Review: Microboards CX-1 Disc Publisher
By Jan Ozer - Posted Oct 26, 2007
Microboards’ CX-1 Disc Publisher costs about $2,100, with a 100-disc capacity and industrial-strength look and feel. It’s the fastest automated
printer/recorder I’ve worked with, and in testing, it produced the highest print quality I’ve seen. There are some negatives, however, including
the lack of a Mac version, and a disc-input hopper that isn’t for the squeamish, so don’t take your credit card out yet. That said, I wouldn’t be
surprised if you decide to do so after reading the review.
Software and OS Support
Microboards controls the printer with Prassi Zulu2 mastering software and includes the SureThing label design program for disc label creation.
The version I reviewed included support for only Windows 2000 and XP, but Microboards promises Vista compatibility by the end of 2007. The
unit does not support the Mac and probably never will, and it doesn’t offer shared use over a network.
Hardware
The recorder in the CX-1 is the Sony Optiarc 5170, which was announced in August 2006 as the first drive produced by Optiarc, the merger of
Sony and NEC’s optical storage departments. Read/write specs are impressive, with 18X recording speed for DVD±R, and 8X for DVD±R DL.
CD-R recording speed peaks at 48X.
To get a feel for the field reliability of this drive, I scanned some of the user boards, which revealed early read/write problems that have been
resolved by recent firmware revisions. You can Google “Sony Optiarc” and “5170” and you’ll see the threads that I’m referring to, most
notably here. In checking the Optiarc website, I saw that drivers were up to revision 1.13, and the support site was current up to Oct. 1,
2007, or 2 weeks before I started testing. The 5170 looks like a high-performance drive with a good track record and very good support from
the vendor. Certainly our tests bore out the performance claims.
Microboards uses an HP inkjet print engine that is identical to those used in the HP Officejet 5600 All-in-One printer. According to the HP
specs, the 5600 can print up to 4800x1200 resolution, and it has a monthly duty cycle of up to 1500 pages per month. HP’s ink cartridges are
much cheaper than Microboards, however; the HP color and black cartridges are priced at about $17.98 direct from HP, compared to about
$50 for the CX-1’s V102C color cartridge and about $40 for the V101B.
Unfortunately, you can’t use the HP cartridges on the CX-1, as Microboards optimizes the cartridges to “ensure that the more specific
tolerances of disc publishing are met.” Microboards warns against using remanufactured or refilled Microboards cartridges as well, citing an
increased risk of exploding or overspraying that could essentially destroy the integrated robotics and recorder.
Microboards claims that a color cartridge will yield about 225 prints with 100% coverage, for a cost per disc of around 22 cents. I burned
about 140 full-coverage discs during my testing and used about 68% of my first color cartridge, which computes to about 200 discs per
cartridge at about 25 cents per disc, which is certainly in the ballpark. Black cartridges should print about 1,000 discs, which is probably near
the Sharpie range in terms of cost (4 cents per disc).
My full color discs printed in about 107 seconds at full print quality, a bit faster than the rated 115 seconds. As you’ll see, however, since the
CX-1 can record and print at the same time(with recording generally taking much longer), print speed is irrelevant for most projects.
These preliminaries aside, let’s meet the hardware.
Setup
The CX-1 had a solid, industrial-strength feel, though it felt lighter than its rated 42 pounds. Assembling the unit took fewer
than 5 minutes—
you screw three input posts into the back and screw the output bin on the front. Attach the power cord and USB cable, and you’re ready to go.
At 24" wide and 24" long, the unit is bulkier than most of its competitors, and the output bin hangs off the front, so you’ll need to install the
unit on a table or other surface where you won’t inadvertently bump into the bin. I installed it under my standing desk, atop two HP
computers of equal height, with the output bin sitting off to one side. Certainly not elegant, but effective.
The input bin is on the back of the unit; it’s pretty much out of the way, but the blanks are uncovered, which can mar printing if dust and
other detritus fall on the blanks. The CX-1 can hold up to 100 blanks, but the input bin is pretty funky and takes some getting used to.
Specifically, you insert the first five or six discs flat into the input bin, then stack the rest at an angle against one of the input rods. Since the
bottom feeder hole in the input bin is only slightly smaller than the discs, it felt like the blanks might drop through to the conveyor belt, which
actually happened a time or two, though I just reached in and pulled them out.
Page 1 of 4EMediaLive.com: Review: Microboards CX-1 Disc Publishe
10/31/2007htt
://www.emedialive.com/Articles/PrintArticle.as
x?ArticleID=13258
(14 stránky)
Manymanuals.com
Manymanuals.de
Manymanuals.fr
Manymanuals.it
Manymanuals.pl
Manymanuals.cz
Manymanuals.es
Manymanuals-pt.com
Komentáře k této Příručce