I recently purchased a Lightscribe DVD/CD burner and love it!

If you have to give/sell a DVD or CD to someone (music or photo's) I highly recommend it. It produces a really professional disc - no labels or markers needed.

The only downside is that it takes about 20 mins to burn the images (2 mins or so to burn the data) so if you have to do multiple copies you may want to wait until they can speed up the process.

I have seen these and thought they would be very handy for labeling CD/DVD's, but I wonder if this affects the integrity and longevity of the CD/DVD.

I've heard a lot of the technical experts say that it's best not to write anything on a CD. Sharpies are handy, but the solvent in the ink isn't good for the CD - but this really only applies to something you plan on keeping for as long as possible (not CD's of images you send to the lab to be printed or give to your friends, etc). I store my backup CD's vertically in individual cases, with the label on the outside of the case.

Portable CD burners are a really good idea if you travel, this way you can backup your images. Just make sure the CD is burned correctly before re-formatting your c/f card!

I considered getting a LightScribe burner but ended up going with a much cheaper Epson R200 inkjet printer that prints full color on CDs as a solution to my CD labeling.

Yeah, the downside to both is that they need special CDs that are much more expensive than ordinary ones. I also decided the LS is too time consuming, not to mention the fact that for me, full color is much more preferable to the good, but somewhat bland monochrome designs of the LS.

BTW Steve, Light Impressions now makes an archival "sharpie" made specifically for safely writing on CDs. I just picked up a couple of them, as well as the new eFilm Archival Gold CD-Rs, which claim a lifespan of 300 YEARS!

Hmmm, guess it's gonna be kinda hard to find out if they're right, eh? ;)

cool printer - might be something to look at down the road for me - but I will need some more desk space. the color must be nice addition for your clients - now that is a personal touch!