Customizing Your Discs

How to personalize your DVDs and CDs.

Melissa J. Perenson, PC World

Have a question or comment? Drop a line to Melissa J. Perenson.

'Tis the season for festivity, gifts, and custom-made designs. In other words, it's the perfect time for a roundup of the latest hardware and software offerings that let you personalize your optical discs.

Create Disc Labels With Flair

Printable media, from vendors like TDK and Verbatim, let you label your discs without using kludgy and unprofessional adhesive labels. There are two approaches here, and both require special printers. The first is to use an inkjet printer that prints on special CDs and DVDs, as do several models in Epson's line (such as the $100 Epson Stylus Photo R200). Such printers are capable of printing full-disc graphics, using photos of your choosing. The second approach is more utilitarian: Primera's $150 Signature Z1 CD/DVD Printer is a thermal ink printer for creating primarily text-based labels.

Go with an inkjet if you'd like to add colorful graphics and text labels to your discs (say, a photo of your wedding or of your child's first birthday party). If you want a smudgeproof, monochromatic text label that looks slick, however, go with the Primera. It can't handle images very well, but does a good job on text, depending upon the font you use.

Some of you may be keeping an eye out for Hewlett-Packard's LightScribe technology, which lets you use a DVD burner's laser to etch a label directly onto a disc. This technology, first announced in January at the 2004 Consumer Electronics Show, will be shipping early next year.

Create Personalized Photo Slide Shows

Now that you have a gazillion digital photos, go forth and create the modern-day equivalent to the Kodachrome slide show. While most DVD burning software includes tools for generating basic slide-show discs, a dedicated package gives you more versatility. Ulead has two programs that are up to this task: CD & DVD PictureShow 3 Deluxe ($50) and Disney Magic Artist DVD Picture Show ($30).

As you might expect, PictureShow 3 is the more advanced and grown-up of the two packages, although both are based on a similar slide-show creation engine. PictureShow 3 provides plenty of transitions and options for adding music, captions, and images and videos. The Disney version, as you'd also expect, has Disneyesque templates that let you add the likeness of The Mouse and other characters from the Disney kingdom to your slide-show menus and the like.

In spite of its name, the Disney version is intended for use with CDs, to create Video CD slide shows that you can play back on your living-room DVD player. As with PictureShow, you can add your choice of background music. (I won't tell if you choose to add "When You Wish Upon a Star" to your vacation slide show.)

Both versions let you create index pages of your images, as well as custom-designed case labels.

Meanwhile, Verbatim has partnered with Pinnacle Systems to market its own photo album package. The $30 Digital CD Photo Album, targeted for use with CDs rather than DVDs, bundles Pinnacle's Instant PhotoAlbum LE software with a 10-pack of Verbatim CD-RW media (an odd choice, considering you'll want to use CD-Rs for maximum compatibility with DVD players), Verbatim's Touchless Label Kit with 10 labels, and a CD Photo Album holder for storing up to 40 discs. Like the Ulead packages, Instant PhotoAlbum creates Video CD slide shows.

The Service Option

Doing it yourself can be great, but sometimes you just want to let someone else do the heavy lifting for you. YesVideo has partnered with Best Buy to provide kiosks at select retail stores. You can bring your treasured movies and images into the store, and Best Buy will create your customized DVD on-site. The discs are $20 a pop, less than if you use YesVideo's YesDVD mail-away service.