Why I buy this one ?
- Print labels directly onto your CDs and DVDs
- Thermal transfer technology for professional look
- Prints both text and graphics, uses any font or graphic on your PC
- Automatically rotates to print in 4 areas of the disc
- USB interface, includes cables and software

What our customer's say!

"Great when it works", I have been through three of the Signature Z1 with all having mechanical problems. The latest and third one worked two times before failing. I went through their tech support and they concluded mechanical failure on the first two printers. The third one failed out of the box after two prints. I gave up. There are other options and this printer is going into the recycle bin.

"Does what it says and does it well, within limitations", I've had my Z1 for several years now, and gone through many discs with it. Here's my experience, and tips for getting the best out of your Z1.

Overall, I love this printer. It has worked quite well for me since the day I got it. To date I must have put 500 discs through it.

The Z1 uses a monochrome thermal ink cartridge to mark the disc. Unlike inkjet technology, the thermal print is not water-soluble, and will not rub or wash off. Even hard scratching with fingernails is not enough to damage the print. To me, this is a big advantage over inkjet.

The software only allows printing inside of four quadrants on the disc - upper, lower, left and right. Each quadrant is a rectangular area. Printing completely around the disc circumference is therefore not possible. Still, this is better than some similar printers, which only allow you to print in two areas on the disc (top and bottom).

Since the print mechanism uses a ribbon-type cartridge, and not an ink cartridge, full-color printing is not possible. You can get single colors other than black, although I've never tried them.

The printer is designed to take normal - that is, non-inkjet-printable - media. I don't know what would happen if you tried inkjet-printable media in it, as the thermal printing only sticks to certain types of surfaces.

Unfortunately, there is really no way to know if the printer will print effectively on any given type of disc. Most online retailers sell a variety of media that have no markings on the top surface.

When used properly, the output is really quite impressive, as far as it goes - or at least I think so, and my friends agree. Importing graphics and such is easy, so it's possible to harvest clipart from DVD covers and online images to create pretty good-looking discs.

Some people have complained about the grayscale graphics quality. Truth be told, the printer does not do well on high-contrast images, or images with a lot of black. I find it best to lower the image contrast and raise the brightness by about 30% or so before trying to print an image. Most of the time it does OK. Sometimes it does good, and occasionally it does really well. Image manipulation outside the printing program can really help the final graphics output.

So yes, it's limited in some ways. But I dare you to find anything better for the price, or even four times the price. Sure, if you need color and don't mind smearing, an inkjet would be better. But for me, this little gadget is just what the doctor ordered.

"Short Term Investment", I first one I got lasted 6 months. The customer service was good and they sent me out a brand new one. This last one lasted almost a year. But now that it broke after the 1 year warranty of the original purchase, I'm SOL. If you want a disc printer that will last more than a year, look elsewhere.

"Ribbons are a little inconsistent", I've printed hundreds of discs with this printer and, when it works correctly, the finished product is great. However, it doesn't always work correctly and, on occasion, the output is a mess.

What I have discovered is that the printer isn't really at fault when I get a bad print job. It's always been the ribbon. The take-up reel is very unforgiving and, if you get twists in the used-up ribbon, the print job won't be very good. With the exception of one ribbon that I could never get to feed correctly, I've always been able to solve the problem by pulling the used ribbon out and rewinding it on to the take-up reel with a pencil. I shouldn't have to do that, but it isn't like these things cost a fortune, either. You get what you pay for, and I'm fairly satisfied with this printer.



"Does Not Last", Originally, this seemed like a good low cost solution to CD/DVD labeling. In theory it is wonderful; however, when put into practice there are just too many faults. I have used the product (or should I say three of them, and waiting for number four) for about six months with little success. They all seem to end up malfunctioning one way or another. The good news is that their customer support seems to be aware of this as they readily replace my unit. I think there is a year warranty, so I imagine this will last only so long. The expense of shipping it back and the time down is not worth the hastle though. Buyer be warned-search elsewhere!

Read this reviews before You buy...

"Don't bother, printer is fragile and prone to fail", I replaced a Casio CD-100 CD printer with this one because I wanted more than just the two print area Casio provides - Big mistake! At first the printer worked great and I was happy. I should have realized something was wrong the first time I took a printed CD out of the printer and the spindle came out with the CD?! Snapped it back in and everthing seemed OK. When I got to the end of the ribbon, instead of telling me to change the cartridge it kept going, made some unusual noises but continued printing. The only way I knew the ribbon needed changing was nothing was being printed on the CD., I changed the cartridge. The end of ribbon foil that the printer should have sensed but didn't. Ever since then printing was un-even, some areas faded out completely. Changing ribbons didn't help. Worse, the print areas no longer lined up neatly! Primera was no help, apparently unwilling to exchange the printer, so I gave up. I'll either go back to Casio or use LightScribe.

"Buying this printer is a gamble!", Based on the mixed reviews (and the inexpensive price), I bought this for my church hoping that it would turn out like the 5-star reviewers' printers. Good thing for return policies. I printed about 6 CDs on it -- only one looked good. The rest would be missing a letter here or there or there would be a smear or the text would be all over the place. I have included a picture of the CD that convinced me that it wasn't just a cartridge issue, as well as a picture of the unit.

The printer is a nice size, very compact, but I will be trying the Casio CW-100 now.

"Nice and reliable", I have owned this printer for about 1 year now. Maybe I got lucky, but I never had a problem with it. I've gone thru about 4 ink cartridges so far (roughly 400-600 dvds) and the quality is great. Its not an inkjet, so you can't expect too much. The software is simple and easy to learn. You could spend over 5 minutes on each disc using inkjet, but only 1 minute with the Primera. Unless you are using this commercially, the results with this are very professional.

The only thing to be careful of is not to print on discs with any embossing over the 4 areas, or else it will not completely show up. Just buy discs with a blank printable surface.

"Nice clear printing: But the media used matters!", Having looked into the need for a better way to mark CDs and DVDs than undesireable paper labels or scrawled Sharpie notes, I came across this Primera printer and decided to give it a try. It works, pretty much precisely as advertised. The installation is easy, the software interface is user friendly and simple and (if you use the right media) the quality of this thermal printing is quite good.
The media used, however, is a bigger and more important variable than the manufacturer acknowledges either on its website or even in the material that comes with the machine. The issue is that embossed media (which most is) is not a cleanly printable area. Completely clear disks would work best... like the 'practice' blank that comes with the machine. Because all of my current media supply IS embossed with the brand and, some, with designs, lines, etc, I had to 'practice' laying out the print to avoid these pre-embossed areas to which the thermal print does not correctly adhere. After a few wasted disks, I had it down and am now quite please with the result.
I have not yet tried the feature that allows insertion of photos (in black & white, if course, as this is a monotone device) but am looking forward to doing so.
It allows for printing onto four 'fields' on the disk. Top, Bottom, Right and Left - far more space than I would ever expect to use to print on one. The fields are, then, choices.... and it is always nice to have choices! Font choices are limited but quite adequate.
I found this machine for $127. online and replacement ribbons for $17 each. As I expect to be printing perhaps 10-15 disks per month, I believe I will find the costs reasonable. They DO look really good (once you figure out how to work around the embossing.) Also, if someone out there has a lead to GOOD quality fully blank media (CDs and/or DVD-Rs, I'd appreciate hearing about it as they would work better with the Primera printer.) To date, I have stuck, for reliability's sake, with Maxell, Fuji and Imation - all of which are embossed!)
Thanks - and I hope you have found my comments helpful.

"Very good performance but color is lacking", The good: The Primera Z1 delivers excellent and reliable printing directly onto the surface of a standard CD or DVD. It works much better with text printing than any graphics printing. The thermal nature of the printer prevents any "rub-off" or smudging even immediately after printing. It does work best with unlabeled CDs (although it will print over any other markings or engravings on the CD). The ink cartridge lasts a very long time (I have printed over 200+ CDs on my first cartridge). The software is easy to use (but a bit limited).
On the downside: The Primera only prints in one color. To get any other colors, you need to buy and replace the standard black cartridge. It is also pretty slow (it takes about 45-60 seconds to print a CD with pretty basic labels). It is also expensive for a one-dimensional CD printer.
Overall: This is a quality product for those who only want to print text labels in one color onto CDs.