[piano-laden jazz music]
[computer buzzes, beeps] - Greetings, a bit of a
simpler LGR video this time. As you can tell from the title,
nothing too involved here. The more involved projects
I had in the works aren't yet finished. They need more time. And at the moment, at least
once this video goes live, I will be at Long Island Gaming, yeah, Long Island Retro Gaming Expo. August 11th through 13th, 2023 at the Cradle of Aviation
Museum in New York. Yeah, Long Island I guess. I don't know, I've never been there, either to New York or this show but it seems pretty awesome,
I've wanted to go for years. So I will be there hanging out the weekend that this video is going up. And since I'd rather not
rush the more involved things that I normally do, we're gonna go with something pretty simple here, but I don't know, to
me is kind of, [laughs] debatably sort of maybe interesting. This is the Casio Disc Title printer, specifically the CW-50 model from 2002. And this is one of those things that I just re-stumbled across back when I covered the
disc tattooing system on LGR Oddware a while back. And you know, ever since
I got my first CD burner like 23 years ago or
whatever, I've had this on again off again back
of my mind obsession with disc labeling systems, specifically those that lets
you label the discs directly. And with the Disc T@2-ing system from Yamaha that lets
you burn on the data side some graphics into the
dye of the disc itself. But the results were rather underwhelming. But I remember seeing these type of things in stores like Staples and
Office Depot or whatever. So what's different
here is this is actually a thermal printer that
lets you print directly onto just regular CDs,
on the label side this time. You just put your CD in there and it doesn't burn directly
onto it or anything. It's not a CD burner, but
it is a thermal printer that plugs in via USB and
it's got some software and you can print with
a different ribbons. So black, silver, red, blue
and green were available. I only have a black ribbon so we're gonna be testing that out. And you know, I've just always wondered like can this possibly work that well? I mean thermal printing, sure, that's a great solution
for a lot of things. But it really seems like it's gonna depend on the particular discs that you're using. So for example I noticed
here they're using these which look like just
plain lacquer finish discs with nothing on them, no third
party or vendor labeling. Like this one here is, but
this appears to be a Sony CD-R but those have a very nice matte-finished blank area on the CD. And there are a number of CD-Rs and different types of burnable media that I'm assuming they
just wouldn't make sense for this at all.
[chuckling] Like, you remember those vinyl CD-Rs? Yeah, like that probably isn't gonna work very well like that -- Y'know, any of those
that have the surfaces. Also a nice alternative it seems, maybe, to like those CD Stomper systems where you just print
out on a paper sticker and effectively just
smash it down onto the CD. But those had a tendency to come unstuck or go on there weirdly and
then they could get jammed, or you know, come off inside
of your CD player or drive and that's a problem. And of course there were
also the inkjet printers that had a specialized
area just for printing directly onto inkjet
compatible blank media. But that required specific media whereas this is just supposed
to work on more things. Not everything, but more things. In fact, it does say here that "satisfactory printing
result may not be possible if you try to print on
an inkjet printable disc or a disc whose label has a rough surface or some design within the area." So we're gonna have to try that! But yeah, this being from 2002, this is also two years before
LightScribe was a thing. So that was the solution
that I ended up going with back in the day but curious
if I had gotten this, would it have been any better? It's a neat tidy little design here. There were others. This is the first one from 2002. There was also the CW-75 in 2004 and that one had like buttons
and a display and everything so you could do it without a computer. And then there was the
CW-100 that came in 2005. Pretty much the same thing as this but it was just more
vertical and it'll let you have a rotating or auto
rotating option inside of there. This one I don't think actually
rotates the disc for you. So can only print on like one
portion of the disc at a time. Yeah, we get a 16-watt power
supply there and ink ribbon which this one might've been used already. I don't know, maybe it's dry. I have another one, and
regular old USB cable, all kinds of various
warnings and paperwork bits like all the things that can go wrong. Don't run out of CD-Rs and ribbons. Okay, so they did sell their own that didn't have any kind
of text already on there. So $10 for each of the ribbons. 50 bucks for a hundred pack
of those CD-Rs, not bad. Oh yeah, the software is
still, that's still sealed. That's on CD-ROM for
Windows 98 and higher. I don't know what this is. It's a positioning guide, gets it all aligned on there correctly. Quite the user's guide here,
80 pages. [concerned laugh] Well! I thought this
would be quick and simple. You never know. Like one of those things maybe somebody just used it once and put it back. "Remove the tape, remove
the packing material." That's what I'm trying to do. Ah-huh. Well there's that. That's a kind of flimsy and cheap-feeling. But you know. This was $130 in 2002... by the way, but it wasn't
long before [chuckles] you could see them getting
pretty hefty discounts later on according to the old
newspaper ads that I found. Interesting, I guess it just does nothing without it being connected to USB. Either that or it's dead and the power's dead and
then that would suck. Okay, well, I guess we'll try this one first. I mean, it's thermal, right? It shouldn't dry out. Yeah, I don't know. We're gonna give it a
shot and if I need to, we'll get the other cartridge that I have. [cartridge clicks in] All right. Yeah, let's get this
plugged into a computer and title some discs. All right, so the disc titler is plugged into the Windows XP PC, ready to go there with the power and USB. It does power on once USB is connected. And then over here we've got
the computer itself running. We'll just get the disc
title printer program opened up here and yeah,
this is pretty much it. You get some templates if you
wanna pre-select some designs or you can just go with a free design. Either text or text with photos, open other pre-made
ones or just, you know, start one here and choose your template. So you've got print
patterns, pretty much just the how you want the text or images oriented on the disc itself. So top and bottom, just top or bottom with a rounded shape to it or not, or you know, flipped around thing down, flip it and reverse it or whatever. You know, you can mirror
them and stuff like that. Yeah, it's pretty much self-explanatory if you've ever used a CD label maker. So let's just go into- We're gonna do a free
design here with images. Oh, interesting, you can't
choose the different patterns. You can choose some different ones. So just go with that. So we have a top and
bottom pattern going on. Let's add text up here at the top. Gotta do something goofy like, you know. [keyboard clacks] Okay, well that's as big as we can go, at least with comic sans. And down here we're gonna put in an image. You can do a pattern or error diffusion dithering option here. [laughs] I don't have, oh wait,
no I do have some images from like, oh yeah, that's right. This was that IPAC camera. Let's go with one of these
little keen and doom guy figures. Oh wow, that's gonna be very
well, you know. [laughs] Oh, oh the dithering is truly awful but kind of awesome at the same time. Can we change? Yeah, there we go. That looks a little better
with error diffusion. We'll just get a full area
down here printing out and it'll just crop off
whatever it can't print in that big stupid looking rectangle. So let's press print. That automatically pops open. I'm just gonna leave this open here so we can see it do its thing. But yeah, we'll need a CD-R of course. And I still do have this thing from LGR Blurbs so it's quite handy. Yeah, I've chosen these here 'cause they're just pretty standard CD-Rs with a manufacturer label on the top. So it's got this sort
of matte finish going on but also this section where
it's just not really labeled, it's just the regular lacquer
showing through there cut out. So just curious how it'll
react to different surfaces and since it does the top of it first, we gotta rotate it around like this and just sort of plop it down in there. But there is, you know,
a bit of leeway here and that is what the guide is for. So we just put that right there and now we can rotate it around and get it hopefully in just the
right spot. [chuckles] You know, it's precisely imprecise. And now on the computer we
can just hit start printing. [buzzing printing sounds] Ooh. [printer clacks] Well what in the world,
that looks pretty good. That's more of a a disc tattoo than the Yamaha DiscT@2 machine. [laughs] Just right on there. Interesting that it doesn't
actually adhere or print on those parts there where
it's just sort of lacquer. I don't know, maybe there's
just a different finish there. It's almost more of a, I don't
know, it's just different. That's not what I was expecting. Okay, so let's try the
other side down here. See how that goes. And that's right. I gotta put it around this way. Sort of the opposite of
what you might think. Looks pretty good and
we'll start printing. [rough printing noise] Whoa. Well I am glad that this ink
cartridge is working well. I don't have to unbox the other
one I have for now, but wow. Again, that looks really
good for what it is. But yeah, it's those,
those lines or wherever these parts are where
the regular label isn't, it does not like printing
on those whatsoever. That is fascinating. It's so cool though. I really like the way the dithered looks. That's, oh dude, this is neat. Okay, okay. I'm getting kind of excited weirdly. Let's try a different type of CD-R here. So this has, or, well this is a DVR but it doesn't matter. This has a label like this which is matte finish
but there isn't any kind of logo stuff in the way there. So maybe this will be awesome. And I don't care too much
about the guide here. Let's just print this out. [buzzing printing sound] Yeah, that is looking wonderful. Check that out. That is phenomenal looking
for a machine like this. Just thermal printing straight on there. That's a good surface for it apparently. Let's do the image. Ah crap, ah crap. Well, I forgot to rotate
it around. [laughs] I guess we'll get to see it overlap now. Not what I intended, but apparently yeah, you can just overlap
printing right there, which- Interesting. Okay, let's try to do
that, how I meant to now. Doesn't look as good as the other one did. Wasn't expecting that much of a difference but this looks way better. It just has the lines going through it. But yeah, this one, it
almost has this sort of like I don't know, it's like a softer label. It is really interesting
the differences here. Okay, let's try another one here. I have a straight label-less DVD. This is just all lacquer. [chuckles] This seems to be the ideal
option according to Casio. [printing buzzing sound] I mean that that just
looks like a straight-up, almost official CD label. That's really cool. Wow, yeah, it still does not look as good as that first one did. Maybe the lacquer just no
label is not the best solution. It's like it needs a bit
of a silvery background to really make things shine through, at least for dithered images like this. But nothing else getting in the way like these lines are getting in the way. What about some of these color
DVDs or some of these CDs? Yeah, "Cool Color" CD-Rs. They have a pattern but
it's slightly different. Yeah, that's kinda got the
pattern showing through just a bit there. Let's see how the image fares. Not bad but not great either. Yeah, that pattern really messes
things up, any patterns do. But those two are honestly
kind of my favorite so far if it weren't for the
patterns showing through them. Huh. Okay, now one thing it said not to try, inkjet printer media. I think specifically because of just the way the thermal
adhesion works with heat. Well no, that's going on there. Well yeah, that definitely did some- Like there's a border around there. It's not rubbing off. It's not rubbing off in any of these. I was seeing some reports that sometimes it'll just
rub off a certain surfaces like these here but seems
okay, let's try the image. Ooh. Well that isn't bad. Compared to that very first
one, it's honestly pretty good. It's better than the
lacquer one in my opinion. Huh. I was not expecting that. Like the, what exactly was
the warning in the manual? Yeah, it was actually
on the back of the box. Printhead must be able to
move across the surface. You might not get satisfactory results on an inkjet printable disc. Seems pretty good
honestly, other than that sort of little border around
there that you can see. It's very faint though. Well now I'm just morbidly curious. Okay, what about the top transparent blank that goes on the top protecting portion of your CD spindles when you
get blanks, let's just try it. They're a little bit thinner
than a normal CD-R so- Oh, it's printing. [laughter] I wasn't fully expecting that to work. 'Cause yeah these are, they are thinner, just by a hair than a normal CD-R. Okay. [laughs] Image time, let's see what this does. [excessively pleased laugh] Ah, that's so silly!
[chuckles at silliness] Oh, what else can I put in here? Yeah, it's probably a dumb idea to put things that aren't CDs but you know what? Now I'm thinking, oh one
other thing I can try though. The CD that it came with. [chuckles] Like what about just putting
a little, I don't know, property of LGR or something on there. If I can just figure
out where it should go. Yeah, like right with the
middle farts, where that is. Yeah, something like that. [printer buzzing] Oh, it doesn't want to do it at all. Interesting. [laughs] It didn't stick even in the slightest. Fascinating. Can I do the other side? I've already backed this thing up. So how about tattooing the data side in the disc tattoo tradition? I think that worked. Oh yeah. Right in the data area. [laughs] Well, I don't think that'll
be readable anymore. You know, science. Sometimes it's not about
whether you should, but whether or not you could. Or what about the CD sleeve that came in? It's not the same thickness but you know it is kind of the size. I was actually gonna try like a five and a quarter inch
floppy, but it's too wide. Oh my goodness. [laughing] Thermal printers baby, they don't care. They'll print on basically whatever if you push it hard enough, I guess. Oh man. Long as the surface will take a print. That is, this is- [laughs] All right, taking bets on whether
or not this'll still read. Let's try it. Oh my goodness. I mean there wasn't a ton of data on here but I thought for sure that
we printed on top of the data. Maybe we did 'cause it
seems to be stopping here. [laughing] Not surprising if so. Yeah, there we go. Data error, CRC. Like I said, I did already have this already fully backed up. It's on archive.org, check the link in the description. Yeah, this thing is pretty great. I mean, all the stuff
that we can do on here. This is so much more enjoyable than the the disc tattooing thing with/ it's terrible burning
on the, on the data side, putting hard to see images. I mean obviously thermal
printer's gonna be way better but this is still better than I thought. And it really makes me wish that I had one that did
full sized CD labels. Oh no, how long is it gonna be until I splurge on some
decommissioned litho offset machine. Alright, well that is about it for this bit of delightful
silliness, I suppose. It's really quite the
enjoyable thing, the CW-50. Kind of curious about the other models now but as far as I know, they
work pretty much identically. Do let me know if you
ever used one of these back in the day or
alternatives, I don't know. I do want to get one that's
full color if possible but I don't even know if
that kind of thing exists in a thermal printer variant. I've only seen inkjet ones. But yeah, again, this
is just a simple video for this week while I'm away at the show and also just in between working
on more involved projects. But yeah, if you do happen to be at Long Island Retro and see me there, say hi for sure. Yeah, I hope you enjoyed
this one as simple as it was. And as always, thanks for watching.
Way to go printing on the wrong side of the CD you renegade !! What's next .. not rewinding your video tapes ?
This could be handy for labeling so many things. Too bad the things would have to be flat like a CD, though.
fartsfartsfarts
Printing on the data side of that printer software disk was kind of cringe but funny to see