CyberLink PowerDVD 12: Complementing Your Mobile Lifestyle
by Ganesh T S on January 31, 2012 9:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- HTPC
- Blu-Ray
- CyberLink
At the business end of the review, we have to say that CyberLink has got its strategy right. At present, they seem to be the only vendor in the HTPC Blu-ray / DVD software space with a strategy for the next generation of media playback devices. In fact, CyberLink also showed their softwares in action in the Windows 8 Metro UI during CES. CyberLink deserves a lot of credit for moving ahead quickly in this area. However, all the components have scope for improvement, and we also have some suggestions on possible features to integrate in the future:
PowerDVD:
- The software needs an option to turn off Internet access unless explicitly requested by the user (as in the case of BD-Live). Whenever one tries to resume a movie, PowerDVD fetches information about the latest Blu-rays and displays it in a pane on the right side while presenting the Resume / Restart screen. Frankly, I don’t see too many consumers actually being interested in looking at the new offerings when trying to restart their movies.
- The software could implement native support for Blu-ray / DVD ISOs, thereby making it unnecessary for users to mount them in a virtual drive. Compatibility with folder rips could be improved.
- It would be nice to have the audio playback method (bitstream / decode / downmix) selectable from the context menu during playback. By default, most users with A/V receivers would be setting the audio method to bitstream. When watching PiP video, it is necessary to decode the primary audio and mix it with the decoded secondary audio. Unfortunately, PowerDVD keeps bitstreaming the primary audio and there is no way out other than to go a couple of levels down into Settings and Audio to fix the issue. In my opinion, the drop-down approach from the AV Center used by Total Media Theater is much better.
- It would be good to have PowerDVD bypass the sound processing by Windows (particularly when decoding, say, a 5.1 channel FLAC to LPCM, Windows expands the 6 channel LPCM from PowerDVD to a 8 channel LPCM stream to the AV receiver, rendering the AVR incapable of doing its own channel expansion)
- Auto change to 3D mode is a bit dicey, particularly for 3D photo files, but one can’t find too much fault with PowerDVD for that.
- It is interesting to see premium media outlets like 7Digital adopting PowerDVD as a distribution medium. Having used PCs as their stepping stone, premium OTT services such as Netflix now treat them as poor second cousins. 1080p HD quality and multi-channel DD+ audio are reserved for streaming STBs. Some of the reasons cited for this are lack of playback apps on the PC with the required codec licenses and security of the data stream. Given that PowerDVD is secure enough for Blu-ray and also has the required codec licenses, it would be nice to have the highest quality streams from Netflix, Vudu and other similar services made available to consumers
PowerDVD Mobile:
- Despite CyberLink’s claims of real-time transcoding to enable DLNA playback, we could get transcoding to work only when saving the media stream to the mobile device. Also, this transcoding doesn’t seem to be taking advantage of QuickSync.
- Multiple player engine support is crucial. Currently, the app relies only on hardware decode (using the default playback settings of the local device as defined in the OS/image of the tablet/smartphone). I found a number of dedicated uPnP playback apps which played more media formats in a reliable manner compared to PowerDVD Mobile.
- Media can only be arranged by folders or in an all-inclusive view. Support for arrangement based on other factors (like date, size etc.) would be a nice feature to have.
- The app already supports local media. It would be nice to extend this support to media files residing on SMB and NFS network shares also.
- The app could be made more responsive. Currently, it feels very beta in nature. Performance was acceptable, but not great. It is not clear whether the issues were with the platforms or the app itself, but I did find other dedicated uPnP playback apps a pleasure to use.
PowerDVD Remote:
- The app could have a landscape mode option along with orientation auto-detection.
Wrapping things up, PowerDVD 12 is a laudable attempt by CyberLink to adapt to the evolving lifestyle of the consumers. As the tablet and smartphone platforms become more pervasive, CyberLink seems to be best poised to provide users with compelling offerings. Given that almost all Blu-ray / DVD software players come in at approximately the same price ($100), it looks like a no-brainer to go in with PowerDVD 12 because of the various mobile apps (unless you can purchase the competition's offerings at a much lower price).
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burntham77 - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
As much as I love my HTPC, there are times when I think just using a stand alone blu-ray player is the best bet. Sure it means one more piece of hardware under the TV, but blu-ray is still hinky on the PC, mainly due to audio codecs being unreliable.Breit - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Thanks for the review. I have just one question: Does PowerDVD 12 have proper multi-monitor support eventually? All prior versions i have tested so far just give me a cheesy warning dialog box saying that 'resolution is not supported' which means that one display in landscape (30" - 2560x1600 in my case) and one display in portrait mode (20" - 1600x1200) is not what they want their customers to use. Not that this is complicated to handle other players handle this just fine, it is just bullying.Golgatha - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I've tried both Cyberlink and PowerDVD. Both of them will put you on an upgrade treadmill and the juice just isn't worth the squeeze every year. I know PowerDVD also took out the ability to playback Bluray ISO rips or M2TS files. Cyberlink is clunky and rarely updates their software.On the other hand, ArcSoft TMT plays everything beautifully, they don't hound you about upgrading, and they don't mind if you employ a bit of fair use in your media viewing habits. They also provide free and regular updates to the software and it isn't a bloated POS like both Cyberlink and PowerDVD have become.
max_daemon - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I registered to second Golgatha. When I bought a hybrid HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drive in 2008 it came with PowerDVD and I have to say my experience was infuriating. From the start a number of Blu-Ray releases wouldn't play. Updates were few and VERY far between. Even some HD-DVD titles would be messed up, with non-functional menus. Long story short, I shelled up for Total Media Theatre after a long search for a good player - the forums were filled with stories similar to mine, both from PowerDVD and that other popular bundled software whose name eludes me - and have never looked back. I haven't upgraded to the current version (I think it's on 4 now), but it still runs great, plays anything I throw at it, has hardware acceleration, you name it. It was worth every cent.Golgatha - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
TMT 5 is the latest version and I upgraded from a bundled version 3, which was specific to an ASUS HDAV 1.3 slim I owned. At the time I owned PowerDVD 8 and had tried a trial version of Cyberlink, which didn't work at all as was bloated...just awful. Anyway, PowerDVD removed support for HD DVD at random and they also removed support for playback from virtual drives while I was the "proud owner" of their software, which I shelled out $100 for. Those two features basically made me diehard against them, and even if PowerDVD worked well and wasn't bloated, it would be a cold day in hell before I ever gave them my money again.ganeshts - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Guys, I agree TMT used the be the best balance between PDVD and WinDVD, but Cyberlink has learnt its lessons here. The player is not bloated at all, and the pestering to upgrade / purchase other software has toned down quite a bit.As I mentioned in the review, PDVD plays back ISOs and folder rips without any problems. (I think they had some issues earlier)
I did mention in my review about a folder rip which didn't play back in PDVD 12, and a crash while playing back a local file. So, it is not that PDVD is the magic solution.. Cyberlink does need to make some more fixes.
Golgatha - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
I sent ArcSoft an email linking them to this feedback section. They replied back within 12 hours. This is what they said...Thanks very much for provide the link to us. We will keep support for playback from virtual drives, M2TS files, and keep improve the software.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any other questions.
Best Regards,
ArcSoft Support
I have never once had a feature removed by ArcSoft. Can't say the same for Cyberlink. ArcSoft gets my money.
Tin Hat - Friday, February 3, 2012 - link
I believe ArcSoft removed HD-DVD support in later versions, which funnily, i found less annoying than when PowerDVD did it. Why? That's because ArcSoft kept updating its software compatibility wih the latest Blu-ray releases so i could continue to watch HD-DVD as well. The only bug to bear was the switching to plain graphics every time HD content kicked in, which ArcSoft never coded out of version 3.My main annoyance was when software companies dropped HD-DVD like a stone leaving buyers like me stranded for decent backup tools and players. I noticed only AnyDVD and ArcSoft left solid support for us. The rest just assumed we would just bin all those lovely HD videos or something? I've had a both annoying and educational time learning all about reMuxing and transcoding since then.
darkswordsman17 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I tried TMT5 and was unimpressed. For one, it would put Windows into basic color scheme even though I made sure to check not force that, it still did it with every Blu-Ray movie I played on it. Performance wasn't terribly impressive. MPC-HC with madVR looks better and performed roughly the same with a trial Blu-Ray rip using MakeMKV of the exact same movie, no compression/encoding or anything. Oh, and using a mouse is a bit of a pain but menus on DVDs and Blu-Rays are often sluggish if not outright horrible to begin with so that's the bigger nuisance.So, Arcsoft might be one of the better for what it is, but its still a letdown and not a substitute for say MPC-HC properly configured. If it weren't for the DRM keys needed (and probably DTS-HD decoder), there's basically nothing that other players couldn't do as well if not better. Couple that with the price and its just not worth it to me.
I'd probably just use MakeMKV but I can't get transcoding of the lossless formats to FLAC figured out yet.
daneren2005 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Why not just use AnyDVD HD. Its non intrusive and just works in the background and allows you to play a blu-ray just like its a dvd from your normal player. And best yet they don't bullshit you and pretend their support is anything but a subscription of their software. They call it what it is.