W
e’ve been pretty laid back about it up to now, but it’s time to put
the smackdown on bad disc-labeling jobs, be they quick chick-
en-scratch with a Sharpie pen or poorly centered adhesive labels. After
all, we’re graced with two capable methods for dressing up CDs and
DVDs these days: photo printers capable of extremely sharp, full-color
printing onto special disc media, and LightScribe, which can burn animage onto special media using the same laser that burns the data,
audio, or video onto the other side of the disc. Obviously, if you want
color, you go with a color printer, and if you want to avoid the trouble
of printers and ink, you go with LightScribe. For those who are on the
fence and could go either way, let the games begin.Disc-Labeling Battle
PRINT QUALITY
Well, there’s no contest here. By modulating the strength
of the drive’s burning laser, LightScribe technology can print impressively
smooth gray-scale gradients, but it’s unable to reproduce very light or
very dark shades. There are rumors of a color LightScribe drive around
the corner, but if it were up to us we’d rather have nice, inky blacks than
weak color. Obviously, LightScribe is no match for a six-color photo
printer like the Epson R220 (pictured here) for printing photo-quality
images and dark black text. WINNER: PHOTO PRINTERPHOTO PRINTER
Epson Stylus R220,
$100, http://www.epson.comhead 2 headTWO TECHNOLOGIES ENTER, ONE TECHNOLOGY LEAVES
round 1
BY LOGAN DECKER16 MA XIMUMPC NOVEMBER 2005