I've had one of the new Primera Bravo SE units in for testing recently. It was my first time hands-on with a CD/DVD duplication system, and it is a cracker.

Bravo indeed for the SE

This system can handle 20 discs at a time, with a cool little robot arm dancing back and forth to grab a fresh disc, burn it, print it, and drop it in the out tray.

From time to time I've had to do multiple duplicate discs, and it is a boring babysitting experience akin to watching paint dry. The Bravo SE takes all that out of your hands so you can get on with the job -- or more likely, go and get some sleep instead.

And you could sleep right next to it. It is really very quiet. The only noise that caught my attention was the robot arm, and then only because I wanted to run over and watch it do its thing!

With a spindle of direct inkjet printable discs, you're well on your way. I wouldn't expect perfection of photo quality to be high on the agenda with direct disc printing, but the photos I did test on this came up better than some cheap photo printers I've seen. The one trick is to set your print area to suit your discs. It defaults to Primera's TuffCoat disc media (which is very nice), but on my second test disc -- TDK -- the printable area stopped far shorter of the centre hole, which saw some ink waste. But settings were adjusted and all was well in the world once more.

There was nothing fussy about anything with this unit. But I get the feeling there are a lot of creative types burning a lot of discs very often, yet they think the best value is to get additional burn drives and get a photo printer that supports disc printing. Heaven knows I see a lot of discs coming from PR agencies -- who must be churning hundreds of discs a week -- with crappy sticky labels (that I refuse to put near my disc drive) and a general air of amateurism.

If you have cause to print more than half a dozen discs at a time more often than once a month, you'll get back in time what you spend on this unit. It might be $2249, but it will be one of the best peripherals you've ever found a home on your desk for.

This is distributed in Australia by Region4.