Product Reviews

LaCie's d2 DVD+/-RW with LightScribe is an external DVD writer that burns dual-layer DVD discs at 16x and connects to your Mac using either FireWire or USB 2. However, its most interesting feature is support for LightScribe, a technology that allows you to print directly onto the non-data side of a disc.

In addition to burning DVDs, the d2 also burns CDs at 52x and can LightScribe onto these, too. LightScribe is useful for quickly labelling burned discs, but it has a couple of limitations. First, you need to use LightScribe-compatible discs, which currently cost around £5 for a pack of five from the cheapest online retailer we could find. This compares with around 20-25p for a regular disc or inkjet-printable media. That's a substantial premium, although prices will surely fall as the technology becomes more popular. The second limitation is that the dye used to create labels is a single colour and so all labels must be monochrome. This makes labels less attractive than those printed directly onto a disc using an inkjet printer. However, LightScribe has the advantage that the whole burning and printing process is completed in one device.

The d2 device ships with a copy of Toast Lite, which allows you to burn CDs and DVDs; SilverKeeper for making backups; LaCie Disc recording, which adds support for LaCie devices to iTunes, iPhoto, Finder and other Apple applications that support CD burning; and LaCie LightScribe Labeler for creating labels.

The d2 case will be familiar to anyone with any other recent d2 drive. Its tough, silver, plastic case looks the part next to any Mac, and the two FireWire 400 ports mean you can daisychain it with other

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FireWire devices.

In use, the LightScribe implementation proved somewhat frustrating. The application offers a handful of templates or you can create your own label from scratch. To this end, you can import images to use either as a background - covering the surface of the disc at a relatively low opacity - or to use in the label design. One problem we found using images as background is that once imported, it's impossible to re-size or move them.

Other editing tools are fairly basic, but if you just want to create labels quickly and easily, they do the job reasonably well.

The biggest disappointment with LightScribe is the time it takes to print a label. In our tests, a basic label comprising two lines of text and an image of a ribbon (which covered about 10% of the surface area of the disc) took half an hour to print. That's way too long for us to consider using it on a regular basis. There is an option to print at a lower-quality setting that produces slightly coarser results in less time, but even then the time doesn't compare favourably with inkjet printing.

The results are, sadly, somewhat underwhelming. On the positive side, labels are resiliant and won't scratch off easily. However, even on the highest-quality setting, contrast isn't great and, given how long we waited for the disc to print, we would have expected more. LightScribe is a clever technology, but we can't help feeling it's a solution without a problem.

LightScribe issues aside, this d2 is a very capable burner. With its support for dual-layer discs and 16x writing, it's as good as anything on the market. And given that you can pick one up for a little more than £100 from retailers - no more than a regular 16x dual-layer drive - it would be churlish to complain too much about the shortcomings of LightScribe.

As a DVD and CD writer, we'd happily recommend this device; it's fast and will burn anything you throw at it (with the exception of iDVD projects, which still require an Apple SuperDrive). However, if you're thinking about upgrading an existing burner to get the LightScribe features, we would urge you to think again, as you may be better off buying some inkjet printable media and an inkjet with CD printing features instead.