ok in my pursuit to do more and more track day photoshoots of motorcycles and cars I have decided to take on more of a roll to not get prints to people but get them CD's with all of their images on them.

2 questions

1. Is there a recommended blank CD brand to buy....or one really not to buy

2. What would be a nice and quick CD burner, preferably USB that I could connect to the laptop and burn images from? Obviously externally.

CD Burner: I use Iomega. Hundred bucks, good and beefy too.

CD: I use Office Depot. $14.99 for 100. Donnot buy names that you have never heard of. You want to be able to grab someone by the throat for a CD failing, hence I use Office Depot. if you are selling the CDs then check out delkin.com for their long lasting gold CDs. A little pricey but worth it.

Yup I will be selling the CD's on site

Originally Posted by luckyrwe CD Burner: I use Iomega. Hundred bucks, good and beefy too. CD: I use Office Depot. $14.99 for 100. Donnot buy names that you have never heard of. You want to be able to grab someone by the throat for a CD failing, hence I use Office Depot. if you are selling the CDs then check out delkin.com for their long lasting gold CDs. A little pricey but worth it.

Well you do not want folks knocking on your door in 1-5 years that their CD went bad.

http://www.delkin.com/delkin_product...ival_gold.html

Wicked expensive for CD's. I have bought a ton of Memorex's for the past few years and never had an issue yet with one of them....for myself or a client.

Originally Posted by luckyrwe Well you do not want folks knocking on your door in 1-5 years that their CD went bad. http://www.delkin.com/delkin_product...ival_gold.html

They are a lot, but at a $1.35 each, not too bad. I want DVDs!

The black faced cd's seem to have gotten execelent reviews, and I've used them with great success. Much harder to scratch. Otherwise, stay name brand. Memorex, imation, so on.

The "archival" CDs are definitely longer lasting, if that is a concern. I don't know how much you're charging per CD, but I can't imagine paying $1.35 vs $.50 is going to be an insuperable obstacle. Don't forget that the cheap CDs often won't burn as fast as the more expensive ones, and are more likely to have errors while being burnt, so from a time-is-money perspective that's important too. I would stay away from the "100 on a spindle" ones. I'm using a PlexWriter 52/24/52 and it screams! I think the limiting factor is usually the physical limit of the media. I seem to recall it being around $60 a year ago.

Thanks but I need external USB 2.0 connected burner

Originally Posted by bkriete The "archival" CDs are definitely longer lasting, if that is a concern. I don't know how much you're charging per CD, but I can't imagine paying $1.35 vs $.50 is going to be an insuperable obstacle. Don't forget that the cheap CDs often won't burn as fast as the more expensive ones, and are more likely to have errors while being burnt, so from a time-is-money perspective that's important too. I would stay away from the "100 on a spindle" ones. I'm using a PlexWriter 52/24/52 and it screams! I think the limiting factor is usually the physical limit of the media. I seem to recall it being around $60 a year ago.

Mitsui archival gold disks are supposed to be some of the best. Here is their online store, here is a less expensive place I have bought them from.

Also consider how they are stored. I tried to have some files on DVD and final jpgs on DVD and gold CD-Rs. I will often burn a second set with a different brand disk too, hoping that it will work in the future.

I also am in the habit of verifying images on a disk (beyond the standard software verify) by running the images through a PS action, if it is a raw file I will have it create a set of jpgs from the disk. The action will usually be interrupted if there is a corrupt file. It instils a little confidence when PS has accessed everything on the disk rather than hoping everything is ok.

I have burners from both Lacie and EZ-Quest. The lacie is smaller, but has a block plug, the EZQ is larger but no block plug, find them here and here, from macmall, you can buy from pcmall which is the same place, just more pc oriented. I have mm bookmarked. I have bought a lot of items from them and have been happy with their service and pricing. You can probably find similar burners locally or from other online retailers as well.

Here is an article on archival CD-Rs at the Luminous-Landscape from last year.

http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware..._quality.shtml