Review: PowerDVD 13 Ultra media player is loaded with under-the-hood improvements

The PowerDVD Ultra series have been the most powerful, feature-laden DVD, Blu-ray, and media players available at retail. On the other hand, each version has also been somewhat slow to launch and sluggish to respond. Version 13 starts up more quickly and is better all around, although it's not a startling upgrade if you already have version 12. That said, there are more than a few new features here, including a user interface that Windows 8 aficionados will find appealing.

Before getting into the new stuff, a quick but impressive list of what PowerDVD Ultra already supports: Playback of DVDs and 2D and 3D Blu-ray movies with resolution enhancement; cataloging and playback of large collections of photos, music files, and videos; a 10-foot interface for use with a remote; and playback of media streamed via DLNA media servers (e.g., other PCs and NAS boxes).

PowerDVD 13 Ultra ($100) now supports every major video technology, including 2K/4K resolution, AVCHD 2.0 and 3D, and it comes with free players and remote-control apps for iOS and Android devices, plus PowerDVD Mobile for Windows tablets (both Windows 8 and RT). The Android and iOS apps are also free with the $80 Pro version, but you’ll need to pay $20 for PowerDVD Mobile. The Pro version drops support for 3D, 7.1-channel surround sound, and DLNA. You’ll need to pay for all three apps if you buy the $60 Deluxe version, which subtracts both Blu-ray and 3D support. Upgrades from previous versions of PowerDVD start at $45.

The last two versions of PowerDVD had the program morphing into a jack-of-all-trades media player, and version 13 continues that trend—albeit mildly. There’s a new a movie library with art for video files (not just movies), though as with many players, it's rather hit or miss on whether the art is correct. If the file name is explicit enough, it does okay. PowerDVD is also ready for Ultra Violet, the online movie storage/delivery service, and it already supports video streaming from most social networks (Facebook, YouTube, etc.)

PowerDVD 13 Ultra now provides its TrueTheater enhancements for 1920-by-1080p video. TrueTheater bypasses GPU hardware acceleration, though, so the hardware requirements are extreme. Even on a Core i7 965 test bed, enhanced video wouldn't play smoothly beyond about 25 Mbps. That’s fine for smaller downloaded files, but not for most Blu-ray movies. If you have the horsepower, TrueTheater really makes video look better. The ability to disable BD-live to speed movie start times is another significant improvement.

Cyberlink added support for two lossless audio codecs that will endear it to hard-core music fans everywhere: FLAC and APE. There's also a software EQ with common settings, and you can use Dolby to produce more spacious sound, but there’s no support for bass enhancement such as Windows Media Player's SRS TruBass. A new mini-player keeps the program out of the way when playing music.

With PowerDVD, CyberLink aspires to deliver the ultimate all-in-one solution for multimedia on the desktop. Version 13 is closer to that ideal, but still lacks a few features, including live TV support. It remains the best available video and movie playback application for state-of-the-art technologies (there are no free Blu-ray 3D alternatives). Only Corel's $50 WinDVD 11 comes close.

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Julliard, and now he power mods his car for kicks.
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CyberLink PowerDVD 12 Ultra Review: An All-Purpose Media Player

CyberLink’s PowerDVD has long been a powerful media player. The $100 (as of March 8, 2012) PowerDVD 12 Ultra continues the tradition, establishing itself as the Blu-ray/DVD/music/video player to beat. It makes movies look great and audio sound wonderful, and it's entirely tweakable. Even better, the easy-to-use program plays a ton of file types, including 3D video and photos. Version 12 takes PowerDVD further toward being a truly universal media player and organizer--but it has also developed into a large and resource-hungry application.

The core reason for buying PowerDVD is its Blu-ray movie playback. In that regard, version 12 has only one new feature: TrueTheater 3D, which turns 2D movies into 3D (sort of). Previously you could use this feature on DVD movies; now, you can apply it to Blu-ray playback as well.

PowerDVD's other new features all pertain to organization, streaming media, mobile devices, and social media. The revised interface is logical, with a left-side navigating pane that lets you easily switch between functions as well as navigate the music, photo, and video libraries. A large pane to the right displays the actual data. Functionally the interface is much like iTunes, but it's styled in dark gray and black tones--not particularly warm and friendly. Also, navigating the program's media library and moving between areas was somewhat slow in the version I tested (12.0.1312.54).

The software can now function as a DLNA server as well as a client. You can use it to stream the multimedia content on your PC across a network to other devices, as well as play content from other servers. CyberLink has produced new two-way media streaming/syncing apps (version 4) for both the IOS and Android platforms. The apps are free for PowerDVD Ultra users, but cost $5 for users of the less-expensive PowerDVD Professional and Standard. The company also offers a free app to turn your mobile device into a remote control for PowerDVD, a handy feature that worked remarkably well on my iPod Touch.

In addition, PowerDVD 12 integrates browsing and playing YouTube videos, freeing you from having to open a browser to do so. Facebook and Flickr are baked in, too, but although I was able to upload photos, PowerDVD didn't seem to recognize any of the nearly 100 pictures I already have on Facebook. 7digital music store access is now available, so you can shop for and download tunes; you can participate in CyberLink's MoovieLive cinema database and community site as well.

I did find one minor bug in the music player: It listed an Apple lossless file by the wrong name, and then would not play it (apparently lossless .M4A files are not supported). On the other hand, applying the TrueTheater audio effects breathes new life into old tunes. If the software only had something along the lines of Windows Media Player's SRS TruBass to give them more kick, I might switch to PowerDVD as my main music application.

Other useful new features include support for lossless pass-through of Dolby TrueHD (7.1), DTS-HD Master Audio (7.1), Ogg, and Flac formats.

The downside of all the new technology CyberLink has added to PowerDVD is that it requires a lot of resources. After installation, I counted nine separate PowerDVD-related programs running (most in the background), consuming close to 500MB of memory. Unfortunately, the software doesn't seem to provide a way to turn off features that you might not need, such as DLNA serving, to free up system resources. Actual playback performance was top-notch.

A true all-in-one media application is something that many users would appreciate and possibly spend $100 for. In its twelfth incarnation, PowerDVD comes close, and if another iteration were to add TV support--and scale back its hunger for memory and CPU cycles--that package might just fill the bill. For now, buy PowerDVD for Blu-ray playback, which it does very well.

You might opt for the $80 Professional version that handles Blu-ray but omits some of the streaming features and support for the 7.1 audio codecs. The $50 Standard version is a good player, but lacks Blu-ray support, which makes it hardly more useful than the free Windows Media Player or VLC.

--Jon L. Jacobi

With over a 100 million copies sold annually, PowerDVD is the number one choice for media entertainment on PCs and the only player software you need for all your media content and entertainment devices.

PowerDVD 12 plays all types of media content - movies, videos, photos and music, and brings the best in video and audio technologies to upgrade all your viewing experience to HD and 3D, including streamed content via home network, or, Youtube, Facebook and Flickr pages. PowerDVD 12 is the ultimate entertainment software you need anywhere at home and on-the-road.

Notes about the trial/demo:

30 day working trial.
VC-1/H.264 file playback in the trial version is limited to PCs with hardware acceleration.
Blu-ray playback in the trial version is limited to PCs with hardware acceleration.
Does not support the playback of CPRM protected content.
Does not support the playback of DTCP-IP protected content.
Does not support USB Sync and Home Media Server

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