Digital newspaper printing is a new business model and a different mindset, but when the market delivers inkjet webs a metre wide, running at the traditional equivalent of almost 20,000 cph, there’s a comfortable feeling that the technology is ‘getting there’ (writes Peter Coleman).

The last few weeks have seen two notable product releases.

A signature folder from Müller Martini – which uses former and chopper folders – was shown at the Hunkeler innovationdays event in February, and the system (combined with inline perfect binding or saddlestitching) is already being installed at sites in Australia and China teamed with HP’s inkjet web.

As an alternative to Hunkeler’s own sheet-collate-fold system, used in most digital newspaper applications, it provides the option to produce fully-finished booklets and magazines at production speeds.

The other news has come from HP itself, which has lived up to its ‘scaleable’ promise with the launch of a new high-speed press with a 1066 mm wide web. The T400 Color Inkjet Web joins models with 520 and 762 mm web widths, and will be capable of 183 metres/minute – about equivalent to 20,000 cph on a single-width web-offset press.

Suddenly there’s a choice of finishing options and a further quantum leap in the productivity of presses. More is obviously to come: Inkjet technology continues to move ahead with offerings from companies such as Impika – which has a system using a Panasonic printhead at more than 250 metres/minute – and Australian developer Silverbrook with its ‘disruptive’ (to quote Andrew Tribute) Memjet technology.

The new wide HP T400 has been unveiled at beta partner O’Neil Data Systems in Los Angeles, which has versions of its three predecessors. The figure of 5200 full-colour letter-size pages a minute – 44 per cent more than its closest competitor – is being quoted.

HP claims more than 25 installations of its inkjet web press systems wordwide, and graphic solutions senior vice president Christopher Morgan says the “significant throughput capacity” takes printers into a world of true mass personalisation and customisation.

New A50 process inks and A10 printheads are part of the upgrade, and are packed into compact 47 nozzles-per-millimetre printhead design. Web tension controls and dryer systems have also been upgraded.

In the busy transpromo marketplace, a number of complementary solutions have been introduced. They include workflow to print two variable data jobs side-by-side (Ultimate Technographics), and finishing and paper transport options from EMT, Magnum Digital, MBO and Müller Martini. Hunkeler and half a dozen other suppliers also have products to work with the T400 and a turret rewinder and zero-speed splicer are among options.

The T400 will be available later this year, with presses typoically built to order against a six or seven-month lead time. At O'Neil, it is already in use printing time-sensitive publications including the weekly ‘MarketSmith’ personalised financial research publication.

See video of the T400