TR Forums

Can anyone recommend a free/cheap Lightscribe program? Failing that, can anyone recommend a good program, period, or share experiences with Lightscribe in general? I've decided to make some DVDs for backup purposes and I'd like to duplicate the labels on the originals, but in Lightscribe instead. Is it worth it?

I used to have a lightscribe-enabled burner and it was actually quite a good experience and I labeled quite a few DVDs using Lightscribe. The prints always came out quite nice. Just make sure that your DVD is inserted on the correct side in the tray
I am not 100% confident of my memory, but I think I just downloaded the utility to burn labels from the official lightscribe website.

I used to experiment with Lightscribe in the past... I used whatever software that was on official Lightscribe page here: http://www.lightscribe.com/DownloadSect ... index.aspx, the one that is called "Lightscribe Template Labeler", it worked well. Didn't went past few experiments because I mostly use DL DVD media and it is hard to find a high quality DL DVD Lightscribe-compatible media with a reasonable price at a reliable reseller.

My experience with Lightscribe have been mostly good. You can get surprisingly high resolution out of the labels. I think I only used the software off of the Lightscribe myself, that or whatever came with my ancient bundled version of Nero.

Yes, finding DL lightscribe DVDs is tough. Apparently Verbatim discontinued the ones they made late last year. I will try the lightscribe website.

The various Nero (and similar) software that shipped with retail optical drives generally had a Lightscribe feature, and not everybody installs those things, so you might ask around. One of the commercial apps would generate a track / file listing directly into the LS label, although that was a lot more useful in the CD era when you only had maybe 20 things on disc. There are photoshop templates around too, to help you design your label (it's often much easier to use a real design tool and then just turn it into a 1:1 bitmap for use in one of the basic labelers).

Two things to keep in mind: the resolution is coarse, so don't expect much in the way of tiny fonts or fine details to work well. And the process is s-l-o-w. Especially if you double-burn to get extra contrast (which seems to be less necessary with recent drives and discs). If you're going to be doing a lot of these, you may find it more time/labor efficient to get ink-jet-printable discs and buy / borrow a printer.

That said, when burning periodic backups and downloaded ISOs, I actually find Lightscribe to be quite convenient and useful.

I've been happy witht he software that JohnC linked, but my needs are pretty modest. Just text without any image or ornament. And I usually burn the labels two or three times for better contrast, like UG mentioned.

I also just used the software from the website because it came with my computer, which is just the software from the site JohnC linked. The drive i used was kinda old, but still in service, so i have no idea how it would compare to a newer drive. The images were very crisp. I found double burning mostly useless the first past was normally just fine for me. I only dabbled but can imagine it comes in handy if you want to organize and add some flair to your recordable media collection. I vote worthwhile let us know what you think if you try .

We messed around with it a bit at work using the software from the Lightscribe site, to label discs we send to customers. IIRC it worked OK, but was rather slow. We ended up opting for inkjet printable media and a separate disc printer instead, since it was faster and resulted in more professional looking discs.

I downloaded the Lightscribe Template software. Haven't burned anything yet as I'm waiting for my dual layer discs to arrive, but the program estimates about a 13 minute burn time for the graphics I want on normal quality. That's not bad, really. If I was making hundreds of discs, I'd probably want a printer, but for only a few I can't justify the cost.

Never tried to burn a label, although I have a Lightscribe compatible drive.

It just seems that no one ships Lightscribe compatible media to Latvia.

Vrock wrote:

I downloaded the Lightscribe Template software. Haven't burned anything yet as I'm waiting for my dual layer discs to arrive, but the program estimates about a 13 minute burn time for the graphics I want on normal quality.

That sounds about right; hopefully the quality will be good enough you don't see the need to double-burn. I've had surprisingly little problems getting the labels I wanted the first time out, but you still might want to get yourself some cheap LS-compatible single-layer DVD or CD ±Rs to use as test mules.