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Writing on Thermal DVD-r's?

videobread posted 2009 Aug 04 21:18

Is there anything that will write on thermal DVD's. I bought some by mistake. I sent back the unopened packages, but have one pack of 50 or so left. I might just have to toss them. No pen seems to want to write/label them. They are white hub thermal printable.

Noahtuck posted 2009 Aug 04 21:22

Pen or sharpie ?? Because i sure as hell would not write on any kind of dvdr with a ball point pen!!!!!

minidv2dvd posted 2009 Aug 04 21:25

did you try a "sharpie" brand marker? they seem to write on about anything. my favorite is the "ultra fine" point. or you could always pick up one of those $1000 color thermal printers :)

M Bruner posted 2009 Aug 04 22:18

I always used the little 1.5" labels around the spindle hole. Never use a marker, or you'll regret it.

Noahtuck posted 2009 Aug 05 06:21

M Bruner : I always used the little 1.5" labels around the spindle hole. Never use a marker, or you'll regret it. :shock: :freak: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

jman98 posted 2009 Aug 05 08:08

M Bruner : I always used the little 1.5" labels around the spindle hole. Never use a marker, or you'll regret it. This is an interesting post. The general advice is to never use labels. Too many problems. Labels can pull the disc apart over time and ruin it. There are some warnings on the internet about using Sharpies, but there's no evidence that they damage discs.

Noahtuck posted 2009 Aug 05 09:36

Yep, very interesting..... I'd like to know where he came up with that!! I just checked a verbatim dvd+r that i used a sharpie on & plays as good as the day i burned it. It was burned on 07/20/2003, so i'm guessing it must be pretty safe to use a sharpie :roll: I have older dvdr's than that one, but out of 1000's of dvd's i knew offhand that one was pretty old. It has the super smooth silver mirror metal finish with the purple silkscreen graphics on it, the way old style.

fritzi93 posted 2009 Aug 05 11:14

Well, I used to use what are termed "hub labels" and *never* had any problem with them. (Is that what M Bruner means by 1.5" labels?) Now full-face sticky labels are another thing entirely. Don't even think of using them. :boom: I should think a sharpie would work okay.

orsetto posted 2009 Aug 05 11:33

I'm having the same trouble with a huge batch of white inkjet surface Verbatim DataLife DVD-Rs I picked up a few weeks ago. They must have made recent "improvements" to these coatings to help printing on the intended devices work better, at the cost of making the surface useless to write on with anything else. Sharpies are my preferred marker, but even they are defeated by these revised "printable" surfaces. The only thing I've found that will work is BIC Mark-It, which is similar to a Sharpie but with slightly different tip and ink flow. Even with the BIC, I have to renew the ink flow every few letters by resting the tip on a piece of scratch paper. The thought that I have 350 more of these "unwritable surface" DVD-Rs stockpiled gives me nightmares, but I can't return them: the supplier doesn't have any standard "shiny" Verbatims to exchange for. So going forward, I recommend avoiding media designed for printers unless you actually have the correct printer: the days of using white surface discs for their larger writing area with marker pens seems to be over. :( (BTW I agree any kind of label is risky, even hub labels: many DVD recorders and PC burners do not accommodate these hub rings very well, resulting in way-loud clamp noises while spinning. They're a necessary evil for disc rentals and libraries, but not very desirable for home use.)

M Bruner posted 2009 Aug 05 16:54

fritzi93 : Well, I used to use what are termed "hub labels" and *never* had any problem with them. (Is that what M Bruner means by 1.5" labels?) Now full-face sticky labels are another thing entirely. Don't even think of using them. :boom: Yes, that's what I meant.

Noahtuck posted 2009 Aug 05 17:34

M Bruner : Never use a marker, or you'll regret it. And why would that be :?: :roll: If a sharpie ruins your dvdr's then you are using some damn cheap POS......

lordsmurf posted 2009 Aug 05 18:36

Hub labels are okay, Sharpie is fine. A lot of what I'm reading here is myth. Sounds time I wrote some more articles, backed up with facts about media, instead of the individual boogeyman stories I'm seeing lately.

Noahtuck posted 2009 Aug 05 18:53

lordsmurf : Sharpie is fine. Well, i guess it would depend on which side you were writing on :shock: :lol: :lol:

videobread posted 2009 Aug 06 18:06

Thanks. The sharpie worked fine. I ran one through my ink jet printer and the ink would not dry. Pens did not work. By the way, they are CD-R's. I'll just keep them around and use the sharpie.

M Bruner posted 2009 Aug 06 23:19

Hehe. You'll be sorrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeee. :lol:

Noahtuck posted 2009 Aug 06 23:53

M Bruner : Hehe. You'll be sorrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeee. :lol: Really?? Huh.... Seeing as i have DVDr's that are at LEAST 6 years old that were written on with sharpies and still work fine, and i know i have older one's then that, i would suspect that using sharpies is fine. Way older/longer then you have even been a member.... So unless you can provide some kind of proof, we are going to assume you are writing on the wrong side of the DVDR's!!! :lol: :lol: :freak: And in case you think by POS i mean Point of sale, i really mean Piece Of $h!t!! 8)

videobread posted 2009 Aug 07 07:49

WOW! Seems to be a lot of mythology out there about writing on printable DVD's. They are made for printing - for putting ink on them. The sharpie just paints ink on the surface, like a printer. Sharpie is just ink! I know there will not be a problem. End of story.

M Bruner posted 2009 Aug 07 08:00

I still miss the video I made of a family member some years ago. I was running short of blank DV tapes so I captured the video and put it on a DVD-R, wrote on the silver side, not the purple side with my trusty Sharpie, and taped over the DV tape. I don't know what mythology you are referring to, but this I know, the DVD could no longer be read once I marked on it with a Sharpie.

jman98 posted 2009 Aug 07 08:07

M Bruner : I still miss the video I made of a family member some years ago. I was running short of blank DV tapes so I captured the video and put it on a DVD-R, wrote on the silver side, not the purple side with my trusty Sharpie, and taped over the DV tape. I don't know what mythology you are referring to, but this I know, the DVD could no longer be read once I marked on it with a Sharpie. Ah yes. I've seen this kind of argument before. When X is done once and Y is the result, the conclusion by many people is that Y will always happen if you do X. I'd suggest that the REAL problem is likely that you used cheap, crap discs and that they wouldn't have worked anyway. Many of us have used Sharpies for years with no problems on our discs. Honestly, you're the first person I've ever seen report a problem after writing on a disc.

M Bruner posted 2009 Aug 07 08:37

I know. But I do know using hub labels solves all my issues, and I wish you all the very best of luck with your Sharpies, while my Sharpies have been relegated to labeling packages about to be mailed.

classfour posted 2009 Aug 07 08:44

I use one of these for thermal printable - sharpie when in a hurry

orsetto posted 2009 Aug 07 12:00

The whole "Sharpie" mythlology started back in the CD-R days: if you used the hard-nub fine-tip Sharpies on some of the more-fragile CD-R media brands, it would eat right thru the thin lacquer top coating and damage the recording. When DVD-R was developed, mfrs learned from that mistake: unlike the exposed recording layer in CD-R, the dye layer in DVD-R is sandwiched between two relatively thick plastic discs. There is no way in hell a Sharpie can eat thru to or damage a DVD-R: put it out of your mind. When I complain of difficulties with Sharpie pens on "printable surface" DVD-R, I'm talking about the marker being unable to mark that surface due to odd friction or other mechanical issues that impede ink flow from the tip. The newer versions of inkjet-printable surfaces seem more optimized for sprayed-on printer ink vs the ink from marker pen tips, but this has nothing to do with "damage": the markers can't hurt the discs. Hub labels are also reasonably "safe", my dislike of them stems from the slight mechanical instability they cause in some standalone recorder and PC burner drives (unusually loud noises, increased sensitivity to minor surface wear and disc errors). Hub labels work much better when the discs are played in dedicated DVD players, whose drives seem to be more tolerant of disc variations.

lordsmurf posted 2009 Aug 07 14:37

Awesome. Sanity is prevailing again. Orsetto nailed it. The issue was not even the ink "eating through" the cheap aluminum, but the hard writing of the felt tip itself would break the surface. It had NOTHING to do with the ink, although ink would often seep into the dye layer, causing the observable mess later on. "When X is done once and Y is the result, the conclusion by many people is that Y will always happen if you do X" is a classic fallacy. An elementary science teacher would give an F (poor understanding of the scientific method). There are two variables there, with no constants/controls, and making such a conclusion is bad form. Indeed, the real reason is more likely one of using cheap media.

V Bot posted 2009 Aug 07 16:25

jman98 : M Bruner : I still miss the video I made of a family member some years ago. I was running short of blank DV tapes so I captured the video and put it on a DVD-R, wrote on the silver side, not the purple side with my trusty Sharpie, and taped over the DV tape. I don't know what mythology you are referring to, but this I know, the DVD could no longer be read once I marked on it with a Sharpie. Ah yes. I've seen this kind of argument before. When X is done once and Y is the result, the conclusion by many people is that Y will always happen if you do X. I'd suggest that the REAL problem is likely that you used cheap, crap discs and that they wouldn't have worked anyway. Many of us have used Sharpies for years with no problems on our discs. Honestly, you're the first person I've ever seen report a problem after writing on a disc. I take it you threw the disc out? Couldn't it have been cleaned/polished? I bought a polisher on eBay for $125.00 a couple of years ago and it has done wonders to scratched discs. I usually take care of my disc, but there's the occassional one I set aside when changing discs out.

M Bruner posted 2009 Aug 07 19:37

Yes it became a coaster. There wasn't any cosmetic damage or any markings on the disk other than the Sharpie on the silver side.

Noahtuck posted 2009 Aug 07 23:51

M Bruner : Yes it became a coaster. There wasn't any cosmetic damage or any markings on the disk other than the Sharpie on the silver side. Seriously.... Are you mentally challenged ?? I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer..... But damn!!!!!!!!!

M Bruner posted 2009 Aug 07 23:55

What do you mean?

Noahtuck posted 2009 Aug 08 00:03

Nuff Said!!!!!!!

M Bruner posted 2009 Aug 08 00:08

Ohhhhkayy.

redwudz posted 2009 Aug 08 10:46

Please keep the discussion on topic and civil. Fair warning. Moderator redwudz

mazinz posted 2009 Aug 08 12:15

M Bruner, do you remember what type of media was used? That has an overall bigger role in your coaster problem than writing on the disc Orsetto (in a few posts above) covered it nicely when he mentioned the data being sandwiched between two thin pieces of plastic (sony's are made like this). However I have come across older, crap dvdr's where this is not the case and they were layed out similar to a cd. So perhaps M. Bruner this was your problem? Crap media with no protection on top caused the corruption of your disc. Not so much so from the actual writing but from using cheap media, It sounds more like if anything accidently got on that dvd surface it would have screwed up your disc

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