PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D - Babyphone Discounters

I was not a fan of PDVD 9, it was IMO never out of Beta and not what you would call compatible with Vista. However, Cyberlink is moving in the right direction with Ultra 10 (this review is for Windows 7 only).

OK, first off there are only 3 Blu Ray media players on the market. 1) Cyberlink PowerDVD, 2) Corel WinDVD 2010, 3) Arcsoft TotalMedia Theater 3. All are available for download and all have trial periods. I can tell you right now not to bother wasting time with Corel’s new implementation, its garbage and there’s a reason its been on sale lately for as cheap as around $40, it just plain doesn’t work. Arcsoft’s player looks like its spec’d similarly to PDVD 10, but I haven’t tried it. However, it is priced at around $90, about the same as Cyberlink’s product so maybe you can tell a difference between the trial versions.

The first thing that impressed me about PowerDVD 10 Ultra, was that once I downloaded the fully licensed version, there was no 100Mb+ “patch” required to make the thing work. I mean it DID work right out of the box with Windows 7 but some features like 3D and the ability to add video files to a playlist were disabled. But the upconversion of regular DVD’s to HD is the most impressive feature of this software. You can even split the screen to see the difference for yourself, its amazing, and works 5 times better than WinDVD. Also, its automatic. Or, if you want more control over playback you can switch to “hardware acceleration” using your video card settings but you’ll soon forget about this feature, TruTheater is just that good.

PDVD 10 is allegedly compatible with most video formats, but I haven’t found that to be the case. The only thing I can play since the upgrade are DVDs and Blu Rays, it wont play avi, divx, etc. although they claim to be compatible, I see a lot of complaints about this so I’m not the only one. It will play .VOB and MPEG2 files but crashes when you touch the controls. It also plays .MOV reliably but only from my iPhone, it wont play .MOV files you convert using Cyberlink’s PowerDirector. Typical! DVD Audio is covered with a number of options for 2/4/6/8 speakers including Dolby Surround Downmix and TruTheater Surround. Other classic features like Slow Motion, Snapshot, Zoom 4x/9x make this the most versatile player on the market.

3D I cant speak too cause I don’t have a 3D ready/HDCP compatible monitor so that feature is disabled in the player but I’m anxious to try that out. MaximumPC did an article recently on converting 2D video to 3D with a simple script change so I know its possible to convert normal DVD’s to 3D, I just haven’t seen it demonstrated. You will need a 3D monitor, compatible video card, and shutter glasses. After the latest update I can simulate this even though I don’t have a compatible system but the player will produce a pseudo “3D” image, I just don’t have any glasses so I don’t know what it looks like.

Don’t know if you’re system is compatible with 3D, no problem. Just go to Cyberlink’s website, click the Support link and download the BD Advisor, it will analyze your system and tell you exactly what you need to play 3D Blu Rays. There’s also a forum worth checking out before you plunk down your hard earned cash for this feature.

Update 12/15/10 On the subject of “patches”….. there are a number of updates on the Cyberlink website that should improve performance and fix a few minor bugs, and as usual with Cyberlink it is a confusing process, and ALL these fixes are over 100Mb files. Autohiding the control panel during playback was my biggest issue, there’s a fix for that. Most of the other patches are updates to incorporate optimization for video cards and 3D playback. After downloading all the updates, I can play AVI, MPG, MOV, VOB etc. files and create playlists without any problems.

Final thoughts: Lots of disinformation regarding this product in these reviews, take these comments on here with a grain of salt, most are hugely exaggerated if not outright laughable. One thing that is not blown out of context is the horrible customer service from Cyberlink, its nonexistent. One big plus though is the trial download and I strongly suggest you try it before you buy it, especially if you are upgrading a previous version. PDVD 10 is optimized for Windows 7, but check their website for System Requirements, I’ve posted the link in the comments section. Also check the Forums for discussion about typical problems. And if you’re concerned about Ads, they go away with the paid version.

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The nice people at Cyberlink sure have it made, you know that? They have us as a captive audience for taking care of our BluRay playback needs, and they do a pretty much bang-up job at it when you analyze this software for content, but they do NOT make it easy on the user when it comes to updating things to the current version, “Mark II” with a long post title “10.1.68.xx. xx. xx” and on and on and on. First off you have to figure out that there IS an update for the software, and that takes some figuring, trust me it does!

There is so much confusion surrounding what and how to update this software, so many versions of their Cyberlink “Power DVD” suite that you really have to have your senses about you when querying the software OR their web site proper on doing an update for this software, Hell’s Bells, for any of their software for that matter. I am no neophyte when it comes to updating software but it really is difficult to go about the update process with ANY PowerDVD update, any version, you name it, it’s confusing!

There are “OEM” versions, there are “bundled” versions, there are multiple versions of every single thing that these people make and that is just the start of it, because once you install their software it becomes impossible to figure out which version you actually have, so that is the 1st difficulty. And then/IF you have figured out what version you actually have installed there is a series of hoops that you have to jump through to get to the “Update” pages and correctly identify the version that you need to update to…THAT is what I am alluding to in my title of this “review” of PowerDVD10 Ultra, which is now called “PowerDVD 10 Ultra Mark II” with a 3D thrown in there for good measure, with a long postscript and numerical sequence that follows, depending on what you update it to, that is!

It becomes doubly difficult to navigate on their web site when you figure in that you can become a member of their “elite clubs” in various capacities, which involves checking in, signing in, and then that changes the update process that you are going to go through further…so go figure what path you should take I guess, that’s the question?! Are you beginning to get my contention in full, because I don’t want to confuse anybody about the software as it does work fantastic once you get it installed and updated to the latest version, at least in principle it does, but paleeze Cyberlink, couldn’t you make it easier to update, identify the version, and figure out which path you need to be taking when you buy a Retail Copy of the software from Amazon.com!?

I wish it was easy to do any of the above, but it’s not, unless you are a telepath, and/or have an inside line to the correct version “updater” that you should be using for PowerDVD 10 Ultra “Mark II”, but it isn’t or I wouldn’t be writing this confusing review about it, which is really meant to clarify the situation and I am probably doing a lousy job at communicating my frustration with the Cyberlink web site, updating process, and navigation there in general…because it IS miserable at best!

As to the software itself, it seems to work great! I have played “Avatar” in BluRay on my PC’s screen via my LG Super Multi-Blue HG-GW20L internal BluRay burner/reader/writer without any big difficulty, and I’ve used PowerDVD 10 Ultra “Mark II” software to navigate through the extensive menus on the DVD itself to good measure, digging out the hidden treasures there in terms of content on the BluRay disc, which is danged fantastic once you get going on it and are able to enjoy the BluRay for what it is…which is the best content available in any medium for movies, bar none. I also watched “Step into Liquid” which is a surfing BluRay adventure, and it was spectacular, so the software *does work*!

I don’t have any problem recommending this package for content and features, because it’s darned great at that, it’s just the Cyberlink web site, the updating process itself, ie the confusing nature of that process that is soooooo unnecessary that you wonder why in the world they do things the way that they do!? I haven’t tried out the “3D” feature of this software yet although I intend to do just that soon, and maybe I’ll come back here and re-do my review after that is done, who knows?

Two other things about this software that also bothers the heck out of me:

1) It’s EXPENSIVE beyond compare at about $100 a copy for the retail version with box and DVD installer

2) There is no alternative, save for Roxio’s software and we all know what a nightmare that stuff is!

I guess you could say that I’m a tolerant user of this software, and I have it because there is no other choice, that is probably accurate as all get-out when I self-analyze my purchase and use of Cyberlink’s PowerDVD 10 Ultra “Mark II” 3D. I wish they had some competition to make…

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I have PowerDVD 5, which is great. I only got PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D because 5 doesn’t work well on Windows 7 and I wanted a PowerDVD version that supports Blu-ray playback. If you download the trial version you’ll see all the interface problems this version has. Why should a $100 program have interface problems? Version 5 didn’t and never cost this much. If you buy the full version of PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D you can download the patch which fixes most of the interface problems, but not all. I agree that there’s toooooo much commercialism packed into this program. It can be very annoying. The True Theater Video gives the picture quality more detail and it plays Blu-ray but the 3D feature won’t work on regular computer monitors. The True Theater Audio gives the sound more clarity and is a very nice addition to the program, but as far as I can tell, they haven’t improved upon it enough to warrant the high price tag. I wouldn’t have bought this if I hadn’t been able to get it at a much lower price.

If you have Windows XP or Windows Vista, don’t have a Blu-ray drive, and don’t plan on upgrading to Windows 7, get PowerDVD 5. It’s way better and way cheaper and no commercialism. PowerDVD has definitely gone down the hill since version 5. I like PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D but if you’re gonna get a program this expensive, it has to be FANTASTIC, not just OK.

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