Thermal ink jet CD label printing and inkjet CD label printing are general terms used for ink jet printing utilizing a nozzle or 'jet' to spray ink in a very precise manner.

• Thermal inkjet
• Pizzo-electric inkjet
• Bubble-jet

 Thermal Inkjet printing heats up the ink to create 'pressure' that causes the ink to spray out of the print head nozzle.

Pizzo-electric uses a device similar to the old 'joy buzzer' that vibrates when electricity is applied to it.  This creates a very precise metered amount of ink to spray out of the print head nozzle.  The effect is a well rounded 'dot' instead of a irregular shaped application.  

We have released our new CD/DVD printer buyers guide which covers the world of 'on-demand' disc printers.

• Learn which DVD CD label printer meets your need
• Learn the differences in printer technology 
• Compare CD printer technologies

To request your free disc labeling please click on the button below and get your guide!

Professional BD, DVD, CD printers

Unlike the home CD printer a professional DVD/CD printer is designed for continuous CD printing and features a built in disc tray that self aligns itself.

The links provide greater information on each DVD CD label printer to avoid a major novel on one page. If you have any questions or observations please give us feedback via the comments. We would love to hear from you. :)

Primera Technology

Primera uses in-line robotics in it's newest offerings. A long way from the old Composer series which had a swinging robotic arm.

Bravo II Auto-loader: Primera's auto-loaders and automated DVD duplicators use a Lexmark print engine. The Bravo II series use a two ink cartridge system. Primera/lexmark ink is proprietary, that is one can only buy Primera 'branded' cartridges. The Bravo II is PC and Mac compatible and connects via a USB cable. Includes disc labeling software. One year warranty

CD Printer Review

Our yearly review of DVD CD printers will cover home CD printers in the first part and professional DVD CD printers in the second part so the reader has a wider knowledge of the technologies available. Home CD printers change model numbers at a fairly quick rate so we would recommend Epson and Canon as a general rule for the casual disc labeling job.

Home CD printers use a special plastic template that guides the printable disc through a standard model ink jet printer that allows for straight path printing (can feed horizontally in addition to top feed). Disc labeling software is necessary for designing and printing and is included with advertised CD/DVD printers. It is possible

When asking "what is the best inkjet printer for CDs" there are several additional questions to ask yourself.

• How many discs do you want to produce in a day, week or month?
• Will you be doing full color printing or just text and simple graphics?
• Are you looking for a dedicated CD printer or a multi function printer? 

The quantity of discs you want to produce has a large influence on the type of inkjet CD printer you are going to need. There are three types of CD inkjet printers.

 Here are a few more questions we have been asked about CD printers. Labeling your CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray recordable discs is a great way to give a professional look to your projects.

Can you use an inkjet printer on thermal dvd?

Yes and no, You can use it but it does not dry and just smudges. Inkjet sprays a dye and thermal applies a wax based resin to the disc. If you don't want a mess buy inkjet printable discs.

Can I put labels on printable dvd?

 You can put labels on printable DVDs but it's not recommended.  Stick on labels are a bad idea with DVDs. 

People are often surprised to find out that a silver inkjet printable surface is available for CD-R and DVD-R and DVD+R. The more common white inkjet CDs or DVD is far more common and has a noticeably different printed label result. White provides an excellent background to most colors and helps make the colors really pop from the label printer. The white surface is applied in a single layer and has no real "depth" to it. It does provide a base white background to the image. White inkjet printable discs are used the most in our experience.

Silver inkjet CDs are meant to mimic a shiny silver thermal printable disc .  Shiny silver discs have a mirror like finish to them.  When they are printed on, the print appears to hover above the reflective surface because there is a clear coat the ink sits on.

A very confusing term for CD label printers is the use of the word “thermal”.  In this article I will explain the difference between thermal inkjet and inkjet as related to CD labeling.

The first thing to understand is thermal direct printing and thermal inkjet are not related in anyway except for the fact that they are both CD/DVD printing methods.  One can not print on thermal printable disc media with a ‘thermal’ inkjet printer unless you want a big smear of ink on your disc.  The printable media for thermal printing and thermal inkjet printing are completely different. Inkjet printable media absorbs ink unlike thermal printable discs that are designed not to absorb ink.

 This news release has been out for several months and we needed to post it somewhere on our site.  We have sold Taiyo Yuden CD-R and DVD branded media for over 10 years with amazing success compared to some other brands that quality goes up and down.Taiyo Yuden PrintWrite was and is still the leader in printable surfaces.  Although it's no longer branded under the PrintWrite name Taiyo Yuden CDs and DVDs are among the best.

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Microboards' flagship line of DVD and CD recordable media, manufactured by Taiyo Yuden, will now be sold under the name of JVC.

Chanhassen, MN April 15, 2009 -- Microboards' flagship line of DVD and CD recordable media, manufactured by Taiyo Yuden, will now be sold under the name of JVC.

Taiyo Yuden, known in the professional market for having the widest playback and recording compatibility and the lowest error rate of any optical media available, announced the change in March. Microboards Technology, which serves as the primary distributor for the United States and Canada, will continue to offer the same products, but with the new branding.

"This strategy will enable a product that is already known as the premium disc in the market to be adopted by media users who are looking for a reliable brand to purchase," says Mike Laven, Microboards' Vice President of Sales. "With the maturation of the optical media market, media users are becoming more discerning when it comes to the quality of media that they used to store their priceless family photographs and recordings."

DVD Publishers differ from DVD duplicator autoloaders in that they combine a DVD CD printer and DVD duplicator autoloader so the discs can be burned and printed in one operation. This is known as "on-demand disc publishing".  Unique labels and content can be created for each disc including bar coding and unique serial numbers. Several on demand disc labeling technologies exist including: ink jet, thermal,  thermal re-transfer and dye sublimation disc labeling.

The computer hardware requirements of a  DVD Duplicator auto-loader and a DVD Publisher are about the same except for  label software required for the label design and layout. There are some publisher systems that can be networked allowing users to send jobs via their web browser. This  makes it possible for the disc publisher to operate in a wide range of network environments.

 Finding an inexpensive CD printer can be problematic.  Epson makes some caddy based all in one devices which contain a scanner and inkjet printer or just the inkjet printer alone. Epson seems to keep discontinuing the models so it's a bit difficult to speak of a specific models performance.   Caddies are a plastic template that holds a CD or DVD and moves through the printer feeder like an envelope with the disc held in place as the ink jet print head passes over the inkjet printable disc.  

Two entry level CD/DVD printers available in the marketplace are the DYMO DiscPainter and the CD Dimensions DISCPRINTER thermal disc printer. The two represent different printer technologies available today. the Dymo relies on ink jet technology and the DISCPRINTER uses thermal transfer technology. Even more unique in the case of the DiscPainter is the radial printing technology incorporated into the DYMO DiscPrinter.

An extremely important point on CD labels is to use some kind of printing method outside of using stick-on labels. Stick on labels are just as bad for recordable DVDs. A misapplied label unbalances the disc (it does not take much) making it prone to errors and damaging the drive in the process.Stick-on labels have come off in CD players and easily jam up car stereos with slot loaders. A CD label maker is the solution.

The choices for printing on a recordable CD is based on several factors. Budget, how much money do you want to spend?, What is the usage you expect from the disc printer? and how involved to you want to be in the printing process?

The on-demand disc printer technologies available fall into 4 categories: thermal transfer, thermal re transfer, dye sublimation and inkjet printing.

Labeling your CDs or DVDs presents some interesting choices in finding the most cost effective option.  Some of the options include using a thermal or inkjet CD printer, a magic marker pen or stick-on labels.  A non-printing method, called "lightscribe" provides the ability to label a special type of disc that is made with a unique coating on the label side that is sensitive to laser light (similar to the recordable dye which also changes color when exposed to laser light at a special frequency).

Lightscribe technology uses a special recording drive that can etch the label image into a special Lightscribe DVD or CD disc.   This process only works in gray scale so one does not actually have any colors on the label. It's simply black and variations of gray with a colored background, usually a gold color.