Digital BW, The Print

----- Original Message -----
From: "gschern" <gschern@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 9:54 PM
Subject: [Digital BW] Re: [OT] Thank You!


> > Is the Selenium PiezoTone ink set still on schedule for a July
> release?
>
> While I'm probably not the most qualified source - my conversations
> lead me to believe that they should be ready. It's not an easy task
> to introduce a new product - we're in the process of preparing for
> and announcing a couple of new CIS products - it's a time consuming
> affair. I believe from our experiences that the July release will
> hold, but look for solid availability in August.

Gregory,

It is good to hear this is finally going to be available and soon. A
Selenium version of Piezo has been promised for so long I doubt that many of
the "old hands" will believe it before they see it.
>
> > Are we likely to see a paper profile in the Piezo driver for
> Eclipse Satin
> > soon? You would seem to be in a good position to know as both a
> Piezo and
> > Eclipse distributor. This paper seems to be gaining an ever growing
> > following and a Piezo profile would be most helpful.
>
> Good Question! You would think I could be in a position to make
> something happen, but I've emailed Jon Cone a couple of times
> offering to provide the paper and any other resources necessary, but
> have gotten little response. Perhaps an outpouring from more people
> will do the trick!

Fair enough. Okay everyone in this, please post a request for an Eclipse
profile for the Piezo driver on the PiezoBW list at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/piezography3000/
>
> > How long a lag do you think there will be between the 2200 series
> printers
> > hitting the market and an aftermarket CIS becoming available,
> realizing that
> > this will depend upon the engineering time for the cartridge chip
> and not
> > just the plastic moldings for the bodies?
>
> It is going to take a while (6 months to 1 year), because the chips
> are a LOT more complex than the last ones. I know of at least 2
> people already hard at work on them, but it doesn't sound like they
> are making much progress as of yet. The real solution would be to
> find a way to just bypass them altogether. Epson is trying really
> hard to prevent the use of 3rd party products! The idea of 7 carts is
> as much a tool to prevent an affordable aftermarket solution as it is
> a "convenience" to the customer.

I was afraid you were going to say something like that. I hadn't looked at
the 7 separate carts as a way to help suppress aftermarket ink suppliers but
it does make sense. When I initially heard that there were separate carts I
was pleased since we have all had the experience of having color carts "die"
when just one ink was low. With the need for 7 chips to make the printer
run, the cost of a CIS will be very high based on current prices. I believe
the cost of the two read only chips in a 1280 CIS is about $100. If that
holds for the eventual 2200 CIS the cost will be $250 higher than the 1280
CIS. There will be some savings from having only one size of cartridge but
that will be minimal compared to the chip issue. A software work around
would be the best of course but I am not hopeful.

This will be important as I just saw some B&W output from a 7600 and was not
impressed. There is metamerism, looked okay in tungsten and yellow/green in
daylight. There was a weird blue to yellow split toning in the images too.
Perhaps these were not good examples but I would need to see something a lot
better to make me want to move away from the grayscale inks.

Thanks for all the info,
Martin