miscelaneous cd labels for inkjet printers

[mouser]

i'm probably not the only one who has stuff that's just sitting around and will never get used; might as well give it away.

pack1: mostly glossy NEATO brand cd inserts and cd labels
pack2: mostly glossy NEATO brand cd inserts and cd labels
pack3: hp glossy greeting card paper (envelopes and cards) + some kodak inkjet photo paper

first charter/honoary member responder for each will get it, but United States only please, due to shipping costs.
these are nothing special but better they go to someone who might use them..

[patteo]

Thought I will share my experience on CD Labels (the glued on type).

Basically if you are the James Bond or Mission Impossible type person, then you would want to use CD Labels.

Why ? simply because the CD labels will (Or should I say may) cause your CD to self destruct.

What apparently happens is that the glue chemicals react slowly with the layer that stores the data and causing it over time (maybe a year or two) to become unreadable.

In any case, this is what I experienced. I was scratching my head for quite a while until I noticed that only my CDs that had CD Labels that I stuck on were the ones that were causing me problems.

Here are some articles on the subject :

http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-11-06.htm#1
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=15800263

One way round this is to use printable CDs.

I have not had problems with printing them (yet !) with a Canon inkjet printer. Many models now come with a CDR tray for you to insert a printable CD.

Basically the lesson learnt is don't stick any labels, even small ones on CDs that you want to last a long time. And to be doubly sure, "label" them with a permanent pen (preferably on the areas around the centre transparent portion where no data is written)

[Carol Haynes]

Mouser - how much of the greeting card paper and envelopes do you have? I would possibly be interested (and would pay for any postage cost, as I know it is an overseas postage, provided it isn't too ridiculous). Iwouldn't need the photo paper though (I use Canon as it gives the best results with my printer).

Cheers

PS. I second what patteo says about stick on disc labels - best avoided as they seriously degrade the lifespan of the data content.

The best solutions I have found are printable CDs/DVDs (my Canon printer produces near professional quality looking discs which is great) or failing that use a fine point permanent felttipped marker (such as an over-head-projector pen - no ball points etc) and keep writing to the absolute minimum to avoid potential solvent damage to the data surface. Solvent damage isn't nearly as bad these days as CD are better made but older discs really suffered from pen solvents creaping through the layers and corrupting the data surface.

If you are going to use CD labels them it is essential to use made for the purpose labels as sticking other types of label on can unbalance CDs as they rotate. In modern CD and DVD drives the discs can rotate at up to 60x normal CD speed and at that speed an unbalanced disc can litterally blow itself apart. There have been documented hospital cases of CDs shattering in this way which then destroy the drive and scatter plastic shrapnel at high speeds.

[mouser]

thanks for the info and links patteo -
i have heard about superfast spinning of dvd discs but not about cds.. but i guess if you are reading the cd in a computer at highest speed then it could be an issue..

i still use labels when i make an audio cd for a friend but i don't use them on my own anymore, just use a pen.

carol, its just a small set of 10 cards and 10 envelopes, probably not worth the postage..

[Carol Haynes]

'K, thanks that's fine.

If you think about record speeds of CDs these days I presume 52x record (which is not uncommon) means 52x faster than play back, so it must be spinning faster than playback - though whether it is 52x I don't know.

I checked with Nero Drive Speed on my Plextor DVD+-RW and CD-RW drives and it recons the drives report they only play 'quietly' up to 8x, though they support over 40x speeds. I presume this is a reflection of the speeds the dsics are turning.

[Innuendo]

patteo is 100% correct with his post and his links. Don't ever use CD/DVD labels unless it's something you don't care about losing or it is a disc that is only going to see short-term use. The dangers of using those labels vastly outweigh the advantages.

All audio CD players on the planet and the first CD-ROM/CD-R drives transfer data at a rate of 150 KB/second. That's the reference point for 1x speed. You can extrapolate from that the speeds of 52x or any others.

DVD players and DVD-ROM/DVD-R/DVD-RW drives use a different scale for their x numbers. I want to say 450 KB/second, but I may be misremembering. Using that number a 16x DVD-R drive is going to be as fast as a 48x CD-R drive.

In your example, Carol, that drive can record CDs at up to 52x speed & will read data speeds up to that fast as well. However, if you play an audio CD in it, though, it'll play back at 1x speed. Otherwise, you'd end up with something that sounded like Alvin & the Chipmunks on speed.

There are also lots of times that you will not want to record a DVD/CD at the fastest speeds your media and hardware will support, but that's beyond the scope of this post.

[patteo]

For those who must label their CDs and want to know what are the safer alternatives than stick-ons, here's a round-up of what's on offer nowadays.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1923243,00.asp