Our Verdict
CyberLink ’s PowerDVD 10 Ultra ( $ 100 , as of April 28 , 2010 ) , the most powerful and stable videodisk and Blu - ray movie actor available , offers an array of new feature film in the new version . The biggest cost increase , however , come from 3D support .
The most immediately noticeable change fromPowerDVD 9involves the new version ’s interface . Across the top of the participant , just under the menu you ’ll now find three tabs : Movies , Video , and Music . The Movies section covers DVD and Blu - ray disk ; Video keeps track of video recording file on your concentrated drives ; and euphony lists MP3 files and the like . The medicine and TV sections panes seem as file web internet browser . For some reason , video file act over the file internet browser , mean that you ca n’t range file while a video is playing . Another issue throughout is the drug user ’s inability to adjust the breadth of the column in the otherwise attractive file browsers . And finally , the program is deadening to enumerate files when you graze a media - fill folder .
In recent years CyberLink has produce a telephone number of nice - looking but bare interfaces ( as in its PowerDirector app ) , and PowerDVD 10 keep the course . Still , the issue I ’ve noted do n’t negate the PowerDVD 10 ’s advances in overall serviceability , thanks the app ’s improved user interface design for work flow and for access to options .
In view of the syllabus ’s broad file support , CyberLink now touts PowerDVD as a universal player . The company has bestow support for genuine Media ( I used the Real Alternative codec , which worked fine ) , as well as .mkv , .flv , .3gp , and .3g2 files . unluckily , it had trouble play some of the media I threw at it . For example , while the progress bar designate that my test .flv file was playing , I saw no TV ; and another .flv file crash the player , too . In this regard I should note that .flv is a wrapper that may moderate any various video CODECs ; my files were encoded with Sorenson Spark h.263 . CyberLink subsequently inform me that PowerDVD 10 support only h.264 , not VP6 or h.263 , but that limit does n’t excuse the crash . The participant also failed to recognise my Ogg Theora file , even with a DirectShow filter installed .
Aside from the .flv bug , playback was first-class . I ca n’t imagine a skillful picture from a software or hardware player . Behind the scenes – or via controls that you could adjust – PowerDVD offers a horde of image sweetening tools : TrueTheater HD , which upscales 480p picture to 1080p with modest success ; TrueTheater Motion , which increases form rates to smoothen HD pans ; and TrueTheater Lighting , which compensates for excessively benighted scenes . Modern in this version is TrueTheater Image Stabilizer , which mimics the trope stabilisation that many DV television camera use to compensate for shaky hands or program . In my tests , this feature make for passably well . you’re able to now practice all of the TrueTheater effects with more metier case , as well as with nVidia CUDA and ATI Stream ironware quickening .
The most interesting new feature is its ability to upscale 2D to 3D. The results were fair to middling , though former three-D - encoded message does come out sharper . A detached acclivity ( not yet usable ) will fully support the3D Blu - ray title coming this summer .
The summation of three-D makes PowerDVD Ultra 10 a worthy raise , and other enhancements polish up out the app nicely . Do n’t expect to see a dramatic improvement in performance , however , unless you postulate accompaniment for the new metier format or the image stabilisation engineering for your camcorder picture file cabinet .
