Flashing a Samsung TS-H522U

Hey, i just bought a dvd-burner.

Samsung TS-H522U ( Cheapie, you know how i am )

Anywayz, talking to a mate on msn. He mentioned that he flashed his dvd-burner and the performance is much better..

Im not to familar with 'flashing' or what it really means, could someone go into depth of the meaning..

And also, i want to burn home movies etc, onto dvd but change the bit setting to dvd-rom. My dvd-burner doesnt support changing the bitsetting, could i flash it or whatever to allow changing the bit-setting to dvd-rom?
If so, what do i download etc.. whats a main website with info/downloads for this etc..

Thanks ( Total hardware newbie , hard transfering from web-site development to hardware related stuff, IT etc )