Andrew said:
I'm looking for an inkjet printer that will print directly to CDs as
well as the usual paper media.
Let me add a little perspective about the disks themselves.
Inkjet printable disks come with a special white coating. I bought a
100x cake box of these from what's probably the most trusted brand in
the industry (and genuine made-in-Japan): Taiyo Yuden. The reason why I
paid extra for the coating is that my writing on the reflective disks
with a permanent ink pen is relatively hard to see, even if I use
various colors of sharpies. They should be right at home with all
regular inkjet inks.
I wouldn't want to print any CDs/DVDs on a laser printer, especially
after recording, because the toner is fused with heat. And guess what
the enemy of optical disks is (don't all yell at once).
The white coating is thirsty for water-based inks, so it works extremely
well with everyday pens of various types, including my rollerballs. Ink
sinks into the surface very quickly and dries quickly, too.
I do not trust any of the major brands of recordable disks simply
because almost all of them are no longer made by the brand holders. I
don't know who the hell on the spot market made them now, or from one
Fuji batch to another. My software tells me who the actual manufacturer
was. For example, I have "Fuji" disks made by four different
manufacturers, not one of them Fuji. My premium-priced Maxell
archival-grade disks were made by -- you guessed it: Taiyo Yuden.
If you want TY disks, and to know that they really are TY disks, it's
best to buy a big pack of them on-line. That's my opinion.
I'll stop here.
Richard
