What's Next for LightScribe?

What's Next for LightScribe?

It's been six months since DVD burners with LightScribe labeling
technology shipped. Where will HP take LightScribe from here?

Melissa J. Perenson, PC World
Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Have burner, have labeler: The idea of creating disc labels using the
same laser that you use to burn your discs certainly sounded
intriguing when it was first introduced a year and a half ago.

That concept--arguably the most innovative new feature to hit optical
storage in years--became even more appealing once LightScribe Direct
Disc Labeling technology finally became a real product at the start of
the year. The initial flow of drives that supported the technology,
invented by Hewlett-Packard and licensed to all comers, was admittedly
small--a veritable trickle of products--but I'm seeing signs that the
numbers are about to increase.

For starters, HP's LightScribe business unit announced a slew of new
licensees, including such major consumer electronics firms as Pioneer
and Panasonic. More significantly, most of the major optical drive
players say they will support the technology: With the May
announcement, the addition of Hitachi/LG, Benq/Philips, Toshiba, and
Lite-On bring the total number of drive manufacturers licensing the
technology to six. Missing from the list are only a handful of drive
makers, among them NEC and Plextor, neither of which could comment on
their LightScribe plans for this column.

LaCie LightScribe drive

Given the manufacturer support, it follows that we're starting to see
more and more drives with LightScribe technology. One of the biggest
surprises thus far: LightScribe-capable drives aren't priced
dramatically higher than their typical non-LightScribe siblings. For
example, external LightScribe drives from HP (the DVD Writer 640e) and
LaCie (the D2 DVD±RW with LightScribe), which cost about the same, are
less expensive than many competing external drives, including
Plextor's PX-716UF.

Now that the first wave of LightScribe-capable products has begun to
transform the optical drive landscape, I spent some time discussing
what's on deck for the technology with LightScribe marketing manager
Kent Henscheid.

All About Speed

Let's face it: We all have a fascination with speed, and nothing is
ever quite as fast as we'd like it to be. That includes LightScribe.
Regardless of LightScribe's eye-catching wow factor, the time required
to etch a label on a disc remains the biggest gotcha to the
technology; see our review of the first LightScribe drive to market,
HP's DVD Writer 640i for more on the poky etching times.

So just why is LightScribe so slow?

"One of the factors that determines the speed is the power of the
laser," Henscheid explains. When LightScribe was first in development,
"we designed to existing drive specs and constrained ourselves to the
available power of the optical drive, so we would fit into the
established design of the optical drive."

This allowed drive makers to easily integrate LightScribe technology,
but it also meant the first generation of LightScribe media would be
limited in its label write speed. Just as the write speed of a disc is
determined by the formulation of the dye on the data side of the disc,
LightScribe's write speed is affected by the label-side coating on a
LightScribe disc.

The two sides of the disc are not influenced equally by the laser,
however. LightScribe coating doesn't react in the same way as do the
high-speed 16X-capable dyes on recordable DVDs, for example. "The
material in the data dye is intrinsically different from the coating
material on the label side," says Henscheid.

Another difference is the laser's focus: Whereas the densely packed
data side of the disc is burned with a precisely focused laser,
LightScribe drives defocus the laser, which in turn slows down drive
speed.

Since manufacturers won't be boosting the power of a drive's laser any
time soon, LightScribe developers have had to find alternate ways of
boosting the write speeds. "The focusing method for the laser, the
coating, the laser power--all of those work in concert--so-called
multiple dials, to affect the speed," says Henscheid.

Improving the Media

The only area that's completely independent of the drive hardware is
the media. "One of the elements we have control over is the coating
itself," says Henscheid. "And we have developed a new coating that
will lead to faster write speeds."

The first-generation coating could handle faster speeds than those
we've seen in optical drives, but only under specific conditions. Says
Henscheid, "with higher-power lasers, we've demonstrated that the
coating material can perform faster."

Media with the new coating is expected to perform about 50 percent
faster than the current media. According to Henscheid, a detailed,
high-contrast, full-disc label might take about 30 minutes to create
today; with the new coating, you might see a savings of as much as a
third, taking that time down to 20 minutes. It all depends upon the
drive and the drive's laser characteristics; and it is also affected
by the design of the label.

HP and media manufacturers both expect second-generation media to be
in stores by the end of the year. Current LightScribe drive owners
will be able to take advantage of the new media by updating their
drive's software. Updates will be made available by individual drive
vendors; they will also be available via the LightScribe Web site.

Rainbow of Colors

There may be some truth to the rumblings I've heard about LightScribe
acquiring the ability to create full-color labels. But don't get your
hopes up too high: HP and the media manufacturers haven't figured out
how to use a drive's existing laser to create a rainbow of colors for
a full-color label akin to what you'd get from a $3000 Rimage thermal
printer, for example.

Nonetheless, LightScribe inventor HP is looking beyond the
technology's current monochrome imprints on gold discs. The company
has focused on tweaking the LightScribe media coating so it can work
with a variety of colored discs. "It's a step in the direction of
color," acknowledges Henscheid. "The first step was to develop
materials that allow us to deliver color capability. As we move
towards the long term, we're looking at materials that will work with
different background colors."

HP has developed a palette of colors, but only a handful will make it
to market. The colored LightScribe media will support the faster-speed
LightScribe coating. The discs may ship later this year, at the same
time as the faster coating comes available, or shortly thereafter.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/...061405X,00.asp


===
"In the future, my private life will be expressed solely through art."
-- Britney Spears

Ablang wrote:
What's Next for LightScribe?

It's been six months since DVD burners with LightScribe labeling
technology shipped. Where will HP take LightScribe from here?

All About Speed

a detailed, high-contrast, full-disc label might take about 30 minutes
to create today;

30 minutes ! I was considering it until I found that out.
That, the special disks reuqired and the need to eject and flip kills it.

Use an inket printer like the ip4000 and do it in 30 seconds !

Or if you want to use *any* disks, those cheap seiko cw50 thermal
printers are ok for just black text (10 seconds), and insides could
be integrated into a CD drive reasonablely easily.


--
Mike