Review by mhnstr

Cyberlink PowerDVD 16 Ultra is a media player that supports not only Blu-ray playback, but also 3D Blu-ray playback as well as being capable of playing a host of different audio and video formats. While there are other players such as VLC which are more affordable (free!), there are Blu-ray discs that VLC can not play. For example, I could not play Spectre using VLC, but PowerDVD played the disc without hesitation.

SetupnCyberlink learned from the complaints about version 14 and now you are asked if you would like to associate video, music or images with PowerDVD. A choice of extension for each media type like how VLC does it would have been nice, but at least you can choose what types of files you want to associate with the program.

Upon start, the program begins scanning your computer for images, music and videos. To stop the program from snooping through your files in each of media files, you need to under settings / preferences / media library and there you can select the folders that PowerDVD will scan. To stop the scan, simply remove the folders from the library. I can understand why the authors would set the program to scan common directories without first asking, but I wish that there was a better way to stop the scanning if you didn’t want it to happen.

PC vs TVnOne of the first screens that pops up when you start the program is a screen that gives you a choice between PC mode and TV mode. Both have the same functionality, but the two modes present the menus differently. PC mode is the classic interface with lots of options and menus. The TV mode has much simpler menus to reduce screen clutter to make it easier to navigate. The interface in both cases is smooth and easy to navigate.

LibrarynThe media library is a very nice feature. The user interface looks clean and handles smoothly. There are also options to customize the interface.

The photo viewer handled different file types and perusing through images files is much smoother and faster than with the Windows Photo Viewer, for example. Having all of the video files in one place is very convenient.

There is the option to use YouTube and Vimeo files within the library as well which is a nice feature.

Media SupportnThe ultra version of PowerDVD 16 is the only one of the three versions that includes Blu-ray 3D Disc support.

CastingnA nice feature is media-casting support which allows you to stream audio and video to Apple TV, Roku, and Chromecast devices on your network. However, for this to work you must have one of these devices and it doesnt work with Blu-ray discs.

PerformancenI played mkv, m4v and avi files with both PowerDVD and the free VLC player. Both handled the different files types competently. The video enhancement features of PowerDVD were set to sharpen detail, enhance lighting and optimize color (50%) and to enhance audio (50%). I didn’t seem much of a difference when playing both players side by side on my computer (see the image that I have uploaded of the comparison).

I found the playback of Blu-ray discs to be very nice but not spectacular. However, for discs like Spectre neither the VLC player nor Blu-ray player that came with Nero 12 could decode the disc whereas PowerDVD did it with ease.

Power DVD allows you to change the enhancement features and to play side to side versions of the same image so that you can see the effect which is a very nice feature so that you can tweak the enhancements to get them just as you want them.

OverallnIs it worth investing in PowerDVD if other programs such as VLC handles videos or Windows Photo Viewer allows you to scroll through photos? The interface of PowerDVD is much slicker than the other programs and PowerDVD can handle a lot of different files types. What makes PowerDVD better is the support of Blu-ray discs, especially 3D discs and the video and audio enhancements that the program offers. Plus you don’t have to worry about tweaking the program to make it play certain discs. PowerDVD handles them all. So if you are looking for a media center to handle all of your media, then PowerDVD 16 Ultra is a very good choice.