Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Superior Quality CDRs



We use a CDR that has the label already attached, which eliminates the procedure of printing a separate label and then attempting to perfectly center it on the CD. As Matt Kroona has already mentioned, do not ever use a line labeler because it makes the disk unbalanced and leads to higher CD failure rates. Remember in Chemistry lab when you had to counterbalance the centrifuge? It is the same principle. After the data is burned on the CD, we use the Epson inkjet R 340 printer that has a special adapter to print directly on the CD. This gives us the ability to customize the CD label with images and is the same printer we use for the i-CAT prints (see photographs).

Once we finish our current supply of CDRs, we plan to purchase from Master Recording Supply (714) 556-6700 extension 112. They offer a CDR made by Taiyo Yuden, a Japanese company that originally invented the optical CD. They also hold a unique patent which places a thicker layer of organic dye (blue-green) that makes their product last longer than the typical CD. The Taiyo Yuden website describes their CD/DVD as follows: Dye design for high-speed recording, wide jitter margin with precision thermal inerference control, stability at high speed rotation with improved mechanical characteristics, superior playability and superior reliability. The price is only 32 cents each with a minimum order of 100.
Microboards Technology DX-2 inkjet disk publisher is a combination burn and print system ($3000) that Diane from Yamamoto Radiography in Beverly Hills finds fast and reliable. This hardware/software system starts with a stack of blank Taiyo Yuden CDRs (the only brand she uses because of a zero failure rate) and will automatically burn the data and print the patient information on each CD. A lower version DX-1 is available for $2200.

5 Comments:

Blogger Matt Kroona said...

Eric: What are you using to print your reports? That's a lot of black ink! Also, is the higher cost of the Taiyo Yuden disks worth the (maybe) 1% increase in burn success? Just a thought.

12:50 PM  
Blogger Craig Dial said...

Eric: nice scan. Great write up on the CD's We too use a custom CD. You can view it by logging onto: http://www.ddicenter.com/doctors/
Our cost is a buck a CD and folder.

2:21 PM  
Blogger Eric Iwamoto said...

After Craig from DDI in Sacramento explained to me that the black background simulated the medical CT images, offered less distraction and enhanced the cone beam images, I had to agree so I copied them!

Matt is also correct in that the black background utilizes significantly more ink in the Epson R340 inkjet printer. The beautiful prints justify the additional costs and have that professional look.

Ideally, I would like to steer my referrals away from the printed images and have them use i-CAT Vision (which we provide on every scan) to visualize the Region Of Interest (ROI) and also focus on the remainer of the anatomy.

I feel that since my imaging center provides all the i-CAT images on a CD, that it should be of the highest quality. The Taiyo Yuden CDs are reported to have considerable more shelf life (after burning the data) and for the slight additional cost, I feel it is worth it.

3:38 PM  
Blogger Matt Kroona said...

Longer data life is certainly worth the extra cost. Thanks for the tip.

4:21 PM  
Blogger devery said...

I use to print my images with black background but stopped because of the use of ink and the additional time for the ink to dry. I have not gotten any complaints. I did a test of printing a case with a white vs black and felt that it didn't distract.

9:05 PM  

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