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Choosing the right DVD label printer for use at home or in smaller businesses can save you time, money and sometimes damaged equipment.

If you want to make sure you get the right printer (which works as a CD label printer as well, and is often labeled CD DVD Label Printer) you’ll need to balance a trade-off between price, quality and probable monthly volume.
For the low volume user (somewhere around 3 or 4 discs a week) the product range is not enormous, and prices vary from under $100 to about $400. Most products will work with PC or Mac, although the choice of label software for Mac might be a little more restricted than for PC.

Then there is a big volume jump for anyone wanting to a dvd label printer for, say, 50 discs a week – perhaps not enough to justify going to a disc-duplicating professional, but enough to put serious strain on the cheaper machines, not to mention the strain on the budget. In this area, the prices will range from $1000 to about $5000.

Why use a DVD label printer at all?

But why label discs in the first place? What’s wrong with handwritten text using a permanent marker, commonly known as a sharpie?

Quite apart from looks and ease of indexing, there are some very good reasons not to use marker pens on CDs and DVDs:
• Cheap discs can be damaged by the solvents in markers or adhesive stickers; (although this is not as much of a problem with a DVD, which is constructed differently to a CD);
• They won’t look very professional;
• They’re much more difficult to sort through to find the one you want.
Business benefits of DVD label printer.
In this digital age, companies use DVDs to hold information, to distribute presentations, to show videos. These discs are distributed internally and also to customers and business partners – and appearance is all-important.

DVD label printers offer a perfect solution. They are affordable, offer high-resolution printing in bright colors, and the more expensive models allow a substantial number of DVDs to be produced quickly and to a high standard.

Using adhesive labels

If you’re going to print on to a label, your best option is to choose a label pack with special pre-cut circular labels (and often a special applicator).

If you’re going to stick on a label there are some facts you need to be aware of:
• Labels can peel off and damage the drive;
• At in high speeds the labels often put the disc off balance and make it unreadable.
• Stick-on labels can damage disc drive bearings.

Inkjet DVD label printer options

If you go the inkjet route, you can choose between a conventional printer that you will need to use with special pre-printed label sheets, or alternatively go for a conventional printer that also has a special tray that enables you to print directly on to a disc.
There are advantages and drawbacks to this approach (see CD DVD Label Printer)

Direct print to CD/DVD

If you decide you’d rather not take a chance on stick-on labels, you can always consider buying a DVD label printer that will print direct on to the disc.

Here there are also two different technologies to consider; one is the inkjet direct-to-disc printer, and the other is a thermal DVD/CD label printer.

There is a very sharp price divide in this category. While the Dymo Discpainter retails for less than $300, an automatic unit like the Primera Bravo SE Autoprinter is about $1000, and as you add features and speed the price climbs steeply past the $5000 mark.

Thermal DVD label printer

Finally, you have the option of the DVD thermal printer, which works with transfer ribbons and which is most suited to labels with text and logos, but no graphics. The cheaper products print in one color only, the most common being black, red, blue or green.

This kind of DVD label printer does not require specially-treated discs, and will work perfectly well on standard CDs or DVDs.