dolphinius_rex wrote:I'd love to see what C't has to say on inkjet printable media though!!
OK- here goes.
The c't test of printers and printable media was in issue 21/2005 (4 Oct.). They looked at 4 printers, 11 DVD and 8 CD types. The test concerned the
printing properties of the 4x19 combinations, not the burning properties of the media. They also rated the bundled printing programs (Canon: CD-Labelprint, Epson: PrintCD).
The printers were:
- Canon iP3000 (4 colour, A3)
- Canon i9950 (8 colour, A3)
- Epson Stylus Photo R320 (6 colour, A4)
- Epson Stylus Photo R1800 (8 colour, A3)
The media was rated for UV stabilty, smear resistance and printing quality per printer. Obviously, the c't
printer team (not optical media) was in charge, because they exposed the discs to 100 hours of strong UV radiation to see if the pigments would fade (equivalent to ca. 1 year direct sunligt behind glass). Of course the colours changed (particularly Canon) - but I suspect the disc quality suffered much more than the colours did (they didn't check

).
Smear resistance was tested with a yellow highlighter after one day and again after a week. Most discs didn't do well here- esp. together with the Epson printers.
This smear resistance isn't really related to the drying time in question here, but the positive results (+) in this regard were found for:
- Seiko
DVD-R Printable white (TTH01) ?x
- TDK
DVD+R Photo Quality Inkjet Printable (TDK 002 (000)) 8x
- Traxdata
DVD-R white hub printable (Ritekg05) 8x
- Memorex Print
CD-R (CMC)
- Ritek (Conrexx) Toprint
CD-R 52x (Ritek)
- Traxdata
CD-R 80 White hub printable (Ritek)
- Verbatim Printable
CD-R (Verbatim)
Negative results (--):
- Ricoh
DVD+R Ultraspeed (RICOHJPN R03 (001)) 16x
- Ricoh
DVD+R DL (RICOHJPN D00 (001)) 2.4x
- Taiyo Yuden
CD-R printable white
- Sony
CD-R printable (Sony)
Other types were indifferent to poor (0 or - in c't rating).
The printing quality depends on the combination of printer and medium. The (more expensive) A3 printers did best.
G