Software That Simplifies Disc Burning

Craig Crossman of the McClatchy-Tribune News Service has found a product that makes cutting your own discs even easier mainstream function for the average computer user ...

Burning CDs and DVDs has become commonplace. It's almost like printing a page on your printer.

In fact, the only real difference between printing a page and burning a disc is that with disc publishing, you still have to physically handle the disc media to set it all up.

You have to open the disc drive, insert the disc, close it, then remove it after it's burned. If you need to label it, you remove your regular paper from the printer so that you can insert the label stock. Then you print it.

Finally, you have to peel the backing from the label and stick it onto the disc, which means you have to handle everything once more before the final printed disc is completed. Oh, and don't forget to put regular paper back in the printer.

I don't know about you, but if I had to do all that just to print a single page, I'd probably hire someone else to do it.

Print and move on

So wouldn't it be great if publishing a burned and labeled disc was just as easy as printing a page? That way you could just click "Print" and move on.

Thanks to Primera and its new Bravo SE Disc Publisher, you can. And what makes this even better is that it doesn't use labels, you can publish up to 20 discs unattended and it's really affordable.

The Bravo SE Disc Publisher works in much the same way as the larger, more expensive Bravo models from Primera. Using a little robotic arm, the entire process operates hands-free. From a stack of blank inkjet-printable discs, the arm picks up and places a disc inside the integrated Pioneer DVR-111 DVD1R/CD-R recorder. Primera uses the most current, state-of-the-art optical drives in their publishers for the fastest burning available.

After the disc is burned, the robot moves the disc to the built-in 4800 dpi direct-to-disc inkjet color printer. After it's printed, the robot picks the disc from the printer and places it into the publisher's output bin and begins the process over again. You just walk away while the Bravo SE Disc Publisher creates disc after disc.

The Bravo SE Disc Publisher includes the special burning and printing software for both Windows and Macintosh systems.

Layout help

Also included is a page-layout application that helps you to create and design the images to be printed. For Windows, there's PTPublisher SE duplication software. Developed by Primera specifically for the Bravo SE Disc Publisher, PTPublisher SE offers a professional disc duplication solution that is easy to use.

A professional labeling program called SureThing CD Labeler Primera Edition is also included for graphic design. For the Macintosh, there's CharisMac Engineering's Discribe V5.0 duplication software along with design templates for Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.

With either platform, you can use virtually any graphic-design application you already have and just import the final image into the duplication software that comes with the unit. You can elect to publish all the same or even different discs in a single, unattended run.

With the Bravo SE Disc Publisher, Primera makes it a no-brainer for businesses and organizations of all types when they have a need for in-house, high-quality disc duplication and publishing.

Keeping things in-house means no more deadline hassles. Changes can be made frequently and at any time.

The Bravo SE Disc Publisher will actually pay for itself in no time flat from the money you'll save by no longer having it done at costly publishing services.

The Bravo SE Disc Publisher sells for $1,495. The Bravo SE AutoPrinter, a non-burning, automated printing-only solution is also available and is priced at $995.