In doing some research, I found out that the basic Pioneer DVR-111 series SuperDrives Apple uses (some G4/all G5/all Intel towers) have the hardware capability to do LabelFlash direct-to-disk-surface label burning with the compatible disks. LabelFlash is the NEC-originated competitor to LightScribe, does basically the same thing on LightScribe-compatible disks.
On the Windows side, there are lots of sites out there that talk about flashing the ROMs to enable the feature for certain revision letters & firmware versions of the DVR-111 drives, while other versions of the drive (DVR-111L) are already fully capable (no clue on the ones Apple shipped with the Macs -- I stopped paying attention when I found there were ZERO software apps to support it on the Mac side that I could find).
Personally, I would really like to see Apple provide the feature as an OS-bundled utility app or added-feature in an existing Apple burner app (like the one in the iLife bundle).
As of March '05, Roxio also said they were going to support LightScribe (and possibly LabelFlash) in their future Mac releases, but I didn't see any mention of it in the feature sets of Toast & Toast Titanium 6 & 7, both of which were either updated or released after that date. Theoretically, they could also support LightScribe (if licensed) to burn images into unused portions of the dataside (as could any other burner app), to create a label effect (see
http://www.yamahamultimedia.com/yec/tech/discta2_01.asp for details on the technology).
The epson CD-printer solution seems a bit silly for my uses, if I have no other use for the printer, mostly because of the consumables costs (and, indeed, with a big HP laser color printer here, I have zero other use for the Epson and am not thrilled by their putty-style inks and subsequent print head maintenance/cleaning processes that waste a goodly chunk of the ink reservior).
As for the sharpie comments, I create CD's & DVD's for clients and would prefer to present a more "professional image" on the disks than hand-written solutions. I was printing color labels through my laser printer and setting them in (usually using Avery CD labels), but some of the clients, esp. those with very thin portables seemed to be having issues with the thicker disks as a result, so I went back to sharpies as a general rule. The ability to do LabelFlash disks with hardware I already own would be great...
Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet
