DIGITAL digest

On Demand Not Quite as In Demand

BOSTON—The calendar read March, but many of the exhibitors at the On Demand Exposition were already feeling the gravitational pull of the Drupa 2008 international print show still to come in late May. Some went so far as to scale down their booths, but the more prevalent impact was a dearth of new product introductions.

This year, major announcements are being made at special pre-Drupa media events or being saved for Düsseldorf, Germany.

One exception was Canon U.S.A., which introduced the imagePRESS C6000VP and C6000 digital color press models as lower volume, more affordable versions of the same printing architecture used in the imagePRESS C7000VP. These machines print 60 ppm (all speeds are for letter-sized output) with a maximum 1,200 dpi resolution.

Konica Minolta previewed the new bizhub PRO 2500P cut-sheet monochrome printing system that features single-pass duplex printing at speeds up to 250 ppm. It is slated for deliveries this summer. The company also introduced a PB-501 perfect binder option for the bizhub PRO C6500/C6500P color printer series and new workflow software tools.

This installment has been pegged as “the Ink-jet Drupa,” among other themes, but the On Demand show floor only offered hints of what’s to come for document printing applications.

Océ introduced its JetStream color ink-jet printing platform at a solo event earlier this year and elected to show only a remote video presentation of the product in Boston. The VarioStream 8000 series did make its show debut, offering monochrome and highlight color printing at speeds up to 750 ipm (simplex mode) in a 19.5˝ wide, continuous-feed format.

Screen (USA) again showed the Truepress Jet520 color press and expects to begin offering the new Truepress Jet2500V large- format (98.4x50˝) UV ink-jet printing system later this year. It also teamed up with Canon to offer Screen Trueflow SE as a front end for the imagePRESS press line.