CD/DVD printer

[Walter Biscardi]

The Epsons are flat out the best CD/DVD printers we use.

My experience with the DiscMakers Medley:
https://blogs.creativecow.net/node/402

My experience with the Primera Bravo II:
https://blogs.creativecow.net/node/330

We still have the Medley here and use it to replicate and print just simple black and white stuff. Their sales support is pretty bad and I just did not want to deal with them any more. Kept promising to call back and never did so I would go past the 30 days I had to return it.

It’s a decent replicator and simple black and white printer. Prints less than decent in color. For high quality color, use the Epson.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR
The new Color Training DVD now available from the Creative Cow!

Read my Blog!

[Timothy J. allen]

Sorry to hear that your experience with the Primera Bravo II wasn’t what you expected or hoped for on a Mac, Walter.

We just got a Bravo II in last week – running it on Windows XP. It was easy to set up and so far, it’s been working very well.
I’m so glad they don’t have that long arm that sucks up the discs anymore. The new mechanisms for actually moving the discs seem to be less likely to malfunction than the old style robotic arms.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Timothy J. Allen] “Sorry to hear that your experience with the Primera Bravo II wasn’t what you expected or hoped for on a Mac, Walter.”

Yeah, they really need to remove that whole thing on their website about it working on a Mac because it doesn’t work properly.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR
The new Color Training DVD now available from the Creative Cow!

Read my Blog!

[Steve Wargo]

We use a VinPower tower for burning and a Bravo Pro printer for printing. Some people want to buy combos and that’s fine but they take longer to do both jobs. Burning is fast but full color printing takes almost 2 minutes.

Here is a link to a company here in Phoenix that runs some pretty good deals on equipment. They are also a replicator company.

https://www.cdrom2go.com/product-buy.asp?D=EQ&S=S0196&C=C0471&N=1

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1.

[Steve Wargo]

https://www.cdrom2go.com/product-buy.asp?D=EQ&S=S0196&C=C0383&N=1

combo units

Our Bravo Pro printer has been very dependable

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1.

[Rich Rubasch]

I have two Bravo SE on a Mac and they are great. I have been running them for about 8 months and when they doubled the capacity of the ink cartridge that solved a lot of the problems.

The only issue i have is the printer driver. No way to kick up saturation or color correct before printing, other than a quick trip to Photoshop and back.

The Bravo SE was sold as a bundle with the Primera DUP7 duplicator tower. Everything has been chugging along just fine.

For the record all our suites have the Epson R800 printers and I haven’t used mine for printing to disc since we got the Bravo’s. They are available on the network so we can print from any edit bay.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Mark Suszko]

We LOVE the Bravo Primera Pro. It worked perfect with our FCP workstation right out of the box, no messing around at all. When we moved it to work off a PC tower, we had some teething troubles with the PC based software, but it eventually worked fine there too. Sorry about your experience Walter, but the Bravo is very popular for a reason; it works for most people that buy it.

For batch jobs bigger than 100, we generally use a Microboards-built, 10- drive dubbing tower and a separate Rimage thermal-based B&W or color thermal printer with robot arm. The Microboards tower is scary fast and self-contained, no needing a PC hooked to it. But then again it’s not also a disc printer.

“Oh, you wanted to RECORD that?”

[Walter Biscardi]

[Mark Suszko] “Sorry about your experience Walter, but the Bravo is very popular for a reason; it works for most people that buy it.”

Unfortunately for us, the Tech Support was completely useless and their only suggestion was to get a Windows XP machine. It simply would not print correctly on their Mac Drivers off a new iMac. Glad it’s working for you, I would never purchase or recommend them again.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR
The new Color Training DVD now available from the Creative Cow!

Read my Blog!

[Ken Summerall]

I have no idea what your budget is but we use a Teac p-55 with an autoloader. It is a thermal re-transfer printer and believe it or not costs are about the same to print as inkjets. We did a cost analysis before we purchased it and there was only a few cents difference and that was based on using thermal discs. Teac has now released a ribbon that will print on inkjet discs as well (they say any disc, but that has not proved to be exactly true for us) and that makes the costs about even.

There is a learning curve and the initial expense is high, but for a print that virtually indestructible it is amazing.

Ken Summerall
Wellwater Productions, Inc.
“A non-profit production company specializing in media with a mission.”

[Pattie Olson]

Thanks for all the responses, opinions and links. I’ve never gone into the blog area before, so thank you for the link to that also. I appreciate everyone’s input and now I feel I can compare equipment armed with good info based on real experience.

Thanks again,

Pattie