Printer spins images directly onto discs

October 28, 2007 at 2:00a.m.

Making your own CDs and DVDs with a computer is old news. But making them look as good as the ones you buy is another story. In lieu of the ugly marker, which we used to scrawl upon the disc its contents came the CD label. These are first inserted into a printer and afterwards are stuck directly onto the disc. This rather inelegant solution is rife with problems. If you don’t stick them centered exactly in place, what you wind up with is a lopsided mess that can actually cause the disc to malfunction as it spins. Plus it looks bad.

To help solve this problem, some printer models have appeared that let you print directly onto the disc using CDs and DVDs that have a printable surface. And while these do a really decent job and can produce discs that rival the appearances of professionally mastered media, they can be somewhat difficult to use. Most require a special insert into which you mount the disc and require some extra setting up before you can get to the matter of printing, which can become tedious, especially when you want to print more than one.

And while the attempt to make a paper printer that’s capable of printing CDs is an admirable one, it’s an afterthought at best. Why not invent a CD printer that’s specifically designed to print CDs and DVDs from the start. Dymo has.

Dymo is introducing a brand new type of printer that’s made to print onto printable optical media. The Dymo DiscPainter is a little desktop USB 2.0 CD/DVD printer that will produce a full-color, 600 DPI image in about one minute. 1200 DPI images can be completed in around three. These faster printing speeds are realized in how the DiscPainter prints. Instead of the typical back and forth movement used by a conventional paper printer, the DiscPainter uses Dymo’s new RadialPrint that literally spins the disc as it prints onto it.

The DiscPainter is capable of printing to matte or glossy printable discs and it can print those images on the entire printable face of the disc, from the outer edge to the inner hub. Users can also select from nine ink density settings.

To print a disc, simply insert the disk and as you see it spin through the clear cover, you actually see the image appear as the printer’s head moves across the face of the disc. Disposables are easy to handle as the DiscPainter uses a single-cartridge ink system that capable of printing up to 100 discs before needing replacement.

Included with the DiscPainter is the Discus for DYMO software that includes dozens of ready-made templates to help you get on the road to disc design. An included photo collage tool lets you create designs using up to 16 photos. The DiscPainter can also print images from popular design applications such as Adobe’s PhotoShop, Illustrator and InDesign, QuarkXpress and SureThing. The DiscPainter can also print to the smaller minidisc form factor and works with Windows and Macintosh OS X.

The DiscPainter is being released this month and will sell for $279.

Anyone who has watched someone making pottery knows how more efficient the spinning process works on objects that are round. Sure you could come up with a way to make pots using a loom or something that moves back and forth but why would you want to? Spin printing onto a disc is a better idea and I’m surprised it took this long for someone to come up with a way to do it. Better late than never, Dymo!

For more information, visit www.dymo.com.

XCraig Crossman is a national newspaper columnist writing about computers and technology. For more information, visit his Web site at www.computeramerica.com.