Yamaha's newest CDR recorder, the CRW-F1, just hit the shelves this week and it looks like a groundbreaker. It's a very fast CD burner as you might expect (entire CD's in about 3-4 minutes), but Yamaha has developed some proprietary technology that allows this CD recorder to burn labels onto the CDR itself. No special inks, labels or CDR's are required... in fact, no printing is involved. The unused portion of the CDR is used for burning 100x-size pits to form text and images. Also there is special Audio Mastering functions. Here's an independent review with sample pics:
http://www.reviewmakers.com/showdoc.php?review=50

The internal Windows version is now available from either Yamaha.com's website:
http://www.yamaha.com/yec/multimedia/customer/features/feat_prodsF1_flash.html

or from Microwarehouse (800-367-6808). And they cost under $200. The Mac versions (internal SCSI and external combo USB/Firewire) are due out in the next month.

I'm posting this here because some of you may be interested in running short-batch CD's to sell at gigs, and if you've ever dealt with stick-on labels you know how messy and expensive they are. Jewel case inserts are relatively cheap to mass produce so the CDR-F1 should make home CD production a lot easier. Mine arrives tomorrow so I'll tell you how it goes.