LiteOn IHAS524-T98

Lite-On IHAS524-T98

Labeling optical media has always been a sticky proposition: Printed labels throw discs out of balance and sometimes ruin the media; using a pen looks sloppy; and you can't use LightScribe or LabelFlash to etch a label into the top of a disc unless you use specially coated (and pricier) media. Enter Lite-On's LabelTag-capable IHAS524-T98 ($40, price as of January 4, 2011), an internal multiformat DVD burner that creates labels on the data side of any recordable CD or DVD. Writing in the data area yields a neat and (under normal conditions) readable label, but you lose capacity, and you must flip the disc in order to read the label. Also, the label can be very difficult to read on discs with lighter dyes. And once tagged, LabelTag discs are unavailable for further writing, so make sure you're done writing to the disc before labeling it. In addition to LabelTag support, this DVD burner delivers fast, reliable write speeds for every format it supports, which is everything on the market except Blu-ray (but including DVD-RAM). So far, the only software to support LabelTag is Nero; the company's Nero Essentials comes bundled with the drive.