Printing Your Own CDRs With Ink

Different Printable CDR Media Yields Different Results

Different printable media yielded different results. In the process of producing this article we printed over 50+ test CDRs in order to experiment with all of the features and adjustments that the driver had to offer.

During our testing we found that different brands of ink jet printable CDR media yielded different results. While this was not a surprise, the quality of color and resulting printed CDR did vary somewhat due to the difference in media. During the testing process we experimented with four different brands of blank ink jet printable CDR media. Our test media included ink jet printable media from Imation, Memorex, Taiyo Yuden, and Verbatim.

The Imation ink jet printable media offered an off-white colored top surface for ink jet printing, while the bottom surface of the disc was gold in color. The Memorex media offered a brighter colored white surface on the top for ink jet printing, while the bottom of the CDR was gold/silver in color. The Verbatim ink jet printable CDR offered an off-white colored surface with a hint of silver for ink jet printing. The bottom of the Verbatim CDR's recording surface was blue/silver in color, which is no surprise since Verbatim has always used a different dye from other manufacturers. The Taiyo Yuden was the most unique of the lot, providing a silver colored printable surface on the top of their media. The bottom writable area of the Taiyo Yuden CDRs was blue/green and silver in color.