When LightScribe was introduced early 2004 by HP, it seemed like a useful feature that would get users to purchase drives that feature it. LightScribe is a feature where the writer can 'burn' a label on the disc using its laser by simply loading the disc upside down. Unfortunately, sales of these writers featuring LightScribe were very low ever since their introduction. However, recently HP has managed to license its LightScribe technology to the majority of the major optical drive manufacturers apart from Plextor and NEC, despite a disappoint start. Despite the extra licensing costs, most manufacturers are starting to ship LightScribe drives with pricing similar to their existing regular models.
Then again, there are several likely reasons behind why LightScribe is slow to take off. First is the speed, in which the drive takes over 30 minutes just to burn the label. As LightScribe was designed to work with existing drive specifications, the burning process is limited by the limited amount of power from the drive's laser. Also, unlike writing data to a CD, the LightScribe burning process requires the laser to be out of focus, thus reducing its effective power and how fast it can burn the label.
With recent improvements in the LightScribe coating, writing performance has been improved by around 50% over current LightScribe media, thus allowing a high contrast detailed disc to be written in about 20 minutes. This 2nd generation media is expected to hit the shops by the end of the year. So far when it comes to printing coloured labels, HP and other media manufacturers have not yet figured out how to create full-colour LightScribe discs, at least with existing drive lasers. On the other hand, they plan on releasing LightScribe discs in different colours, likely starting with Gold.
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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.
For starters, HP's LightScribe business unit announced a slew of new licensees, including major consumer electronics firms such as Pioneer and Panasonic. More significantly, most of the major optical drive players say they will support the technology. The addition of Hitachi/LG, Benq/Philips, Toshiba, and Lite-On to the technological party brings 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 whether or not they had plans for LightScribe. The full article can be read here. |
As some models of Inkjet printers with built-in CD labelling are getting quite common, in my opinion consumers are likely to use a dedicated printer for labelling their discs than waiting 20 to 30 minutes to write a monochrome label using their DVD writer. Then again, LightScribe drives do have the advantage of not having to have a separate printer, especially with laptop users.
At the moment, there are several reasons why LightScribe has not taken off that well, such as higher premium for LightScribe media, slow data write speeds (most LightScribe drives have a 8x DVD-R and 2.4x DVD+DL max write speed), long label writing process of 30 minutes and being limited to monochrome labels only. Then again, it will be interesting to see what the future of LightScribe holds, especially since the technology is still relatively new yet.
For more information about LightScribe including our first review on a LightScribe drive, see this article.
Source: Digit Online
