Lightscribe

Tommy Boy

Golden Master
Messages
8,463
Location
USA
Okay, the lightscribe dvd-rw drive on my laptop isn't my first lightscribe drive, I have one on my desktop as well but only used it once.

I wanted to try out the lightscribe and I had some discs from my previous go round. I opened up the dvd software that came with the laptop and went to the label creating part and chose lightscribe. I chose a layout and a background image that I liked and entered some text I just copied from a cd that I have. I made it look the way I wanted it and then proceeded to print. I set it on best quality then hit the print button.

Now, the first thing you'll notice is the timer....15 mins to label a cd! Thats a little bit outrageous, but I guess thats how long it takes. Well I waited the 15 mins while it printed (doing some other things around my desk, farting around basically....) then when it was done it popped out and I looked at it.....

I could barely read it! You could barely even see the image that was being printed on the disc that took 15 mins to print! I was reading a while back about lightscribe and other people had noted that you have to print it 2-3 times for it to be readable and for you to be able to see the image well. So thats what I did, I put the cd back in the drive and hit the print button again.......15 mins later I pulled the disc out again and looked at it.....

What I found was a little more readable text, and you could see the background image, the darker parts of it were decent, but the lighter parts weren't hardly visible at all. It was nowhere near acceptable to me. You couldn't see it very well in low light, I had to go over to my reading light and stick it under it and look at the disc.

30 minutes and the disc label was still unacceptable, it could have been printed a 3rd time. I just wonder how much better it would have been, I didn't bother to waste another 15 mins printing again.

Rating: 3/10
I gave it 3 points because I think it's a good idea and it has potential, it just needs some work. For the time it takes to print (30-45+ mins) and the time you spend editing the layout of the label, it's not worth it when you see the end result.

Final thought:
If you're in the market for a new cd/dvd drive, don't factor lightscribe into your decision, focus on specs like speeds, DL support and interface (ide/sata). Don't waste your time with lightscribe until they put some more work into it. I'm perfectly content using my good ol' sharpie to label my cd's/dvd's for now.
 
I always wondered if lightscribe was any good. My laptop doesn't have a lightscribe drive, but I guess that's a good thing based on this review :) Also I've heard the discs are expensive too. 30 minutes to label a CD is ridiculous, the technology is neat and this kind of thing is cool if you're into it but I can't see waiting that long for a disc to label. I had no idea it took that long to label though, I guess it's good I don't have one of those drives after all.
 
No, my other drive didn't work any better. The only thing is with that one I only ran the disc once and said forget it.
 
I have it in my desktop drive, but I've never tried it because I don't have the discs...
 
Are you using good, quality litescribe CDs?

Also what setting are you using for the printing? Best, Normal, or Draft?
 
Are you using good, quality litescribe CDs?

Also what setting are you using for the printing? Best, Normal, or Draft?
The discs are Verbatim 16x dvd+r discs, which I'm assuming are good quality.

And I stated in the original post that I put it on best quality.
 
Thanks for this review. Rep given.

My Compaq laptop came with it, but I have yet to try it out.
 
Back
Top Bottom