A Rose By Any Other Name

Actually, this could have been titled “The More Things Change” because it is about something that was available some time ago, and called by a different name, but was a very nice feature.

Before the days of optical discs that contained a way to use the drive’s laser to put text information on the disc, Yamaha had a system implemented in their best CD rewriters that would allow labeling on the data side of the disc, called Disk T@2 (Disk Tattoo). I have two of the last of the breed to be called Yamaha, CRW – F1. These are external USB 2.0 CD-RWs with Mt. Ranier support (remember that?) and the aforementioned disc labeling. When I am trying to get a perfect copy of an audio disc for my car or CD Walkman, these are the go-to machines. They are stupendous.

Quality of burns notwithstanding, the Disk T@2 feature was never found (to my knowledge) on any other brand in the United States. Now there is news of a Lite-On DVD-RW with a similar feature, called LabelTag, which according to the explanation from a piece on TechConnect performs the identical function.

Announced this spring, Lite-On’s iHAS524 24x DVD burner which features the LabelTag technology is finally going to reach European stores this week. The new internal drive has 2MB of buffer memory, a SATA interface, the SmartErase function to ‘delete’ data found on a written disc, and, as mentioned, LabelTag, a feature which enables users to put a circular text label right on the data side of a regular single-layer DVD or CD. The labeling is done during the writing process so it’s fast as well as easy.

The iHAS524 drive offers write speeds of up to 24x for DVD+R/-R, 12x for DVD-RAM, DVD+R/-R DL, 8x for DVD+RW and 6x for DVD-RW, it is bundled with Nero 8 and will become available very, very soon priced at about 49 Euro.

Apparently it has not been announced in the U.S. yet, as I cannot find mention of it at any U.S. site.

While I like LightScribe as much as the next guy, I am finding that in some cases, the labels are fading on otherwise good discs, which have never been treated to extremes of heat or cold. I’m not familiar with LabelFlash drives, but I would assume they might have the same basic method of labeling, and so might suffer the same effects. With Disk T@2, there is no problem, as the data surface is what is labeled.

No special discs are needed, so no extra cost is involved. Obviously, the only drawbacks are the small loss of data storage and the inability to do specialized graphics. For run-of-the-mill burns, it is very nice. Quick, Easy. Sure.

Let’s hope these drives hit the shelves at Newegg soon!

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Where is that disc with the plans for the Illudium p-238 space modulator?

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