Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

This product performed above my expectations. It produces a clear clean copy directly on to the dvd or cd. Professional look.

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

Very fast for printing image on disk

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

Publisher gave me a little trouble installing the ink. I wasn't impressed with the initial printing which was a full color disc, however, I went with a simpler design using less ink and it looks fantastic! The Mac software is a little confusing and crashed a few times but I eventually got it to work alright.

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

Quick and easy to set up, I was able to immediately duplicate and print discs. The single drive causes longer turn around, but the reliability makes it worthwhile. After the bad experience with my Rimage 2000i, this is a breath of fresh air.

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

Good quality printing

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

Only one star because I own this machine since over 2 years BUT they "force" us to buy software update... (200$)

I explain: I'm using the software that was included with the package and this one is running fine but my hard drive died and i replaced it. Surprise, i'm unable to get a new software key because they no more support "old" software version...!!!

(Because the drive have been changed, you must reinstall the software and ask for a new key over the internet).

The only solution is to buy a new software because i changed a drive !!! GRRRR....

Overall the machine does the job. Not a fast one but it does the job for small business. But, when your drive will fail, you will have to buy a new software !! TOTALLY CRASY... THINK TWICE if you buy this machine...

The very same problem if you change your computer !!! THINK TWICE...

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

About a year ago I had the option of going with Bravo SE or with the Aleratec Roboracer and I chose the Roboracer because it allowed for a higher capacity of discs and it used lightscribe for labeling. Well one year, 50 or so delayed projects and countless ruined discs later, I gave up on my Roboracer and have discovered the pure simple joy of a product that works the way it is supposed to. No jammed discs, beautifully printed labels, and easy to use too. Good buy with the Bravo SE, so goodbye Roboracer.

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

This equipment works fine and would get five stars if not for the Primera service but they refuse me of updates and warranty because I ordered from USA but living in Europe. Ununderstandable.

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

I was spending a lot of non-productive time in my small video business making 20-30 copies of my DVD's at a time. "Burning" a DVD then "printing" it required a lot of hands-on and wasted time waiting for a task to finish. I needed a more automated way to deal with this. After comparing specs and prices of the few models on the market, I settled on the BravoSE Disc Publisher. Not the least expensive, but probably the best price-performance product offered in its' catagory. I am very satisfied with the product, both in quality and performance.
Good job Primera!

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

[...] Fortunately I had a couple of cups of coffee before starting, and it was good I did due to some setup gliches in the install programs.After unpacking the unit, but before setting it up you will need to install the device drivers and programs that come with the unit. In my case I'm on a current release of Windows 7. I ran the setup program from an USB attached CD/DVD recorder that I commonly use for making masters. The setup.exe program notified me that it needed to have .NET installed and that my computer didn't have it and prompted me to install it (it's contained on the setup disk). Of course that installation failed as I knew it would because .NET is already installed on my system, but the setup.exe that comes with the system refuses to recognize it. I therefore had to dissect the autorun programs to figure out what program was the actual installer and run that one, which was located in one of the subdirectories and named 'install.exe'. That installer ran perfectly and installed all the programs and drivers.There are a number of ways you can make copies, but for my purposes which intermittently producing a set of my CD's for sale,I selected the 'Image Project' that copies your master CD onto your hard drive which can then be selected for running that job whenever you might need to make more copies. Although it provides the ability to select what CD contains the master, it did not recognize my USB CD drive for some reason. It was no problem as I just used the Bravo's CD drive and went on.In production the unit runs as advertised and really needs no hand-holding once the job starts. You can generally minimize it and continue on with doing what you need to do. However, I did end up blue screening my PC at one point in the middle of a job when I was viewing a web site with videos on it. I can't completely say it was due to the Bravo, but I've used this site numerous times before without problems and the Bravo was the only difference in my configuration.Overall, I think I'll be happy with the unit. [...] I did my homework with the Primera call center and this unit should work fine if your needs probably won't exceed 300 copies per month. A minor irritation is that the printer requires you to waste a blank CD to calibrate it whenever you change the ink (which is around 100 copies or so). I hate wasting a CD like that, but I'll keep a few around and just re-use them as it only prints on one section of the CD when it calibrates.Other than the things I've mentioned, I'm very happy with the unit and I believe it's a very nice fit for what I do which is to produce professional-level CD's and DVD's for sale in limited quantities. If you aren't terribly technical you might expect to have to call support to work around some minor issues such as the setup, or how to deal with a computer crash during a run as you will need to extract the CD's that were in the printer and the drive when the computer crashed.Great unit, but not for the technical faint-of-heart I would say.

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

No complaints, burns and prints 20 DVDs in less than an hour so I can do other work.

Great color quality, so clean it even prints the UPC codes on our disks.

One ink package will print around 160 full color DVDs.

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

Been using this product for a few months, at first I did manually check the disks after burning to make sure it works fine an it did or at least looked like. Since the device does verify the disks and does not print labels on disks that don't verify I stopped rechecking every disk after burning, after all it is supposed to do it for me. (I had the verify option checked!).
Then the big surprise, had to read a backup disk and it would not read on any reader including the BravoSE. So I decided to recheck the next batch of disks that just burned overnight. Only 1 out of 20 disks that verify OK (also checked the logs to make sure did not make a mistake) was actually readable and only by the BravoSE. Tried 6 other devices and no luck, only 1 disk was readable! Started checking back to discover that hundreds of verified disks will not be readable by any computer or DVD reader not even the BravoSE! Needles to say that this is a major tragedy for any photographer!

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

record gospel music concerts and make 40-60 copies a month and give to friends.works best with white inkjet printable dvd. use verbatim from b&h sku vemriwh850. full coverage picture use 1 cartridge for 20 video.learned to use pattern supplied in setup cd.

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

A Great find for the money.
I publish about 1000 DVDs twice per year.
Moving from a burn,label, stick, box workflow up to a sit-n-njoy workflow was great for me.
Pros:
- Fast - it takes 5 minutes per disk at 16x (don't recommend using higher speeds in any DVD burner, regardless of media used)
- Reliable - Works without ANY issues but see the following warnings:
Connect directly to USB on PC, do NOT connect via a USB hub, especially if you have other heavy bandwidth usage on that hub. It will slow down burning etc... Keep data for burning on PC's hard drive (not on an external drive)
- Sure Thing included - a very good label maker. If you are importing an image, it may crop it a little, I always design my labels with e very narrow white border all around, which takes care of the problem.
- Ink life/price - I think the ink i s reasonably priced around thirty bucks. I see users complain about ink cartridge life - my advise is - be smarter when designing a label, Use lighter, gradient colors instead of all black or dark color images.
I got 300 light blue gradient with some dark blue logo and letters design out of 1 cartridge and I still have about 25% in it. So if you get 400 labels for thirty dollars, that beats paper labels about 4-5 times. (AND paper labels also need ink)
- Support - had to call them over connectivity issues, picked up quick and helped me fast. Great.

CONS: Ink smudges on standard media if you drop water on it it will smudge badly. Can't anyone figure a water proof ink already please...Unless you go for WaterShield media you will have this issue. And if you can afford it - go for it - it is glossy too - great results.

P.S. Use only quality media like Taiyo Yuden

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

I have a monthly need to create 20-40 DVDs (and CDs) in a batch for my photography business, plus the more-often need for smaller 3-5 copy batches. The Bravo SE works great for both these cases -- create the master version, design a label, pop a stack of discs in the duplicator, click a few buttons and walk away. Before, I made one copy at a time on a spare computer and hand-fed the DVDs into a printer for the labeling. (I learned the hard way a couple years ago NOT to use sticky labels on DVDs, even ones supposidely designed for DVD use.)

Out of the box, I had a problem with the Bravo SE robot arm picking the disc out of the DVD drive tray -- the tray wasn't opening far enough so the disc was getting caught at the front lip of the tray and being dropped repeatedly. After a call to Primera tech support (and verifying I had the latest drive drivers/patches installed), we decided the drive needed a physical adjustment to move it a tad closer to the front of the duplicator (effectively moving the tray forward). Four screws on the case, unplug the cable from the cover to the mainboard, loosen the four T10 (yes, I had to hunt for my Torx driver), nudge the drive forward and put everying back together -- five minutes tops, and the duplicator worked flawlessly from then on -- hasn't dropped a disc since being adjusted.

I've printed about 150 discs (which is actually more than than what Primera says you'll get out of one cartridge) and still have about 15% ink left (according to the printer utilities) which comes to about 25-cents per disc, maybe 20-cents by the time the cartridge says it's empty.

As for the 20-disc capacity, you can tell the software to duplicate more than 20 and just be around to add more discs to the input bin and empty the hopper when it gets full. (Unlike my washer, you can open the lid without stopping the process.)

As an interesting registration bonus, Primera supplies software that will let you rip a stack of CDs into your iTunes library while you sleep -- too cool!

I used to think of an automated disc duplicator/printer as a luxury until I actually got it in time for my holiday duplicating crunch. Now, I consider it a reasonable business expense and time saver.

Altogether, I'm very happy with the Bravo SE and would recommend it.

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

Great Product but the 20 disc capacity doesn't go along with the price. Couple a hundred bucks to expensive, but the printing is great!

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

Great product, but don't expect the cartridge to go far. I made the mistake of designing a label all blue and I couldn't even print more than 20 discs in the standard (medium, medium) setting. [...]

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

Using this product for duplication of DVD/CD.
This product is great for duplication of DVD and print them hands-free.
i wish it would hold more DVD/CD than 20 at a time.

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

This is a good CD/DVD Publisher, but the PTPublisher software that comes with it has a few rough edges. In general, the software feels a bit "consumerish" -- we would've expected it to be a bit more professional for a robotic Disc Publisher like this.

As of this writing, we were running PTPublisher version 1.3.2. There are a couple of annoying bugs, but everything does work.

Examples of some of the bugs:

-- While copying from a source DVD (loaded into the computer's DVD drive) the "progress bar" dialog box repeatedly appears and disappears every few seconds. Even if you close it, it pops up again on top of whatever you are doing. So you basically can't use the computer at all while the DVD is being read. After the burn is completed, the progress bar dialog box continues flashing on screen (stuck in a perpetual loop) and cannot be dismissed. Very annoying.

-- Duplicating directly from a source DVD (as opposed to a disc image on the hard drive) seems to be unreasonably slow. (For comparison, Nero Burning ROM duplicates the same DVD in half the time.) The duplication does work successfully, it just seems to read the source DVD a lot slower than the DVD drive's speed allows.

-- The "preview thumbnail" of a label sometimes fails to display.

Hopefully Primera will fix the bugs SOON with a software update.

On our unit the ink cartridge/print head that came with it kept clogging and we had to resort to a manual cleaning with a wet paper towel (per instructions in the manual). The manual cleaning finally got the nozzles unclogged. Don't know if nozzle clogging will continue to be in a issue.

Comments about Primera Bravo SE Disc Publisher:

There's nothing more to say about it. It's a good product.