I have been out all day today and googling and posting in different forums and realize that I don't want to buy a lightscribe burner, as i have 2 BenQ 162I external burners that I use with 2 notebooks that each have Any Dvd and one has Nero and the other 1 Click Dvd Copy.
All do great results with my R+ media recommended by BenQ with no coasters.
I have been doing family christenings, weddings etc and thought that it would be nice to put a title a pic instead of my hand scrawl on the disc and so I went in search for several days and googled to see what I could come up with.
I am in northwest Canada and found I could buy a LG lightscribe or HP lightscribe that print the label in black and white. No, that is not what I want.

So today I went to Best Buy, Staples and the Future Shop and find that I can get a printer to put a pic and the title on the media except that neither of the stores carry the media. I am supposed to phone NCIX tomorrow whom I have dealt with before for other items but who also do not make any recommendations. They simply take your order and supply the product.

Problem is, I have 400 + media (R+) that I burn on my present external BenQ 1621, and its successor and also a external Sony 810 UL; all of which I burn in DVD ROM and 14 of our family members standalone players are able to enjoy my projects.
Now I am told that "verbatim" from NCIX is the media that I will have to buy along with my new Printer ... the Epson RC-40 is recommended above the Canon pixma 6700 printer, In general use the Verbatim have kicked out so many coasters on the BenQ's and Sony External burners which I inquired with their support on and was told that this media is not one that passed their tests. Thus I am in a real dilemma.
We already have 2 Canon pixma ip 5000 for regular printing and pic's which we are quite thrilled with the quality and lacke of problems.
The size of the pixma 5000 is quite large and the aspect of getting another printer to print labels and being large is quite shocking but would be do able if the media did not have to be printable Verbatim which is what is only available here in British Columbia. Right now our burners do well with Fuji, Imation, Maxell and Sony and I don't like internet shopping.

Then I had one shop recommend the "thumper" and an Avery brand labelkers. I have always been leary of labels as I have heard that they can cause the dvd to not rotate in a balanced way in the standalone player. Andf thus cause problems as a result.

I really would appreciate experienced comments as I don't want to go and spend extra money and find that it is not a satisfactory investment, and have to buy media that both BenQ and Sony say are not supportable on their burners i.e. Verbatim. I have tried the R+ of Verbatim and one out of three actually are successful. Not a good investment as far as I am concerned and BenQ and Sony agree.

The better half said, why would I buy another printer and then more questionable media.
I already have good media that is coaster free??? so why go out and buy more? Ones that have demonstrated coaster problems.

If I only had a few in stock, it might be different; but 400 + is a large tad of an inventory that I know will work and thus I ask about a quality label maker to see if that is a good solution????? And a recommended brand???

Here in Canada, especially the west; they could not care less what one is trying to accomplish nor are the sales reps conversant in the area that I am looking to improve.
I really look forward to experienced comments, taking into consideration my dilemma of a large inventory of great dvd's that 14 family dvd players are always pleased to get my projects on.
I simply now would like to do a better presentation of my work. Namely, get rid of my hand scrawl on the outside of the disc.

Thankyou for listening and I look forward to replies,
Best regards.

I'm not really sure what it is that you want, but it sounds like you want to buy a printer and some media. I would buy a Canon over an Epson any time, but that's me. There's also an HP printer now that will print discs, see the thread about that in this forum. Disc printing can consume as much ink as photo printing, so consider the cost of the consumable inks.

Your best choice for printable media (or any other media) is Taiyo Yuden. You'd have to consult with some other board members on how to get that in Canada. The Verbatim printable media is another good choice, although there's no real way to tell what you'll get in Verbatim packaging, some is better than others and you'd want to look for media made in Taiwan or Singapore. Maxell is another possible source. There's no 100% guarantee of compatibility with your burners from any media maker. As a rule, I would avoid Memorex printable, but if you can get them real cheap even that would worth a try.

Thx for the reply, after talking to different compter stores all of which don't carry printable dvd's just the printers.
They suggest as you mentioned the "thumper" or a unit made by Avery to put an image on a disc with.
Is anyone familiar with these?
I tried NCIX here in the west and they don't have printable discs in stock but would have to order them in and they also expressed the expense of such a proposition as well.

I look forward to comments, thankyou.

If the "thumper" method is to put paper labels on your DVDs, then I suggest you re-read my reply in this post.

I use an Epson stylus R340 printer and I am very satisfied with it.It has the option of printing right to your disks. I have had a canon and an Hp both were good but I like my Epson. I have used Maxell printable disks for burning those you can find at Walmart,I have used Memorex, Taiyo and these all worked fine for me. But I prefer Verbatim printables above all. I to have trouble sometimes finding my media, so I now shop online for it,the past year I have been ordering my disks and etc from Shop4Tech.com I have yet to get any bad disk from them.They carry several brands and have great prices.I am in the USA TN mountains and it is hard to find stuff here.Don't know if this was any help but I hope it was.