( 3 reviews )
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Posted: Jul 15 2008
I've used this printer for a couple of years now working in a small office. It has never broken down per say, but it has NOT been a smooth ride. There were a couple of occasions when the fans began making a horrendous noise and the printing slowed to a fraction of the normal speed. Pounding the side of it fixed this once. Turning it off for several hours fixed it the second time. My main complaint is that there is no feedback to the user as to what is going on when the printer is experiencing an error. There are just two cryptically-labeled blue buttons. One looks like a power button but is not. The other looks like an upside-down file folder, but I think it's supposed to represent the tray. When the printer has a problem these two buttons will flash spasmatically until you press them in the right way. Usually holding both down at the same time does the trick, but other times you have to also press one or the other in some certain combination. Sometimes you must also power down completely by flipping the switch in the back. Once you have got the "power" button to a solid blue and the "folder" button to be either off or solid, then you are good to go. The claw that grabs the discs moves right in your hand's way when you open the lid to insert blank discs. Then you have to wait a few seconds for it to retract to its resting position. There is no apparent reason why it is programmed this way. Occasionally the Bravo Pro to stacks a disc on top of another disc, causing the print to be misaligned and sometimes jamming the tray. This is because it does not have any means of checking to see if there is already a disc in the tray when it grabs another. One example of when a disc might already be in the tray is if the previous print request failed. Sometimes it refuses to retract the tray when it should, or fails to eject the tray when it should. Then you are back to wanking around with the two buttons again. The read-out of ink levels can be misleading. We printed for many months with a read-out of 100% black. Turns out there was no black at all. "So that's why the black always looks like really dark green!" all this time we thought the ink was just poor quality...until I noticed the black cartridges we were ordering never got used. When re-loading ink cartridges an alignment test must be performed. It is not uncommon to get the error "alignment failed" several times in a row. Random 1-pixel wide black lines started appearing through every other disc during an important mass-mailing. Luckily I discovered that this was only occurring on white discs and I got around it by making a very faint gray rim around every white disc layout. This "woke up" the print head ahead of time and the black lines showed up as just a couple of dots on the very outermost part of the discs. Hardly noticeable now, but what a hack of a workaround! We are not able to print all the way to the hub on discs, so there is always a white ring left on the inside. While we have not been able to absolutely confirm whether this is a software problem or a hardware problem, the software we use (Discus) DOES support printing all the way to the hub, so I believe it is a limitation of this printer. Positive traits about the Bravo Pro: - The proprietary ink isn't much of an issue. It can be bought affordably from supermediastore.com. - The printer is Mac compatible. I was very surprised by the positive reviews others have written...maybe we're just cursed. I'll give it the first star because it does function to some degree, a second star because other two reviews were so positive that our experience may not represent a typical user experience with the Bravo Pro. It seems many of these problems could be fixed with better firmware and/or drivers. It is possible that updates have addressed this in newer models, but who knows. I'd stay away if I were you.
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Posted: Mar 2 2008
The Bravo Pro CD/DVD Publisher has performed just as advertised! This *BIG* desktop unit takes up a lot of space, but somewhat less than the combined size of the devices it is replacing, my Disc Duplication Tower and my stand alone Disc Printer. The unit was easy to setup and we were able to print an burn a small batch of discs within an hour of unboxing it. Here are my observations: Pros: * Easy to setup * Good software for Disc art design * Good software for the duplicator * Flawless operation Cons: * Requires external PC with USB 2.0 (other units are stand alone) * "Propriety" print cartridges (another reviewer pointed out that they might be HP) * No Toll Free support number (disappointing for a big ticket item) * Kiosk configuration requires the hopper to hang over the side of the desk This really is a great robot for the small business that needs sporadic mass duplication of professional looking CD/DVDs. Our runs tend to be anywhere from 5 to 100 discs at a time perhaps 5 times a month, so this machine is exactly what we were looking for in a CD/DVD Publisher. Just an idea of the speeds involved, it unattended burned and printed 10 4.2G DVDs with full color art work in under 45 minutes. That job would have taken me almost 2 hours and required manual processing before we got the Bravo Pro CD/DVD Publisher. Highly recommended.
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( 4 of 4 found this review helpful ) Posted: Aug 29 2006
OK, I duplicate more than the average number of DVD's in a year at home - legally, I should add. Vacation photos, home movies, business records, and so on. For example - when we get home from vacation I upload all the media to iPhoto. I can produce the DVD with iDVD, overlaying a soundtrack with some music and comments on the photos. I'll generate a couple of dozen for my folks, sibs and friends, that will be popped into the mail, and then I'll stash some away for the future, when I or my kids are in a sentimental mood. Come the holidays, I'll send a home movie with greetings in the Christmas cards. I keep my home office records on DVD, too, as well as incremental backups of the HD, so I duplicate a backup copy of them, just to maintain a low paranoia titre. It adds up - maybe 30 or so a month. 'Till recently, the DVD recorder internal to my computer was working way overtime, so after some thought I convinced my wife to let me invest in a Primera Pro Publisher. All I can say is, Wow! The device itself is a little bigger than a desktop inkjet printer. Installation is easy: remove the packing material, install the printer cartriges, connect the cable to your computer and run the installation software (both Mac and PC are supported) - that's it. Load the blanks on the right, and boot Discribe, the included software, You can burn data or media discs, CD's and DVD's, from images or hardcopy. The onboard printer will add a professional-looking face to it. (I suggest the OEM software Disclabel to design disc and case covers.) Tell the robot how many copies to make and offit goes. The software is mostly bulletproof, but occasionally, I've found it stallsa and burps at me, mostly from my own ignorance. After a couple of runs, it is pretty straightforward. I can run off about 10 discs in an hour, using both drives. The Primera Pro is really good at what it does. Discs are checked for errors, and it supports most media types, includeing DVD+, DVD- and DL discs. I expect that Primera will support blueray and HD when the drives become more available. I haven't had any trouble with rejected media, nor with DVD players fussing about the quality of the recording. After a couple of months using it, I haven't had any problems whatsoever. I can't tell you about service, because I haven't had any problems, but there is an optional 1-year replacement plan that costs about $250, that seems like a reasonable investment. Construction is good, so I don't recommend the ruggedized model, but definately consider the Pro over the one-drive models - the robot is smart enough to use both drives so big jobs are done in half (or less) the time. I haven't any real criticisms, but I would like Primera to divulge a replacement cassette for the printer - it looks suspiciously like an HP cartridge, but I don't know for sure. I really would like to refil the cartridges myself. For the small video/picture production house, the Primera is ideal. A photographer can shoot a wedding, upload the pictures edit them, and produce a professional-looking VCD or DVD that can be put in the couples hand before they go on their honeymoon. I anticipate the disc will be with us for anouther five or ten years before it is replaced by another technology (presumably with no moving parts). Until that happens, The DVD will be with us, and I strongly recommend the Primeara Pro to the user who is involved in DVD production or duplication.
