Buy Now...

The HP LightScribe technology allows users to add professional looking labels to their CDs and DVDs. This technology requires three elements in order to work. First you need a drive with the ability to adjust the power and focus of the laser as it switches between burning the data on one side and the label image on the other side of the disk.

The second ingredient is the media which has an additional layer of ink. This is a special ink that absorbs the laser light so triggering the surface to heat up and turn black through a process known as “Ionic Reaction”. The ink has been produced by the Mitsubishi Chemical Company from specifications laid down by HP. A LightScribe disk will have a barcode enabling the media to be recognised by the drive and be used for positional accuracy when adding extra details to the label at a later date. Providing the third element is the software allowing silk-screen print quality labels to be burned on the surface of the disk.

Already companies such as Nero, Roxio and MicroVision have produced the necessary software while I have seen LightScribe enhanced media from Verbatim, Imation and Philips. The latter company has also developed the first LightScribe drive that I have managed to test.

Popular articles

more

Described as a “Burner & Printer in One”, the Philips DVDR16LS, priced at £69.99 from stores such as PC World, is an internal LightScribe DVD rewriter. It can handle the full range of CD and DVD formats. The drive is rated at 40x for CDs; 16x for DVD+R and DVD-ROM; 8x for DVD-R; and 2.4x for DVD+R DL. To enable you to jump right in with LightScribe, Philips has included three LightScribe CD-R disks and a copy of the LightScribe enabled Nero Suite 6.6.

The drive is about one centimetre longer than other units I’ve seen. This increase in size has nothing to do with the LightScribe enhancement but is due to the drive being based on a previous model. Philips plan to release a shorter version of the drive later this year even though this larger size poses no difficulty when fitting the drive into an empty bay.

The DVDR16SL drive is certainly distinctive. It has a gold coloured fascia on the disk tray along with appropriate logos. A pin-hole light glows blue to indicate when a disk is in the drive – a feature I appreciate as it reminds me to remove the disk when a task has been completely. There is also a centrally positioned light strip that flashes blue or red to show either read or write disk activity. Another feature I appreciated was the large open/close button.

I ran speed checks for both CD and DVD media. In each case I used brand new Verbatim DataLifePlus disks. From start to finish, copying 652MB of data to a CD disk took 3 minutes and 46 seconds which works out at 2.88MB/s. With DVD I copied 3968MB of various files. This took 15 minutes 8 seconds which relates to 4.37MB/s.

Supplied with the drive is an OEM copy of Nero Suite 6.6 which is LightScribe enabled. You will find the LightScribe feature tucked away on the Extras menu. Fortunately this is explained in the Philips User Manual as I could not find any reference to it in the Nero help file.

The software has 16 templates which can be used to design the label information. A range of basic graphics features are available. These include straight lines, rectangles and eclipses. You can add normal or artistic text plus have the directory or track list automatically added along with an appropriate image. A preview option allows you to check the layout before burning the label. Depending upon the positioning of the data, the burning process can take between 3 and 28 minutes.

For example positioning a title on the top half of the disk and a small image on the bottom half required the full 28 minutes. The LightScribe labels certainly give a touch of class, admittedly in monochrome, to home produced disks. As mentioned earlier you can add extra information at a later date.

Obviously this process is hardly going to be suitable for mass production of disks but is ideal for occasional home use. A second drawback could be the price of the media. At present a ten pack of LightScribe disk, whether from Philips, Verbatim or Imation, will cost in the region of £10. Competition, and increase demand, is bound to bring prices down but until then early adopters will have to bite the bullet and pay the price.

www.philips.com/pcstuff

http://www.imationltd.co.uk/products/lightscribe_media/index.html

http://www.verbatim-europe.com/index/press_releases_view.php?cat_id=&article_id=565&lang_id=1&menu1=261&menu2=&menu3=&change_lang=1

http://www.roxio.com/en/products/index.jhtml

http://www.nero.com/en/index.html

http://www.mvd.com

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?lc=en&cc=us&docname=c00208298