DVD DL w/ Lightscribe....suggestions?

[Artful Dodger]

mandoman

I really would love to get a lightscribe drive, but there are only
a few manufacturers making media (hp,tdk,verbatim) and the media
is ridiculously expensive. Until I can get unbranded Taiyo-Yuden
lightscribe disc <$1 per dvd, forget it.

I recommend a cheap epson printer with cd/dvd inket printing
and an NEC 3540a internal burner until then...

Yeah, I have a R300 for my dvds to print on but some in other forums think that the drives are the reason for slow labeling. Not true as it's the dvd/cds that control the label burn speed The three main (HP, TDK, Verbatium) dvd Lightscribe vendors are coming out with faster label media but I can't find out as to when. When it starts to take say 5 mins to do a label then I may update my LaCie to a NEC drive but for now, R300 and some Krylon Artist clear spray (smudge and water resistant) goes along way

 

[Tapani]

The LG DVD drive I'm referring to is the GSA-2166D. According to LG's site it is Windows compatible but nothing about Mac. http://us.lge.com/Product/prodlist....02&parent2levelId=0000000002&category_level=4. Guess I'll keep looking.

This may come late, may be You have got allready a new drive?
I just plugged GSA-2166D in USB 2 on my Mac mini, without installing any drivers what ever. It´s just working fine when talking about burning.
I´m looking for a lightscribe software to get that side fixed, but I´m not in hurry with it.

 

[zagato27]

This may come late, may be You have got allready a new drive?
I just plugged GSA-2166D in USB 2 on my Mac mini, without installing any drivers what ever. It´s just working fine when talking about burning.
I´m looking for a lightscribe software to get that side fixed, but I´m not in hurry with it.

Nope, haven't gotten a drive yet. The LG is looking better with the info you gave me. Please post when/if you get the lightscribe software working. Cheers

 

[themacmaestro]

I've got a G5 with a superdrive. I would like to upgrade the drive to a DL with lightscribe. Thought I'd found the perfect solution: LG DL external with lightscribe BUT it's not Mac compatible . Anyone know of any DL burners with lightscribe that are Mac compatible? I'd be interested in a internal IF someone could convince me that it is feasible for me, a rank novice with computers, to remove and install an internal DVD DL to replace my superdrive. Thanks in advance. Cheers

have you looked at the LaCie external DVD burner??? Apple sells them as do other for about $150

 

[zagato27]

have you looked at the LaCie external DVD burner??? Apple sells them as do other for about $150

Yes, I've been looking at a LaCie that comes with Toast Titanium for about $180 with lightscribe and is a DL. However the LG seems to have caught my fancy for $129. Course I'd have to buy Toast on my own. I've seen it for about $40 after rebates so it's kind of a wash. Still thinking, maybe Santa will leave me something . Cheers

 

[Tapani]

Nope, haven't gotten a drive yet. The LG is looking better with the info you gave me. Please post when/if you get the lightscribe software working. Cheers

Good news!
I´ve just made my first lightscribe labelled CD, a picture of our two sons, etc. What I did, 1st downloaded LS hp 1.4.44.1 lightscribe driver for OS X from HP at http://www.smileonmymac.com/disclabel/download.html. Then downloaded disclabel 3.0 at the same site. (It by the way today looks like the latest HP driver v. is 1.4.56.1, haven´t tried it yet.) Above combination installed on my Mac mini with OS X 10.4.3 was key to succes in my case.
So I´m glad, I got LG GSA-2166D Lightscribe side to work allso, my drive is made oct. 2005 and has ROM v. 1.00.
The drive burns fine with iTunes, iPhoto, iDVD etc. and BurnX Free 1.5 and FireStarter_FX-1.0b10, that´s what I´ve got time for testing so far.
Hope this helps You to decide.

 

[zagato27]

Good news!
I´ve just made my first lightscribe labelled CD, a picture of our two sons, etc. What I did, 1st downloaded LS hp 1.4.44.1 lightscribe driver for OS X from HP at http://www.smileonmymac.com/disclabel/download.html. Then downloaded disclabel 3.0 at the same site. (It by the way today looks like the latest HP driver v. is 1.4.56.1, haven´t tried it yet.) Above combination installed on my Mac mini with OS X 10.4.3 was key to succes in my case.
So I´m glad, I got LG GSA-2166D Lightscribe side to work allso, my drive is made oct. 2005 and has ROM v. 1.00.
The drive burns fine with iTunes, iPhoto, iDVD etc. and BurnX Free 1.5 and FireStarter_FX-1.0b10, that´s what I´ve got time for testing so far.
Hope this helps You to decide.

Thanks so much for giving me the latest info. The LG is looking better and better. I like it's features and knowing that it works with Tiger and the lightscribe portion will work is swaying me towards it and away from the LaCie. I do like the fact that the LaCie comes bundled with Toast Titanium 7 BUT it is more expensive and I've already got Popcorn. Still time to get my Xmas wish out to the family. Who knows?

Thanks again for your help. Cheers

 

[Peyote]

Just bought an LG external a few days ago. DVD burning works with my mini out of the box. Lightscribe features work after installing DiscLabel.

 

[AtHomeBoy_2000]

Just checked out LaCie site. The LaCie d2 DVD±RW with LightScribe looks good, Mac compatible.

I have it. It's wonderful. you need to burn the Lightscribe part twice to get the label to really pop, but it burns great and the label making software is easy to use.

 

[zagato27]

Good news!
I´ve just made my first lightscribe labelled CD, a picture of our two sons, etc. What I did, 1st downloaded LS hp 1.4.44.1 lightscribe driver for OS X from HP at http://www.smileonmymac.com/disclabel/download.html. Then downloaded disclabel 3.0 at the same site. (It by the way today looks like the latest HP driver v. is 1.4.56.1, haven´t tried it yet.) Above combination installed on my Mac mini with OS X 10.4.3 was key to succes in my case.
So I´m glad, I got LG GSA-2166D Lightscribe side to work allso, my drive is made oct. 2005 and has ROM v. 1.00.
The drive burns fine with iTunes, iPhoto, iDVD etc. and BurnX Free 1.5 and FireStarter_FX-1.0b10, that´s what I´ve got time for testing so far.
Hope this helps You to decide.

Well, I got the LG GSA 2166D for Christmas. So far so good. I have used it to burn a DL DVD using Popcorn. Was a bit surprised in that even adjusting Popcorn to burn DL and using the LG drive Popcorn still says that it used compression. Hmmmm, thought there was more than enought room on the DL to burn a movie that was less than 8gb. Any insight on that would be helpfull.

NOW, I took your advice and downloaded then purchased DiscLabel 3.0. Oh yes, downloaded the latest HP lightscribe driver too. I read a bit of the help file and saw where you should have your drive ON or Disclabel won't recognize it. Well, the LG drive is always "on". Seems to only show the "green" light when acutally burning. Selected the media and the only lightscribe media I have currently is Verbatium DVD+R. When I imported some iTunes tracks (no I'm not actually planning on burning to DVD) but wanted to go through the process) the menu for printing just shows my Canon i560 printer. I can't seem to find my LG. Think I need some tips on this one. I'll keep trying, gosh trial and error stinks. Cheers

 

[zagato27]

OK, think I found it. In the media section I scrolled down to Lightscribe and checked it off. Found the drive and now I have 3 options: content label, full label, and title label. Here's what I have and want. Background picture and album tracks. So which option? When I select full label the background pictures shows but no album tracks. If I go with the full label option will the tracks show up???? Hey, I'm getting there. This is cool. Can't wait til I actually print one of these puppies out. Cheers.

 

[zagato27]

I have it. It's wonderful. you need to burn the Lightscribe part twice to get the label to really pop, but it burns great and the label making software is easy to use.

Haven't tried the Lightscribe portion yet. You say that you have to burn the LS side twice. Ok, dumb question...don't understand how the second burn will center over the first one? After the first burn do you just let it stop, eject and then close the drive and burn again?

Probably find out a bit more tomorrow. Heading to Best Buy to pick up some CD-Rs with Lightscribe. Will try them out and report back. Cheers

 

[numediaman]

What have I missed here? Why would someone want Lightscribe versus simply printing on the cd itself? Printable CDs come in white, silver and metallic, they come in a variety of looks (label right to the middle, some with no branding, the rest with branding, etc.). And finally, it takes 20 to 40 seconds to print. You can buy single layer printable DVDs, and finally printable DVDs come in double layer. Not to mention that Lightscribe media costs more (at least it does at the source I use).

So why Lightscribe?

 

[zagato27]

Just bought an LG external a few days ago. DVD burning works with my mini out of the box. Lightscribe features work after installing DiscLabel.

Peyote. Just used the LS portion on the LG using the DiscLabel software and burned it twice. Looks good. I am having a problem that the LG does not show up on my desktop w/or w/out a disc in it. Tried to burn the playlist from iTunes to the already LS'd disc and iTunes could not find the disc...so I'm using the burner in my G5 (CD/DVD SL burner). I'm wondering if I should download and install patchburn????? Does your LG show up on your desktop? BTW using the latest OS X. Slowly but surely this is coming around. Cheers

 

[Artful Dodger]

numediaman
What have I missed here? Why would someone want Lightscribe versus simply printing on the cd itself? Printable CDs come in white, silver and metallic, they come in a variety of looks (label right to the middle, some with no branding, the rest with branding, etc.). And finally, it takes 20 to 40 seconds to print. You can buy single layer printable DVDs, and finally printable DVDs come in double layer. Not to mention that Lightscribe media costs more (at least it does at the source I use).

So why Lightscribe?

Well to start unless you also spend the time to spray the cd/dvds after you print them, they can smear, smudge, chip or peel. Printing to the hub is nice as I have an Epson R300 but a label that can't be damaged without causing harm to the disc itself is nice to have.
This is of course to each persons taste. Cost is subjective as you and I spend our $$ on ink and the printer itself, as where the cost of Lightscribe is within the disc itself.

Faster media is also on it's way, thus the time "to burn" and improved "burn" of the disc label will lower prices as this takes time. Dvds started out at a steep price and only burned at 1-2x with no labels

As much as I like my labels I make now, a good gray scale label on say...a silver or a white dvd/cd of the "-R format" would be just fine for me if it was faster.

 

[Greenjeens]

Well, I got the LG GSA 2166D for Christmas. So far so good. I have used it to burn a DL DVD using Popcorn. Was a bit surprised in that even adjusting Popcorn to burn DL and using the LG drive Popcorn still says that it used compression. Hmmmm, thought there was more than enought room on the DL to burn a movie that was less than 8gb. Any insight on that would be helpfull.

orgot how Popcorn worked, but on toast you have to make sure and uncheck compression or it will compress the video even if Dual layer is selected. i did that with one DVD and couldnt figure out what had happened.

Wish i had just bought Toast and skipped Popcorn. Toast does so much more it's worth it. Especially valuable is the CD TEXT feature with CD burning. No more having to enter the Disc name,like with iTunes burned CD's and usually the track names show up too!
For burning a music DVD, Toast creates a really nice DVD music menu, listing artist and title, so it's easier to find songs among the huge amount of tracks that fit on a music DVD. Also Toast allows feeding multiple discs, "disc spanning" for backing up anything in "Mac only" format (among many other formats) especially handy for archiving a large iTunes library to DVD computer disc.

I print all my CD and DVD lables with an Epson R320 with good results. Haven't had any experience with laser writing but full color, photo quality inkjet printed lables sure look nice, but I'm not entirley sure how they wear? And images are virtually unlimited and especially easy to find with a Google image search.

Maybe I haven't beat the discs enough yet, but no smear or chip problems...yet. Never heard about spray gloss, but sounds like it might be a good idea. Exactly what brand of clear spray is used to fix the print?

One thing I noticed is sometimes I wash really dirty discs in a little Dawn and running water...problem is the silver print media and especially the white printable disc media (verbatim) is not waterproof and starts peeling off with a little water and friction. So NO washing inkjet printable media!
-
Dave

 

[zagato27]

orgot how Popcorn worked, but on toast you have to make sure and uncheck compression or it will compress the video even if Dual layer is selected. i did that with one DVD and couldnt figure out what had happened.

Ok, thanks. I will check this out the next time

Wish i had just bought Toast and skipped Popcorn. Toast does so much more it's worth it. Especially valuable is the CD TEXT feature with CD burning. No more having to enter the Disc name,like with iTunes burned CD's and usually the track names show up too!

Yes, I wish iTunes had this feature. Thinking about getting Toast just for this feature.

For burning a music DVD, Toast creates a really nice DVD music menu, listing artist and title, so it's easier to find songs among the huge amount of tracks that fit on a music DVD. Also Toast allows feeding multiple discs, "disc spanning" for backing up anything in "Mac only" format (among many other formats) especially handy for archiving a large iTunes library to DVD computer disc.

I print all my CD and DVD lables with an Epson R320 with good results. Haven't had any experience with laser writing but full color, photo quality inkjet printed lables sure look nice, but I'm not entirley sure how they wear? And images are virtually unlimited and especially easy to find with a Google image search.

Maybe I haven't beat the discs enough yet, but no smear or chip problems...yet. Never heard about spray gloss, but sounds like it might be a good idea. Exactly what brand of clear spray is used to fix the print?

Can't help you on this one as I'm using Lightscribe. I've only burned a couple of CD's using it with my LG burner but I like the looks. The media that you burn the image to is a bit dark so the label is dark but it does look good. I have seen some printers that do print lables or directly on CD's but I just didn't want to mess with that. As someone said earlier, perhaps they will come out with a light colored medium that you can LightScribe.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Greenjeens
Quote:

I print all my CD and DVD lables with an Epson R320 with good results. Haven't had any experience with laser writing but full color, photo quality inkjet printed lables sure look nice, but I'm not entirley sure how they wear? And images are virtually unlimited and especially easy to find with a Google image search.

Maybe I haven't beat the discs enough yet, but no smear or chip problems...yet. Never heard about spray gloss, but sounds like it might be a good idea. Exactly what brand of clear spray is used to fix the print?

One thing I noticed is sometimes I wash really dirty discs in a little Dawn and running water...problem is the silver print media and especially the white printable disc media (verbatim) is not waterproof and starts peeling off with a little water and friction. So NO washing inkjet printable media!
-
Dave

For more labels try http://www.cdcovers.cc

As for the clear spray I use Krylon Artist Spray (clear) and it gives the dvd/cds a nice protective coat to them. I did this since the 5-7 yr olds at holiday time have "moist" fingers from juice bottles and whatnot and letting them watch a dvd ended up with a scratch here and there. So the spray works good for keeping the colors good, no peeling, keeps ink smudges away and me happy (and the uncles) from not having to replace a dvd at every family function.

 

[Tapani]

Tried to burn the playlist from iTunes to the already LS'd disc and iTunes could not find the disc...

Have you checked from iTunes Preferences which drive is default, Mac´s own or LG? I was confused with the same thing, that "iProgram" couldn´t find disc. It seems that the drive I was using the last time becomes as default, am I write? But you find it from preferences to which one to burn. It could be easier while one starts burning, a simple checkbox or whatever.
And a Happy New Year to You
Tapani

 

[zagato27]

Have you checked from iTunes Preferences which drive is default, Mac´s own or LG? I was confused with the same thing, that "iProgram" couldn´t find disc. It seems that the drive I was using the last time becomes as default, am I write? But you find it from preferences to which one to burn. It could be easier while one starts burning, a simple checkbox or whatever.
And a Happy New Year to You
Tapani

Happy New Year to you also. I imagine that you are either already in 06 or very close looking at your location. Yes, I found out how to specify the LG burner. I tried iTunes and burning a CD after I changed the default drive and I believe that iTunes could not detect it or detect that it had a blank disc. I resorted to dragging the files I wanted to the disc BUT the files were not burned in the order I had them listed. I'll keep trying. I have burned a lablel on a couple of CD's and Disclabel seems to work pretty good. The CD's played fine in my Bose single disc player in my 97 Maxima but they (the LS discs) seem to drive my son's PC using iTunes crazy. Lots of whirring. However they seem to play ok when he's using Media Player for Windows. Strange. The LS discs seem to make the superdrive in my G5 "whir" a bit also. Well, I'm just finishing burning a DL disc in the LG. We'll see how it plays. Then I need to burn a music CD on a LS disc and label it too. Hmmm, thinking of taking a photo of the disc label and posting. Gosh, this is getting pretty close to work! Bout ready to buy Toast Titanium 7 but waiting for a deal I saw just before Christmas....$40 with rebates. Cheers