18x optical drive vs lightscribe 16x

ok I'm choosing between the LG gsa-h22n and the gsa h10l

the h22n is 18x speed while the h10l is 16x
also i can get the h22n at 10 bucks cheaper and i'm making a budget system so the extra 10 dollars actually counts.
i want to know what you would go for and if why i would want to go for either one..

I've figured out that lightscribe can be handy in making personal DVDs what with the picture ability
but i want to know if 18x makes that big of a difference and by how many minutes of dvd encoding or whatever the 18x speed makes.

Also i can't seem to find any blank cds that say 18x speed so i'm wondering if you would need a blank cd with 18x compatibility to actually use the 18x capabilities.

Personaly I think Light Scribe is a waste of money, it costs me less money to print out a color label on inkjet printable Verbatim disc then it does to do a Light Scribe one. The H10L is a really good burner, but I cross flashed mine to an H12N, losing the light scribe but getting a faster and just as good burner. Check out this thread on another forum.



http://forum.lgsoftwareinnovations [...] 690&page=6

Cross flashing is when you have two different models of a dvd burner, internaly they have the same hardware and are made by the same manufacturer but the firmware is different for each one, one firmware can make the drive a 16X dvd burner with Light Scribe like the LG H10L and the other an 18X burner without Light Scribe. Using hacked firmware to flash the H10 with H12 firmware will make it be recognised and operate like the H12.

If your refering to the read speed all the dvd-rom and dvd burner drives are 16X max read speed, but with media like verbatim 16X +R or 16X -R or Taiyo Yuden 16X +R or 16X-R blank media the H10 cross flashed to an H12 will give it a max burn speed of 20X. You may see the max burn speed for a very short time at the end of the burn and thats about it, other then for testing purposes I dont burn my regular back ups faster then 4X if using 8X media and 8X if using 16X media. Another thing about cross flashing a drive is that it will void the warranty.