Aug 12 2008
Is LightScribe Worthwhile?
LightScribe is an optical disc technology that produces laser etched labels in gray-scale on recordable media as in CD’s or DVD’s. When LightScribe was released in 2004 by Hewlett Packard, it was thought at the time that this would do away with stick-on labels and printable discs. Originally all recordable media was gold tinted. In 2006, specification 1.2 was released, which allowed the discs to come in a variety of colors including blue, green, orange, red and yellow. This does not effect the gray-scale text and images it produces but only the background color.
PROS
* No need to buy and apply labels.
* No pricey printer ink used.
CONS
* More expensive media must be bought.
* No color printing.
* Discs must be flipped to burn.
* Takes almost 25 minutes to laser etch.
* Produces faint text and images.
* Full media coverage not supported.
* Special software needed.
As you can see with the list above their are many more cons than pros. Today, 4 years later after it was introduced, we still have poor black images, a long burn time and the media has not dropped much in price. What is bizarre is most new computers have LightScribe support and most recordable drives now include the technology. In my opinion it has been a huge failure and until we get better print quality and color support, I see no future for this. I myself own several LightScribe capable drives but still use labels or write on them with a special ink pen designed for optical discs. LightScribe is a huge two thumbs down. 
I agree totally. I thought it was cool before I seen the results.
Sorry I have to disagree Babylon. I just bought a LightScribe a few weeks ago myself, same old dull image, even with the contrast tool.
Your last statement about professionals using them, I think is hogwash. I would be embarrassed to give a client a LightScribe disc.
They actually make seperate CD Writers that use like a film-based ink, that prints much, much better than LightScribe in 1/10th the time. Those are limited in grayscale though too.
Continually printing again on the disc? Yeah lets waste another 15 minutes to add one thing.
I still stand by my initial thoughts. When I see color, full disc printing, 100 times better image quality and less burn time, I will change my mind. I could even live with the flipping of the disc, if those 4 things were accomplished.
Too bad LightScribe.
some pro’s
On dvd’s the information etched on the disk will not unbalance the disk as with sticky lables.
When the adhesive labels start to peel off on dvd it causes the movie to skip and/or jumps.
information/labels ecthed on the disk is permanent while the sticky labels can wash off and deteriorate.