DRUPA 04 REPORT Digital Printing -- Getting a Quick Impression

BY MARK SMITH

Technology Editor

There are a couple different measures by which one can judge the vitality of digital printing at the recent Drupa 2004 exhibition in Düsseldorf, Germany. Certainly, the manufacturers made their presences felt around the show floors. Many of the largest booths were accounted for by digital printing system vendors.

HP Indigo was a tour de force with its sprawling booth and theatre presentation featuring a booming audio track that reverberated throughout Hall 4. Xerox dominated Hall 13 with its equipment stretched across one end of the building. Océ extended its presence around the fairgrounds by giving away wheeled cases made of cardboard that attendees dragged everywhere to load up with stuff.

And while its exhibits were not yet physically unified, Eastman Kodak made a bold statement about its resurgence in the digital printing market space through its recent acquisitions of Kodak Versamark (formerly Scitex Digital), NexPress Solutions and Heidelberg Digital.

According to James Langley, president of Kodak's Graphic Arts Group, the company is working on integrating these operations where it makes sense, but will keep other areas—such as R&D and manufacturing—separate because of the differences in ink-jet and electro-photography technology.

Also, the point was repeatedly made that Kodak Polychrome Graphics (KPG) is a separate venture, jointly owned by Kodak and Sun Chemical. So while it may make sense for KPG to be a distributor of products from its half-sister companies, it is under no obligation to do so.

As impressive as the booths were, the WOW! factor was missing. One didn't get a sense there had been any fundamental change in the competitive picture for digital printing. No major new speed benchmarks were set, the standard for print quality remained largely the same and, if anything, there was contraction of the format sizes supported.

Incremental advances—or some variation on that theme—was the characterization most frequently applied to developments shown at Drupa. Instead of mega-trends, attendees saw refinements in selling propositions and convergence of market forces.

Maybe that impression just reflects the maturation of the market segment, which isn't necessarily bad. But Drupa has a long-standing reputation for providing a glimpse of where the industry is headed in the next four years and beyond. Judging by this past event, the digital printing operation of 2008 isn't going to look all that different from today's—or one from the year 2000, for that matter.

Calling it a trend may be overstating things, but several manufacturers used the show as a forum to launch new monochrome printing solutions. This comes at a time when more users of digital color devices are moving toward running all jobs—color, black-and-white or hybrid—on a single production machine for processing efficiency. Higher volumes still dictate the use of dedicated black-and-white devices, though.

Xerox extended the product line built on its new monochrome platform and gave it a new brand name—Nuvera. The company has decided to phase out the "Docu" name, as in DocuTech and DocuColor, as it introduces new products.

The Nuvera 100 and 120 digital production systems, not to be confused with the digital copier/ printer models introduced earlier in the year, features a higher duty cycle, the ability to handle a wider range of stocks (including coated), modular architecture so configurations can be tailored to customer requirements and additional finishing options.

Xerox also previewed some pending developments, including an optional in-line UV coater for the iGen3 and a new version of the FreeFlow digital workflow solution. The latter is comprised of components users can elect to add in order to upgrade their capabilities, with the initial product release including FreeFlow Web Services, Makeready, Print Manager and Process Manager.

NexPress Solutions' new Digimaster E150 print system is a 150-ppm, black-and-white device that features enhanced image quality, a modular design and optional MICR capabilities. In addition, it supports a greater range of substrate weights (up to 266 gsm) and sizes (7x8.27˝ to 14.33x18.5˝) than previous models. The Digital Print Quality Adjust feature enables operators to vary line width and solid area density to achieve a desired printed look. The printing system is scheduled to be available in August.

Based on the Océ Copy Press engine, the VarioPrint 2110 cut-sheet, monochrome printer offers a 600-dpi resolution, 105-ppm maximum printing speed and oversized 12x18˝ maximum sheet size. Innovations include tab printing, mixed stock processing and open finishing interface.

Two New Models

Two new continuous-feed printers were shown by Nipson, the VaryPress 200 and 400, based on magnetographic imaging with cold-flash fusing. Among the advances incorporated into the printing systems are a new generation of writing heads offering longer life and a smaller spot size, combined with a new toner formulation with a smaller particle size and lower consumption.

Delphax Technologies claims to have set a new benchmark for printing speed in the continuous-feed market with its new CR2000 monochrome printer. It is capable of producing nearly 2,000 8.5x11˝ pages per minute using electron beam imaging.

IBM updated its Infoprint 4100 line of continuous-form printers to provide increased media flexibility (up to 9 pt./225 gsm coated stock), high-speed (up to 1,220 ipm) MICR capability and a productivity tracking feature. In addition, the company announced it is increasing its implementation of open standards, including JDF and PPML, in its Infoprint Manager workflow system along with now supporting Windows-based platforms.

In the color digital printing arena, Hewlett-Packard highlighted customer success stories along with new product introductions. The HP Indigo press 5000 is said to be distinctive because it represents the first press co-developed by HP and the former Indigo organization, with the collaboration bringing innovations in paper handling, inking systems and production software. The HP Indigo press 3050 offers reliability enhancements, including an improved paper path and lower costs compared to the previous 3000 model.

Taking advantage of the capacity for a fifth imaging station in its NexPress 2100 digital color press, NexPress launched the IntelliCoat and IntelliColor solutions. IntelliCoat applies a clear DryInk coating (flood or spot) that increases gloss, but is mainly intended to provide image protection. IntelliColor enables users to add one primary color (red, blue or green) to extend the color gamut of the press' four-color process printing, primarily to improve spot color reproduction.

At the booth of sister company Kodak Versamark, the emphasis was on the new VX500e continuous ink-jet system, which prints a 1,200-dpi equivalent resolution at more than 1,400 impressions per minute. In talking about the acquisition, though, the parent Kodak organization stresses the wealth of patents it holds on ink-jet technology that will spur further product development.

Drupa 2004 was a coming out party of sorts for the new Xeikon organization, according to its management. The company showcased its Xeikon 5000 digital color press, which reportedly is an all-new machine designed from scratch to offer improved performance in terms of image quality, reliability and durability. A new digital front end, the X-800 DFE, provides significantly greater processing power to facilitate production of complex variable data print jobs, even in long runs.

RISO offered preview demonstrations of its new HC5000 cut-sheet ink-jet printer, which produces 105 ppm. The device offers a choice of 600 or 900 dpi printing over a maximum image area of 12.36x17.87˝. It is slated to be released in the fall.

Most of the activity in the on-press/direct imaging (DI) arena centered around imaging systems and materials. There were a couple of new press announcements, though.

The first gets a little complicated. Presstek Inc. introduced the new ProFire Excel imaging system and ProFire Digital Media, which work in combination to generate a 16-micron spot that enables 300 lpi printing with support for FM/stochastic and hybrid screening options. The imaging technology also is being offered on new versions of the company's Dimension platesetters for exposing its existing plate materials.

The new imager/plate combination is being incorporated into two A3-size press platforms developed by Ryobi (distributed by xpedx/Import Group in the United States), which will also be marketed by KPG in the U.S and by KBA in other regions. High-performance versions—Ryobi 3404X-DI and KPG DirectPress 5634 DI—were introduced at Drupa. "Entry level" implementations—the DirectPress 5334 DI in KPG's case—are scheduled to be available in the second half of 2004 and are intended to broaden the market for DI technology by significantly reducing costs.

On another front, Heidelberg has opted to incorporate new ProSpot imaging technology, designed and manufactured by Presstek, to continue exposing PearlDry Plus plate material on its Quickmaster DI Pro digital presses. However, the press manufacturer also unveiled its own thermal imaging system, which will replace the Creo imaging heads currently used on the Heidelberg Speedmaster 74 DI.

For its part, Creo Inc. introduced a new Clarus WL waterless polyester plate material it claims can be used as a drop-in solution for direct imaging presses. It supports run lengths of up to 30,000 impressions.

Screen (USA) will be offering the new TruePress 344, a digital offset press that uses processless plate technology from Konica-Minolta to produce up to 7,000 sph. It handles a maximum sheet size of 13.39x18.5˝ and offers a 2,400 dpi resolution that supports Spekta hybrid screening. The press is slated to be available in November.

The only larger format development of any note was MAN Roland's announcement that it is moving into the serial release phase of its DICOweb digital web offset printing system following two years of pilot testing. The manufacturer has incorporated DICO (Digital Change Over) thermal transfer technology for imaging and de-imaging cylinders on-press into heatset and coldest press configurations. In a related development, Agfa demonstrated the ability of is ApogeeX workflow to drive the DICOweb as part of the PrintCity display.

Collaboration on workflow solutions continues to be a broad theme in the industry. For example, Canon Inc. and NexPress announced they are joining forces to develop an array of digital color workflow solutions that enable seamless conversion between office document and commercial printing workflows. Their stated goal is to accelerate the adoption of high-quality, high-volume digital production printing and to promote the adoption of network-based distributed printing.

There were some new twists thrown in at Drupa 2004, however, including a trend toward integration of offset and digital printing workflows. A case in point was Creo teaming up with Xerox to demonstrate how its Prinergy workflow system could launch Xerox FreeFlow Print Manager and submit jobs for digital printing to Spire color servers driving Xerox digital presses.

Coming as somewhat of a surprise was the announcement by HP that it had formed an alliance with Quark Inc. to facilitate the production of customized marketing communications. As a result, Quark is releasing a free XTension, called QuarkXClusive, for QuarkXPress 6.0 users that adds variable data publishing capabilities optimized for HP output devices. The software developer also plans to "certify" HP graphic arts printers and presses as optimized for print performance.

While they don't directly pertain to the commercial printing sector, a couple of other digital printing trends were evident at this Drupa.

One was a growing focus on "industrial printing" applications for ink-jet technology. Dotrix, Inca Digital Printers and Scitex Vision were among the exhibitors showing systems capable of four-color (or more) printing on corrugated, container board and other stocks.

The other big trend was talk of applications and opportunities in the transaction printing space from virtually every digital press manufacturer. This included suppliers of high-end color printing systems that previously had been focused on "graphic arts" applications.

Given the event's size and scope, there are no doubt other trends that could be included in this Drupa wrap-up. They'll have to keep for another day, but probably just Graph Expo & Converting Expo 2004 in October and not Drupa 2008.