CyberLink PowerDVD

What is new in this release:

Version 20:

• Multi-screen media library on phone or PC/Mac browser
• Cross-screen continue to watch movie/TV
• Cinema Quality Audio Playback (More Formats)

What is new in version 17:

• TV Mode -- Bring the Movies Home
• Media Casting to Big Screen
• Cinema Quality Audio Playback (More Formats)

What is new in version 16:

• TV Mode -- Bring the Movies Home
• Better-Than-Original Quality
• Media Casting to Big Screen
• Cinema Quality Audio Playback

What is new in version 15:

• TrueTheater Color --intelligently analyzes video footage and optimizes hues and vibrancy, creating a true-to-life viewing experience. TrueTheater Color recognizes skin tones in footage and applies only subtle adjustments to these areas in order to achieve improvements while retaining authentic coloring.
• TrueTheater Sound --applies smart enhancements to four key areas simultaneously in order to create a richer, fuller audio environment:
• Bass boosting for effective recreation of that "cinema sound"
• Vocal range amplification, making speech crisper and more audible
• Reverb engagement to create a virtual surround sound effect
• Volume amplification to boost audio performance in environments with high levels of ambient noise such as aircrafts, trains, cars, offices, etc.

• Bit-Perfect High Definition Audio Output: Typically found only in very high-end audio applications, Windows Audio Session API (WASAPI) manages the flow of lossless audio data (ALAC and FLAC, for example) between software and speakers. PowerDVD is the only movie and media player to support WASAPI. PowerDVD can utilize an "exclusive mode," meaning that the software assumes exclusive use of the speakers to deliver a movie's soundtrack. That means PowerDVD is able to block non-critical system sounds, and eliminate instants of audio interruptions that can degrade the movie experience.
• A True Lossless Experience: Being able to assign the speakers exclusively to the audio playback of selected media also allows PowerDVD to provide optimum sampling rates for audio. PowerDVD configures the audio device to match the source format (bits per sample and sampling rate) so to avoid any quality degradation. The final result is true lossless audio, and perfect sound output.
• Broadest range of Format Support: PowerDVD 15 now offers convenient direct playback of Blu-ray and DVD ISO files, either directly from the PC or via a network-connected drive. No additional mounting tools are required.
• Smooth Playback of High Frame Rate Video: High speed video recording is no longer just for professionals. The new iPhone 6 can record video footage at 120 or even 240 frames per second (fps). But few media players offer quality playback for high speed video. PowerDVD 15 introduces an intelligent playback algorithm designed specifically for this purpose. PowerDVD will analyze the refresh rate of the monitor the footage is to be played on, then intelligently decode and render only those portions of the source clip that can be handled by the monitor. For example, if the source clip is filmed at 240 fps, but the playback display has only 60 fps refresh rate, PowerDVD will decode selected frames to match the refresh rate of the monitor. This results in smooth playback with zero stutter.
• Enhanced 4K Playback: Overlay rendering in PowerDVD offers a method of rendering video images to a monitor using a dedicated memory buffer inside hardware. This frees PowerDVD from constant memory clipping and checking that negatively impact playback performance. When PowerDVD detects a 4K video file and a 4K monitor, Overlay Mode is automatically engaged to optimize the rendering pipeline and reduce the graphic resource load, delivering smooth, lag-free playback.
• Battery Life Optimization: Device and laptop battery life is becoming an increasingly important factor for many movie lovers. Both PowerDVD and its mobile companion app, Power Media Player, have been designed from the ground up to extend useful battery life well beyond what other players can offer.
• Faster Startup: CyberLink has spent extensive resources in the advancement of the company's Instant Play technology, aimed at making PowerDVD the quickest-loading player in the world. Instant Play is the name given to a set of start-up refinements based on data gleaned from PowerDVD's Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP). Usage data from participants is analyzed to determine which features and settings are most popular and which are less used. Features that are non-essential to users can be bypassed at startup to reduce loading times. Instant Play also integrates BD-Live bypass technology to remove Blu-ray previews when not needed, as well as express loading for specific start-up pathways, e.g. launching a video by double-clicking the file in Windows Explorer.

What is new in version 14.0:

• Adds support for the brand new High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC/H.265) format.
• Adds support for multi-angle video in MKV files.
• Comes with 10GB of free cloud storage for the 1st year.
• Integrates UltraViolet service.
• Adds support for embedded SRT subtitles in MP4 video files.
• Allows to choose from 5 different backgrounds for PowerDVD to change the player's look and feel.

Limitations:

30-day trial