Surething LightScribe SE

The new HP 640i comes bundled with a special SE version of the popular Surething CD/DVD Labeler software that is primarily designed to fully support and allow you to create your LightScribe labels. 

However, before you can enable and use Surething to create and burn your labels, you will need to run the included HP 640i installation CD to properly install the LightScribe API and supporting functions. 

It was only after I ran the HP installation CD that a LightScribe label stock option was present when running Surething CD/DVD Labeler software.  Surething's labeling software allows maximum flexibility by allowing you to choose a design best suited for the disc your creating.

This biggest question on everyone's mind is just how long it takes to actually burn a label using LightScribe.  To test its burn time and quality, I created two separate labels.  One was quite simple and consisted of some text and two black & white clipart images.  The other, was much more complex and covered the whole surface area of the disc. 

Think of printing your labels as you normally would on your standard inkjet/laser printers.  Once your done with your label design, simply click on File then Print and your will be prompted with a special Print Options menu.  Again, like your standard printer, you have some choices as to the print quality of your LightScribe label.  The choices are Best, Normal and Draft.  For testing purposes, I printed the two designs we showed you above using both Best and Draft to capture its burn times.

Once you have set your print options as desired, simply click OK and sit back and relax because unfortunately, LightScribe burning is painfully slow!

The most simple design we showed you above took approximately 15 minutes at Best mode and 8 minutes at Draft mode.  So yes, it is quite slow.  However, what was the difference in quality between these two prints? 

When comparing the first design for quality, I can say that there was really no improvement in detail, however, what the Best mode seems to do is print a much darker label as you can see for yourself in the sample prints above.

Now, the more elaborate design took a very long time to print.  In fact, with print quality set to Best, it took approximately 25 minutes to print.  A Draft print took approximately 13 minutes.  This is certainly not for those who expect to print a large number of copies.  Let's compare quality...

Now, the detail was certainly noticeable with this particular design.  As I stated, the Best quality option will basically print a much darker label thus revealing much more detail.  You can definitely notice the loss in quality plus the Draft print looks almost too light and washed out.  Although it did take a painfully long 25 minutes, this label certainly looked great at the highest print quality.

Nero & LightScribe

Nero Burning ROM 6.6 does offer LightScribe support provided you have a special serial number that will unlock these capabilities.  Nero will kindly be sending us a LightScribe version of their software and we will be featuring it in the upcoming thorough review of the HP DVD 640i.

Next: Conclusions