| Dymo, the industry standard in label printing, brings us their newest creation, the DiscPainter. The DiscPainter is a dedicated peripheral for printing labels onto inkjet-printable CD/DVD media. Dymo was kind enough to send us not one, but two DiscPainters, so read the review to the end to see what we are going to do with the spare. | {mosimage} |
The Dymo DiscPainter is a dedicated three color (cyan-yellow-magenta) inkjet printer designed to work exclusively with printable optical media. Now while disc printing has been available for several years on inkjet printers, those systems were created for printing on paper (and other similar media), not for printing on circular optical discs. I will discuss this further, later on.
Unboxing/Installation
The DiscPainter ships in a stylish cardboard box that is more decorative than sturdy. This packaging is meant for retail shelves and is designed to catch your eye. Inside, there is an injection molded plastic insert that houses the following:
- The DiscPainter Printer
- A/C Power adaptor
- USB cable
- Discus for DYMO Software
- Tri-color ink cartridge
- Some blank media
- QuickStart Guide
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Installation was simple enough on my systems: insert the ink cartridge into the printer after you have removed all of the packing material; insert the CD and install the software; connect the printer to power and attach the USB cable to your system.
The install went flawlessly on my Vista 32-bit system, however Vista x64 is currently not supported. I contacted Dymo support and they informed me that Vista x64 support is currently underway. If you want to use this device on a Vista x64 system, you will have to install a virtual machine in order to host it. I tested this unit with Sun’s Virtualbox and it works quite well.
On my Mac Pro there was a small glitch that was introduced with Leopard 10.5.5. In order to allow the Mac to see the DiscPainter, the user must connect to the Mac’s hidden CUPS interface and make a small change. Once this is accomplished, the unit is recognized by the OS and can be used normally. The exact instructions can be found here. (This problem was reported on support.apple.com with the release of Leopard 10.5.5 – http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2330).
{mospagebreak title=General Purpose Inkjet vs DiscPainter}
General Purpose Inkjet
In order to get an inkjet printer to properly imprint on optical media, special trays or inserts have to be used and the printer needs to be switched over to handle such media. This is a very popular feature on Epson branded inkjet printers. The print head swings from left to right and back again as it was designed for printing on paper and other flat media as opposed to circular optical media. This make for some complex printing tasks if the label to be printed includes curved writing. Also, most, if not all, printer drivers do not distinguish between the types of printable optical media: matte, glossy, and silver. Also, mounting the disc tray insert on the printer requires switching the printer into a special mode and properly inserting the disc tray. If the tray does not align properly then there can be problems.
For inkjet printers that cannot print directly to printable optical media, there are various adhesive paper labels that can be printed in a standard inkjet. Applying the label can be tricky and, if improperly applied, may throw the disc out of balance. The labels can come off if their adhesive gets stale and they are known to cause problems with certain slot-load drives.
DiscPainter
The DiscPainter was designed to print exclusively on optical media. The unit is incapable of printing on anything else. In fact, the Dymo DiscPainter features patented RadialPrint Technology which keeps the print head stationary and moves the spinning disc underneath it. Your disc prints as it spins from the inner-hub to the outer-edge – think of this as SpinArt on steroids!
{mospagebreak title=LightScribe vs DiscPainter}
LightScribe
LightScribe is a technology pioneered and developed by HP. LightScribe uses the writing laser to etch a specially coated disc with an image. The LightScribe burning process is similar to DiscPainter’s RadialPrint except that the spinning disc is stationary and head moves back and forth. Other differences are that LigthScribe labels are monochromatic. Complex labels can take over 20 minutes to print at high quality.
DiscPainter
As stated earlier, the DiscPainter is a three-color inkjet and can print a wide range of colors. Since it uses a tri-color cartridge, the DiscPainter has to simulate black by mixing all three colors together. The result is more a purple-black color than black on large swatches of black. Text looks fine – nice and black. Colorful images also print very well. The DiscPainter is also very fast. Dymo claims that a normal quality (600 DPI) disc can be printed in about a minute. My testing confirms this claim. Please note that if you are going to print on printable silver discs, you have to bump up the print quality and that will add to the print times. The Discus for DYMO software includes easy to follow ink density settings so that you can adjust the ink allocation based on the disc surface type you are printing on – matte, glossy or silver.
{mospagebreak title=Pricing}
Pricing and Availability
The Dymo DiscPrinter lists for $279.95 and the replacement ink cartridge is $39.95. The cartridge is good for about 100 discs with full color and coverage. The DiscPainter can use any matte, glossy or silver printable discs (which go as low as 6� per disc) and can use 120mm and 80mm discs. Non-circular discs (such as disc cards) are not supported.
{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}
Conclusion
The Dymo DiscPainter is a bit of a one-trick pony, however the trick it does is quite impressive. I prefer to think of the Dymo DiscPainter as a single-role fighter – designed for doing one thing and doing it very well. The company’s claim of photorealistic disc labels in under a minute is no lie. The discs emerge dry and ready to use. The printing process does not alter the balance of the discs and the software is extremely easy-to-use.
The discs produced by this system are only limited by your imagination. The Discus for DYMO software included has many built-in templates for you to use and you can supply your own photos as well. If you produce media for a client, you will not fail to impress using the Dymo DiscPainter.
I could only find two downsides to this product and both will be addressed over time. The first is a lack of drivers for the x64 platform, forcing x64 users to rely on virtual machines or a spare computer to host the device. 64-bit drivers are currently under development.
The second is price. The unit is a little pricey but that is due to it’s newness. Over time the market will drive prices down.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Lightning fast (full bleed photo-realistic labels in about a minute)
- Compact
- Easy-to-use
- Media is easy to find
- Easy to make impressive looking disc labels
- Can be printed before or after the data burn
Cons
- Pricey
- No initial support for x64 Windows
- Mostly black labels look muddy due to lack of true black ink
{mospagebreak title=DiscPainter Giveaway}
The folks at Dymo were kind enough to send us a second DiscPainter to give away. In order to win this excellent device, just send us email telling us what you would use the DiscPrinter for. We will select the best essay and post it at PlanetAMD64 in the contest thread. Essays are due in no later than 12 PM EST(GMT -5) on 12/20/2008.