Hi all,

I want to buy a printer to use exclusively for CD/DVD printing. I already own a Canon IP4500, but I'm not happy with the photo results (other than that it is the best printer...well..until the printhead starts having problems). So I am turning to Epson R280, because it has 6 colors and better color matching.
I want to ask, what is the speed of CD printing for Epson R280? The Canon prints in about 1 minute, 50 CDs per hour and I heard Epson and HP are much slower. Can any of you tell me the exact time? Is it twice slower? Or more like three times slower?

This is an issue for me, as I thing even Canon speed is slow. It takes a lot of time to align the tray (about 30 sec). If Canon optimizes that and the photo quality it will be the best CD printer for production.

The Epson is almost twice as slow as the IP4500. Id also argue that color matching is not better, but worse. There's a sticky thread here with a direct comparison.

I saw that thread and the pictures there. But it only made me decide with Epson. In the pictures I can see clearly the red-shift in color for Canon, this is a problem Canon is dragging on for years. If you were to print human faces, the problem will become obvious.
Plus that Canon is poor with color graduations so I want to try the 6 ink system. Epson is the only A4 printer with 6 inks that also prints CDs.

Thanks for the info about speed.

I disagree about color matching. With proper calibration and color profile setup, the Canon is better with a 3-color setup than the Epson 5-color. Color shifts are easy to correct with a good driver. The Epson is also much more difficult to set up, and the disc printing driver does not seem to respond to manual driver color settings much, if at all. If you're planning to use OOTB settings, neither is correct. The test discs I posted are all done with OOTB settings for the most part. The only thing I really liked about the Epson was the black, though again the Canon comes close with manual settings. You might also consider the Canon Pro series printers, although I cannot speak to their relative speed for discs. The IP4500 is doing bi-directional printing on discs, the Epson is mono-directional.

Also note that the Epson inks are much more prone to smears.

Can not say for sure on the time of the R280 but the R260 takes about 2 full minutes to print a disc.

As far as color the R260 straight out of the box no adjustments and the colors look great, the Red is not as Red as I would like it so you would probably have to do some tweeking on it.

Hope this helps.

My R220 takes 2 minutes 49 seconds exactly to print a DVD and my old R200
was even slower than that.

Timed mine over the weekend 2 min 32 sec per disc.

Of course it depends on what you're printing. But the IP4500 takes about 45 sec for a full-face photo print.

Mine takes the same amount of time wither I'm printing a full face full coverage DVD or
just printing a plain one line of text on a DVD.

So does mine, full 2 min 32 sec for anything I print.
AS the Op started with in this thread it does take a full 30 sec just to align the tray to get started.