That’s a considerable difference in price. At $74.95 cartridge, you’re getting full-coverage discs at 12.5 cents per print with the Microboards. Microboards claims that the high-capacity color ink cartridge in their PF-2 will print up to 600 full-coverage discs. So the cost for each full-coverage print ranges between 29 and 38 cents. One Bravo SE ink cartridge from Primera costs $37.95. This may be because the Bravo has no black cartridge all three colors of the tri-color cartridge must be used to reproduce blacks. It appears to drink up ink faster than our Microboards printer. Primera claims that using the default settings, one ink cartridge will print between 100 and 130 discs using a label design with equal ink distribution at 100% coverage. Its footprint dwarfs in comparison to the much larger Microboards PF-2 printer we have at our studio that we used for print comparison in this test.
The CD installer wizard guides the user through a no-brainer, step-by-step process of connecting cables and installing the drivers and software. Its small footprint helps it fit easily on a computer desk. Connect two cables and insert one ink cartridge. The unit is impressively simple to setup. A Blu-ray version of the publisher, the SE-Blu, uses a Pioneer BD-R Blu-ray burner and sells for $2495. You can purchase a printer-only version – the Bravo SE Auto Printer for $995. The system may be programmed to print at a variety of resolutions with the single ink cartridge. The SE works with DVD+/-R and CD-R disc media.
Primera includes CharisMac Engineering’s Discribe duplication software as well as design templates for Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. It also works with Macs running Apple OS-X. It plugs into a computer USB port and comes with PTPublisher SE duplication software and SureThing CD Labeler.
The Bravo SE ($1495) uses a single Pioneer DVD 111 DVD/CD burner and an inkjet printer with 4800 dpi capability. Now Primera, maker of some of those expensive disc publishing systems, has offered a unit priced for the mass market. Until recently, disc publishers were expensive. After it is burned, the arm moves it into the printer part of the unit and then into the stack of finished discs. A robotic arm picks up a blank disc and feeds it into the writer. You insert a stack of blank discs, start the machine and walk away. Disc printers that handle more than one disc at a time are pricey.ĭisc publishers are all-in-one units with a writer, an inkjet printer and robotics that automate the process. With tower dupers, you have to remove each disc and place it in a separate printer.
They won’t print label art on the discs, but you can buy them with two to ten drives. Reasonably priced mini-tower disc copiers have been on the market for some time. If you need more than a couple of copies it can be a time-consuming process. Unfortunately, those printers take only one disc at a time. After the discs are burned you can print label art onto the discs using a disc-capable inkjet printer. Then put in another disc, and wait while it does the same thing. Insert a disc into the computer, and burn data onto it. Originally published in Camcorder & Computer Video Magazineįor many video producers, duplicating DVDs is usually a one-at a-time process.
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