I'm planning on purchasing a Light Scribe Driver for my computer to make album covers. What is best recommended; an external, or internal drive?

They're the same, really. You'll pay more for the external drive because it's in an enclosure - the internal one you'll have to install yourself.

Really, just pick what's easiest and best for you. Personally, I'd say if you have the drive space in your main computer, put it in there and the hell with the external drive.

-r-

I went with an external.... I highly recommend an external for the simple fact that you can unplug and take it and go....plug into whatever computer you want to run it from and away ya go.

The difference in money is really very little.

Understand that printing from a LightScribe writer takes time. I'd guess to average it takes about 15-20 minutes per CD to print a label regardless if I select Best or Better on the settings.

http://www.lightscribe.com/

I mainly use the labeling for my wedding clients. I will burn all their event songs on a LightScribe CD and burn a nice wedding label on it for their memories. Definitely a nice way to show your appreciation to customers and a nice advertisement for yourself....if you put your business name, website, and or phone number.

Good luck my friend in no matter your decision.

Lightscribe scares me - if only for the fact it's burning the top layer of your CD which happens to be very close to the reflective layer. And, as we all know, the reflective layer is usually more susceptible to damage than the face of the CD.

i use lightscribe for demos mostly... I've never had any problem with it damaging the CD.

I recorded my entire archive on lightscribe cd's (thats about 300+ CD's) and I did not encouter any problems yet (I used the cd's for almost a year).

The only problem about lightscribe media is, you cant get a high quality cd's like Taiyo Yudens. I use verbatims but they are mostly Moser Baer or CMC Magnetics (TDK uses CMC magnetics as well) and these are not first class media producers. They are 2nd class media producers. Thats the only thing I worry about but I always surface scan the cd's I've written with Nero DiscSpeed and they are %99.8 error or bad sector free.

As I said, I used these cd's over a year and I did not encounter any problems. It makes your archive look cool and organized.

I know it's safe and well tested, but I still can't justify the cost.

I don't see it being used in the way I expected. I thought all of us would run this tech down, but it seems to be less prevelant then expected...

Still a better alternative to the scary labels that will someday peel off...

yeah, obviously better than my handwriting on the cd's

quote:

Originally posted by Pulse:
I know it's safe and well tested, but I still can't justify the cost.

the cost is nothing. i paid $80 for the USB burner and media cost exactly the same.

just bought one about a month ago. works great

I guess the price on the blanks has dropped then - last time I looked they were 4x more for the media. I know the price of the drives is down to about $1 more than non-LS drives (which are between $35 and $45).

Speaking of LightScribe....

So far i have only been able to find yellow/gold colored media... Has anyone found any other colors? I am trying to find something with maximum contrast.

quote:

Originally posted by solefald:
Speaking of LightScribe....

So far i have only been able to find yellow/gold colored media... Has anyone found any other colors? I am trying to find something with maximum contrast.

They're out there though I've never used them before. Just go onto Google or any other search and type in "Lightscribe color media" and you should get back some good hits.

yeah, i came across some colored ones at the store, but i would much prefer is they had them in silver instead of retarded yellow,blue,green,red and magenta.


I also found an article that suggest burning a label, closing CD burner tray again without touching the disc and re-burning label again. Time consuming, but good idea. I actually tried that, but wasn't really pleased with the result.
Re-burning the label again made it darker, BUT it also made it look like vinyl grooves in some places...

It's complete not cost effective, but i'm seriously considering buying one of these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irP6q7T8bX8

Very impressive output.

LMAO @ video. I love the "adhesive labels" bit - first, they didn't use the "jewelcase guide" to centre it and second, they put the label on the WRONG SIDE of the disc so no wonder the player said "no disc".

Looks like a cool product - but Froogle only shows it at two locations for $280. I had looked at disc printers before, they're expensive. At least this is in the ballpark but doesn't seem to really be on the market...?

yah, the video is classic. it looks like it does a really nice job at printing.

it is released though. they have it at amazon and CDW which are 2 of the biggest retailers out there. maybe it will be under the xmas tree

Why, are you buying me one? LOL

yes, this is very nice, but this thing is the same as inkjet printer, which now days would ONLY work if you have full set of cartridges installed, meaning that you have to have 5(!!!) fully functional cartridges installed to make this thing work. That would be at least $60 you would have to spend on ink every month.