonderful pure white surfaces with NOTHING on them, but I can't seem to find these any more...
I'm tired of advertiseing for a disc maker every time a give a CD away...

I KNEW there was a reason ....

[Fred Smythe]

...I hadn't bought a DVD burner yet. That's just an awesome idea, and so long as these front-writable CD's are still usable in the current generation of drives, I can see them getting adapted as a standard pretty quickly and simply absorbed into the costs of the media development. So DVD media prices might drop a LITTLE slower...

Chicken / Egg doesn't apply

[zipwow]

I don't think that problem applies here, because the CDs aren't so special that they're the *only* thing that works with this burner, or that they don't work in the 2 zillion CD players already out there.

The people considering buying this burner with its 'etching' ability aren't constrained by the decisions that other people make. This makes their decision all about value, and not about speculation.

-Zipwow

Here's the HP Web site: www.lightscribe.com

[tabedini]

Folks, Check out their Web site @ http://www.lightscribe.com. They have all the information you'd need there.

Stupid.

[senatorpjt]

This is really stupid.

Any information on how long it takes to burn the picture? I assume it'll take just as long as burning the data, even longer if you're not using all of the data side (The images will probably take up the entire image side). Plus, you have to get up and flip the disc over.

Which, even with the fastest drives today, takes a lot longer than just writing it with a sharpie.

Re:Stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude,

Why is the technology "stupid" if you're not smart enough to go to their Web site and read their FAQs?

Copying DVD, Label and All?

[fadunk]

I wonder if it would be possible using this to copy the label of a DVD as well. I mean, if the image is created by the DVD laser, could it be read by it?

Every drive?

[KamuZ]

What it could be interesting, is to make current DVD drivers to burn this kind of media, because then you will have to buy HP drives, like Yamaha did with Tattoo technology.

hmm

[Flunitrazepam]

"Wow -- remember Yamaha's DiscT@2?"

Nope.

It's not about profit margins.

[MC_Cancer_Pants]

My guess is that we end users are going to pay much more than just a dime xtra for those CD medias.. :(

I disagree. As simple and stupid as it may sound, I for one see this as a disruptive technology. Sometimes the DTs aren't the most innovative technologies, but ones that solve age-old problems. The technology itself doesn't seem to me as if it would cost more. So they aren't going to make HUGE profit margins by introducing this technology; but, when $10 extra buys a burner wish this technology, the average consumer would realize that it's not much more than the average CD-marker set.

Naturally, most all sales will be routed to this new technology and the producers that don't adapt will go under.

I suggest The Innovator's Dilemma as a wonderful look at the effects of disruptive technologies over time. It's all a matter of meeting the consumer demands where they are noticable (though may not seem important to you) to the consumer.

Bah.. CD Burning is so...

[CamSauce]

.. cliche. Get with the non-burning emulating crowd via Alcohol 120% and its excellent virtual drive feature. I haven't burned a cd in months.

burn me up Scotty

[eamonman]

Right, well, I sure hope that they didn't come up with a laser that actually allowed you to burn labels on ALL cd types. I'm envisioning high wattage lasers. My poor cheapo CD's I bought using the latest Techbargains deal would find themselves burned all the way through the plastic and medium. Neat! ;D

Re:Cool !! REALLY BLANK CD Blanks

[Fareq]

Try CD-Rs that are "Ink-jet printable"

They all come with a nice blank white surface on them. And if you have a spiffy printer, you can print on them.

The top, of course, has a surface much like paper -- but it doesn't say anything on it...

Lighter

[John5788]

I bet you if I got a hold of one of the special CDs required to make the design and held a lighter up to it, the label would probably start changing colors.

Re:Cool !! - ha!

[d.valued]

Yamaha beat this one to the punch, and it uses REGULAR MEDIA.

Link: http://www.yamahamultimedia.com/yec/tech/discta2_0 1.asp

This DiskT@2(tm) lets you burn an image or text on the unused portion of a CD-R or (potentially) DVD-R, using laser pulses a tenth the duration of those used in the actual burn.

Why not copy labels too?

[WeeGadget]

I'll cough up the extra $10 when it can:
1. Read Metallica CD audio data
2. Write copy of Metallica CD audio data
3. Read Mettalica CD label
4. Write copy of Mettalica CD label

I'm holding out for step 3!

Jono

8->14

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't that be 75% redundancy?

Re:8-14

[lxs]

Wouldn't that be 75% redundancy?

I'm not sure how you manage to get 75%.
This is my reasoning: I may be wrong: 8 bits of data are 'spread' over 14 bits

8/14 = 57% is original data -> 43% is redundant.

or "about 40%" when I calculated it quickly in my head.

You just watch...

[Ben Urban]

...within about a month I can write a program that can convert a monochrome image into an ISO file that, when burned, will do the same thing to the same disks without having shell out extra money for the drive. I'll even release it under the GPL! Hmmm... probably should make that two months (no experience working with a deadline...). Actaully, it may be a bit longer, since I know nothing of image file formats or ISO file formats...

Why yes, I did think of this a few years ago (I just never bothered to tell anyone, since I figured there would be no use for the technology).