HP DVD-1040e external DVD writer review

LightScribe:

On January 4, 2004, HP announced an innovative new technology to address the problem of labelling CD’s and DVD’s. LightScribe technology allows consumers to create silk-screen quality labels on their CDs or DVDs by burning text and graphics directly onto a disc, eliminating the need for adhesive labels.

But, before we continue – Let us first take a look at some information found at the LightScribe site:

CREATE SILKSCREEN-QUALITY LABELS FOR ALL YOUR CDS AND DVDS, RIGHT FROM YOUR COMPUTER.

Until now there hasn’t been much choice when it comes to creating labels for your CDs and DVDs. Messy markers or sticky adhesive labels were pretty much the only affordable option. But imagine creating professional-looking labels using the same laser that burns your data-right inside your CD/DVD drive! Well, now it’s easy with LightScribe Direct Disc Labelling technology.

LABEL-MAKING REDEFINED.

LightScribe technology is an integrated system that combines the CD or DVD drive of your LightScribe-enabled computer with specially coated discs and enhanced disc-burning software to produce precise, laser-etched labels. You can design and produce labels to express your creativity and personality-the sky’s the limit!

With LightScribe, the disc is the label. This amazing technology is the no-hassle way to create elegant labels for all your CDs and DVDs. Simply burn your music mix, digital-video/photo archives, or business application. Then flip the disc and burn your own unique label.

LightScribe Direct Disc Labelling technology is now available in PCs, external USB optical DVD writers, labelling software, and a variety of brand name discs. Remember, the LightScribe logo indicates a LightScribe-enabled product, so be sure to look for it at your favourite retail locations. Also check out the Looking for LightScribe page for a list of companies that make LightScribe-enabled products.

A RADICAL REVOLUTION IN DISC LABELING.

Once you’ve burned your first LightScribe label and experienced the amazing result, you’ll never want to use a permanent marker or sticky label again. LightScribe makes it easy. It truly is a revolution in disc labelling.

JUST HOW DOES IT WORK?

How can you burn a label onto your disc right from your computer? Suppose you have just created a music CD of your favourite songs. Now you want to make a label that contains the song titles, artists’ names, and some personal information and design elements to make it special.

Burn your tracks onto the data side of the disc. Flip the disc over to the label side and put it back in the drive. Burn your label by opening your favourite LightScribe-enabled label-making software and going to the CD template work area. Now you do all of your creative design work-imported pictures, copy, and artwork. When you are satisfied with what you have done, click "print." It really is that simple! No ink, no messy markers, no clumpy adhesive labels, just an amazingly beautiful label right before your eyes.

LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

Your LightScribe-enabled CD/DVD disc drive contains a special laser that pumps light energy into a thin dye coating on the label side of the disc. The light from the laser causes a chemical change in the dye coating that shows up as a visible point on the disc. With laser precision, LightScribe delivers closely controlled light energy to multiple points on the disc as it spins in the drive. The result is a high-resolution reproduction of the artwork, text, or photos you composed in the software application. Seeing is believing!

In this review we decided to use Droppix Label Maker instead of the supplied label making module in Nero.

The LightScribe Media:

The surface of the LightScribe media is gold-brown, also referred to as sepia coloured.

If we take a closer look at the inner ring of the LightScribe media, we can see a bar code indexing system. This is what the drive’s laser uses to recognize the LightScribe surface, but also for the indexing (for later re-burns).

Designing and burning with Droppix Label Maker:

Drippix Label Maker is a very easy to use disc labelling software which allows you to create a LightScribe label within a few steps.

The Droppix Label maker label creation interface.

The Preview screen.

Once we have created our layout and when we just need to click onto the Print button to start the LightScribe labelling process.

Of course, we selected best quality printing and clicked the Print button again.

While printing the label we see the progress in the printing queue in the application.

Once the printing was done we quickly checked the result and as you can see above, it was perfect.

So finally we can say that the LightScribe feature works perfect and without any problems.

Let’s round off this review with the Authors page, with some real world and advanced tests….