We purchased a new Primera Bravo II CD/DVD Publisher this week because we're doing a lot more DVD's and Blu-ray discs than ever before. The Bravo II is a robot DVD / CD burner and printer which can handle up to 50 discs in any one burning session, fully unattended. Perfect for our situation. We can burn / print DVD's and we can use it in print-only mode for the Blu-ray discs.
The big problem comes in its Mac compatibility. First off, the printer does not work at all using the Primera software in Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard). To use the Bravo II in automated print mode from their own software, you have to run in Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger). To use the Bravo II in Leopard you have to use something like Apple's Preview to do the printing of the discs, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of automated, unattended burning / printing.
Regardless of whether the machine is used in Tiger or Leopard, the printer drivers simply do not work correctly on the Mac. The colors print very muddy and muted instead of the vibrant colors we're expecting. We literally printed over 30 DVDs to test the printer using every conceivable combination of settings and testing RGB vs. CMYK. Bottom line, our $100 Epson ink-jet printer easily out-performed the $2,700 Bravo II.
Primera Tech Support was able to replicate our tests and confirm there is a problem with the Mac drivers. Their solution was for us to use a Windows XP machine instead of Mac. So I picked up a new iMac and installed Windows XP onto that machine since we had no Windows machines in our office. This does work almost perfectly. Still not exactly the colors we're looking for on the DVD's but with a bit more tweaking in Photoshop, we should be able to get the printed images to look as we expect.
The real problem I have here is Primera advertising this as a PC / Mac solution. This machine lists for $2,695.00. The compatibility is described thusly on their website: Bravo II is ideal for printing either one at a time, unique discs or jobs of up to 50 discs at a time. Models include both Windows-based PC and Mac software in every box. Now a normal business owner like myself is going to read that and expect the exact same performance on both a Mac and PC. You would be wrong.
I did not expect the Bravo II to work correctly on Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) since it is so new and there are a lot of issues out there. But OS 10.4 that has been out for over a year? That definitely not Mac support in my book. If we didn't need the machine so badly right at this moment, I would have returned it immediately. Unfortunately, we have deadlines to meet and just had to absorb the additional money for the iMac / Windows XP.
Just a word of warning for anyone else out there considering this unit or anything else from Primera. It does work pretty much as advertised on Windows XP, but not Mac.
Digg it
Oh....
I'm sorry to hear that you are having problems with this device. We are already on our second Bravo Duplicator since we wore out the first.
As for your Epson outprinting the Bravo II, try printing 50 - 100 discs and tell me that again. We also have an Epson printer that we use for everday printing jobs that has CD/DVD printing capabilities (for backup only). I can tell you that it takes a long time to print this way as compared to the Primera Duplicators.
I'll give Primera this... The Mac support that they have is pretty cheesy at best. The Bravo series duplicators work flawlessly on the PC. And since we already have to have a PC for our closed captioning station, it only made since to put the Bravo Pro on that workstation.
By the way, if you paid the $2700 list price, you got ripped bad. Street price is running around $1800 for this machine. The Bravo Pro lists for $4000 with a street price of about $2700.
Oh.... and one little tip if you plan on using the kiosk tray. Slightly tip the printer forward so that the discs slide out better. If you don't they can fall backwards into the CD/DVD writer.
Not fully Windows XP compatible either
As an update, after successfully burning / printing approx. 60 DVD's, the publisher stopped working. It locked up in the middle of a 10 disc burn only project. When trying to re-launch the software, it locked up again.
Trying to launch the printer software also locked up.
The advice of tech support on their website was to simply remove and re-install the software as there was no other fix.
We did this and now we cannot launch the printer application if the Bravo II is connected to the computer. This just goes from silly to amazing. It would be easier to swallow all of these issues if their website clearly stated stability issues may be present.
We've given up and returned the unit
As an update, we have returned the Bravo II, though our reseller was less than helpful. Not really sure what we needed the reseller for as they instructed us to deal directly with Primera. The unit turned out to be a total bust for us and we have already replaced it with another product.
Replacement product
What did you replace it with Walter. We have a Nexxus 100 and it blows. We've tried it on 2 machines, reinstalled software etc.
Mick Haensler
BTW, I emailed you about a possible job down your way last week and didn't get a response
What did you replace it with
What did you replace it with Walter. We have a Nexxus 100 and it blows. We've tried it on 2 machines, reinstalled software etc.
We purchased a DiscMakers Medley with an HP Computer. They sold it to us as a package because they told us right up front, in order for this thing to work the best, it has to have it's own dedicated computer. I was going to purchase a much higher end Dell computer, but they told me it would really be a waste as you don't want to run anything else on this computer except their software.
We have had a few crashes with it today, but it is working and the colors are pretty much spot on to what we're creating. We don't have to modify each label in order to make sure the colors print as we expect. In the 4800dpi mode it prints very very nicely.
Even with the HP Computer, it was slightly less than the Primera unit.
http://www.discmakers.com/duplicators/automated/Medley.asp
BTW, I emailed you about a possible job down your way last week and didn't get a response
We were closed for 10 days over the holidays so it probably got caught up in the approx. 1,000 spam emails that clogged my junk mailbox. Feel free to re-send.
Upon further review....
We don't have to modify each label in order to make sure the colors print as we expect. In the 4800dpi mode it prints very very nicely.
Upon further review, comparing labels that were originally printed on the Bravo II and the Medley, it's clear the Medley does not print as well as the Bravo II. More in a new blog about the Medley.
http://blogs.creativecow.net/node/402
Walter Biscardi, Jr. www.biscardicreative.com
Primera has certainly been a challenge
Walter, I too have experienced nothing but trouble with my Primera Bravo Pro. I have struggled far too long with it. I have given up on getting the drives to keep working properly...the thing that I find really difficult to understand is why it is so hard to see consistent print results after an ink cartridge change.
I would say that half of all the ink cartridges I get will not print properly. I too experienced a less than expert opinion support system. I think at the end of the day these products just will not do what they are supposed to do on a Mac.
Did you find that the print results were inconsistent?
Thanks,
Simon Malcolm, Australia.