Lightscribe Technology

Not so much a review of a particular product, more a “head’s up” of a very quiet advancement of technology, really.

Now recordable CD’s have been around for about 10 years now. The prices of the recorders and the blank media has dropped, the recording speeds have increased and the reliability of the recording process has been made almost “coaster-free” by the advancement of technology.

Who's 'ad me pens?
The fact is however, once you’ve burnt a few CDRs, you end up, ‘less you’re careful, with a few dozen identical looking CD’s. Your special CD compatible felt-tip pens never seem to be where you left them last, and your special circular ink-jet sticky paper labels are fiddly to apply, (even when you can actually find that plastic top-hat-like alignment gadget thingy) and prone to smudging when handled with wet fingers and snagging in your CD-drive at the first sign of “lifting”.

In the last year or so, printable CDR’s have slowly increased in popularity – so for those with newer, compatible printers, you load the printable CD into the printer like a sheet of unbendable card. However…you never can tell when the ink cartridge will expire, or block…and that’s your one-shot gone.

So…what’s the new alternative? Well, if you thought that “Lightscribe” was the Star Wars fans term for those flashy laser swords that Darth Vader swished around so much, then, you’d be roughly in the same mind-set I was in up until a couple of weeks ago.

Lightscribe technology is a new way of printing your own custom titles and graphics directly onto the label side of a CDR. Do you need a special CD-Printer? Nope… Do you need to make sure your ink-jet cartridges are ready? Nope. Do you need to go and find those circular CD labels? Nope.

Flippin' 'eck
Lightscribe technology uses the CD-drives own laser to etch your titles and graphics onto the label side of the CDR. So..you burn your CD as normal, flip it over, and burn the label. Easy-peasy.

What you do need is a Lightscribe compatible CD-rom drive, starting from under £30, and Lightscribe CDR’s which have a special laser sensitive coating on their labelling side.

Is writing with light, light on the pocket?
Costs of the Lightscribe CDR’s are around £5 for a box of 10 x 80min CDRs in jewel cases. True, ordinary blank CDRs would be around £2.50 for 10 x non- Lightscribe CDR’s in jewel cases, roughly £1.00 for 10 x Press-it CD labels, and what? A 50th of the cost/contents of a colour and a black ink-jet cartridge…? 50p for 10 x CD labels? Making the non-lightscribe costs £4.00 to provide, print, and provide safe storage for 10 CDR’s. At this point, we must ask; “ah, but what price, convenience?”.

Ink-jet printable CDRs too started off notably more expensive than their unprintable counterparts, but that price difference eroded quickly so there is perhaps little to suggest that Lightscribe blank media wont do the same, especially when it becomes more readily available in cake/spindle packs, rather than just jewel cases as quoted above.

It's all black'n'white ('n'Gold...init)
The first observations that I would make about Lightscribe discs would be that the unprinted label side looks a soft, matt, brushed gold colour, with little to suggest that its anything unusual. In the very centre of the disc, surrounding the centre hole, is a 2~3mm collar of intricate barcode designs, which the Lightscribe system uses to orientate and synchronise the label burning on the spinning disc.

Some examples can be seen by clicking here.

Time goes by, so slowly
Aside from the slightly higher costs of the blank Lightscribe discs, the only other slight detrimental point is the time taken to print the label. In a heavy mixture of graphics and text covering the entire side of the disc, choosing the “Best” option out of three print quality settings, around 20 minutes elapsed – that figure excludes the burning of the audio material (which was 25 tracks of my un-signed cat, gargling phlegm after various hearty meals).

The label burn time varies with the amount of information contained on the label, the placement of the information on the label, the contrast level selected, the LightScribe disc used and the drive. This process is all attended to as a background task, so you can feel free to log into DJU and catch up on the latest, whilst you wait for your label to print.

The LightScribe system burns the image in concentric, circular rings from the inside diameter to the outside diameter of the label surface. Rings that contain no image data are "skipped". A simple, circular title, such as a Title Mode Label, is accomplished most quickly because the information is limited to a circular rings close to the inside diameter. A Lightscribed disc can be re-lightscribed. To add extra labelling etc – just keep the first template saved somewhere, so you know which bits you want to add, and where.

The drive which I purchased came with the latest version of Nero, complete with additional software options built-in, to utilise the lightscribe technology and options to the fullest.

Label output was extremely high quality. I was a little sceptical at first, prior to burning my first label. Would it be low-resolution, only allowing blocky lego-like lettering and crude graphics? Would the task of it printing straight lines on a spinning disc prove too much? I needn’t have worried. Straight lines were straight, fine detail remained fine, subtle shading effects which I added to large letters to add depth remained both visible and viable.

We fade to grey
If I had to say anything detrimental in the output quality of the laser etched label, I would say that it would be nicer, darker. Blacks appeared on the Immation discs which I tried, as medium~dark greys, although still an awful lot more professional looking than almost central paper sticky labels.

Conclusion: Goodbye sticky labels and dried up, costly CDR pens. – Lightscribe is my new chosen method of disc labelling.

In adittion to the above - NEC also have their very own version called LabelFlash.

This is taken from their site:
Labelflash™ – faster labelling of self-burned DVDs

Innovative Labelflash™ technology simplifies the labelling of self-burned DVDs – e.g. for easy archiving – and also enables creative disc design. Eliminating the need for messy paper labelling systems, which are especially ineffective at high speeds and can damage the disc and drive. Labelflash™ offers a professional-looking, reliable alternative.



Labelflash™ delivers high image quality, in 256 different shades. The labelling process can take as little as seven minutes, depending on the resolution selected. Both the top side and the data side of the disc can be labelled. To burn images on the top of the disc requires specialised media. Labelflash™ discs have a special top coating, 0.6 millimetre-thick, which ensures the image will not fade. However using Labelflash™ you can burn images on to the data side of any standard disc, in an area not already written with data.

I have a philips lightscribe and have to say they are a bit disappointing. You need to take the image you are burning to the label side and apply a very strong contrast to it. Even then it comes out ok but not great. Other downside is that it takes 20 mins to burn the label image to disk!!!

The other problem is the cost of the media. Way too much.

IMHO, your better of buying printable disks.

Another alternative is the Epson Stylus Photo R340 ... Capable of producing stunning colour results directly onto the CD ...



A friend recently gave his latest album on CD and the artwork was truly stunning in full colour! ... Poly sleaves are the future ...

Does anyone know if the lightscribe drives have shortened laser life because of this?

I would imagine that it does, but then again, with internal lighstscribe enabled drives available for under £20 now, it doesnt matter a great deal.

Incidently, Lightscribe drives now burn with a much higher (user selectable) contrast. At the very highest setting, they give very good results, although the printing time goes up from 16 mins to 22 minutes for a full surface photo type print.

The coloured discs are now available too. Pretty good.

Helpful post Gary, I wondered what my lightscribe DVD/RW did!