Digital Tattoo
By Jon Iverson June 30, 2002 — We've learned to pretty much ignore consumer electronics company announcements for their latest CD and DVD players/burners. The usual "breakthrough" turns out to be yet another faster record/playback speed bump, or a longer list of compatible formats (Panasonic's latest recorder, announced last week, can handle—take a deep breath—DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, and CD-ROM discs).

But here's something completely different in a CD recorder. Last week, Yamaha Electronics introduced its DiscT@2 Laser Labeling System, which takes advantage of the reflectivity characteristics of the CD to allow graphics and text to be burnt onto the unused portion of any CD-R disc. "Think of it as a CD tattoo," comments the company. Yamaha says that the new process eliminates the need for stick-on labels, "which peel off in the heat, become illegible when wet, or cause the CD to spin unevenly, as well as the use of felt-tip markers that could smear and are unprofessional, at best."

The company says its optical storage engineers developed the new technology after over a decade of research committed to achieving the "absolute precision necessary" to make the process work. According to Yamaha, DiscT@2 directs the laser to "tattoo" graphics, text, and designs onto the unused outer portion of any CD-R disc. The company explains that DiscT@2 is made possible through highly precise control of key elements of recording, including laser tracking, intensity, positioning, and disc rotation. "The DiscT@2 feature is a true showcase of Yamaha's technology leadership in the CD-R/RW industry," the company boasts.

Yamaha's Allen H. Gharapetian explains, "Most people usually burn less than 350 megabytes of data or 60 minutes of audio on a blank disc. This leaves ample room for adding text and graphics to the disc, delivering a cool, professional touch to every CD you burn." Possible uses for the labeling process include: company logos or individual signatures, labeling audio mixes with the names of the songs, labeling backup CDs with the name of the program and serial number, and labeling hard-drive backups with the date-of-backup ID for the disc.

Creating labels with DiscT@2 on a CD-R disc typically takes less than a minute, says Yamaha—which is considerably quicker than creating, printing, and applying stick-on labels. The company says its recorders featuring the new technology come with a version of its "Ahead Nero" software to provide support for DiscT@2, so that tattooing a disc can be accomplished right after completing the data or audio recording process. In addition, Yamaha says it is working with all other third-party CD recording software vendors to make sure that DiscT@2 is supported through their CD recording applications.

The DiscT@2 labeling process is currently available on Yamaha's CRW-F1 series of recorders.