These are in direct competition to Supacolor.
All print methods are essentially in competition with each other, but there are substantial differences between them.
Essentially these are made with very expensive equipment such as an HP indigo or a Ricoh.
These two are not the same.
Any laser printer can be used for the DST process. Even a $200 desktop printer will do.
Those large $20,000 laser printers (Ricoh, Xerox, Konica-Minolta, etc.) are just regular laser printers for production use.
They are the same technology as desktop laser printers, but much faster and have very low cost per print.
They also have similar limitations to the cheap desktop printers:
a) prints are limited to 30cm width at best.
b) poor paper registration which means that the white overprint will not always be in the same place.
c) 4 color dry toner.
HP indigo are essentially laser printers as well, but are much more advanced.
a) they can print up to 50cm wide sheets.
b) have perfect paper registration (grippers carry the sheet through the press).
c) can have up to 12 liquid inks (fluorescent, silver, and other colors are possible).
They are basically real print presses using a digital print engine instead of printing plates.
Having one however is not that easy... You are looking at $500,000 for a decent model, plus around $3K per month for maintenance.
You can try to replicate the process with Direct to film and achieve similar results but not exact.
DTF is obviously a better option in terms of equipment cost and can print one offs, but
a) print quality as well as the quality of the transfer itself can be erratic.
b) very slow for long runs.
c) much higher cost per print.
The process itself requires heat transfer film and not paper
It depends on your definition of "paper".
Transfer papers are not just paper, and the coating is what makes the difference.
Some people prefer the film because you can see where the print goes when pressing it, but the cost per sheet is much higher.
The border around everything is solving a problem with these transfers where the edges tend not to stick and peel. Thus adding a clear or slightly darker outline allows the adhesive to go further past the design.
The sticking issue is somewhat true, depending on the film or paper used.
The border is more about blending the design to the fabric by softening sharp edges, adding strength to thin lines, and hide the glue.
EDITED: more detailed info added.