Review by Matt Morgan

I have been using PowerDVD 12 for the better part of a year and I have been satisfied with it. Version 13 brings improvements and enhancements to the table and is a very capable full-featured media player, but it is expensive.

I will start with this - PowerDVD is more than a DVD and BluRay player. It also plays other types of media files such as .mpg and .avi files as well as audio files too. So, it’s important to note that PowerDVD is a full media player, not just an application dedicated to movie discs.

Installation was smooth as glass on my system (Windows 7 64-bit). With a minimum of interaction the application installed completely and without fanfare, after which it was all set and ready to go. I was a little disappointed to see that there was no ability to run it in trial mode before activation - I like to test software before I activate it (even if I have a full license) as sometimes after it is activated it is not possible to move it to another system. I was unable to find a trial version on Cyberlink’s website, either, and I think this is unfortunate.

As a DVD player, PowerDVD is very capable and plays very smoothly. It provides the standard set of functionality - raise the menus, FFwd, Rew, etc. It stands out to me in one very specific way - if a DVD is being played and is stopped and removed, PowerDVD remembers the position on the DVD and asks if the user prefers to resume instead of starting from the beginning when the DVD is reinserted. This is very convenient, especially when viewing seasons of shows on DVD. PowerDVD is able to keep track of position data on several DVDs at one time, too.

I confess to not having tried its ability to play BluRay media as the one BluRay-capable system I have does not cooperate anymore.

PowerDVD plays video files without a lot of fuss. So far I have not had any trouble with stutter or skip, a big problem I have seen with the Windows built-in media player, particularly on larger media files.

As a music media player, PowerDVD is on par with the standard Windows media player. It does have an equalizer but it is not a band equalizer; rather, it allows one to pick preset configurations. It also has a surround-sound configurator for tweaking the reverb/echo which gives sound a little more depth.

There is an integrated music store too, and this has given me some aggravation. The service, 7digital, is a decent service with a solid collection of offerings, but it consistently points to the UK site instead of the US site and as a result I have trouble trying to buy tracks - particularly when the UK store sells something that the US store does not. I would rather have PowerDVD just point me to the correct site to start with which would cut out a lot of confusion. I have not yet figured out how to change the configuration to point to the US store.

PowerDVD is able to stream video from online too. It has very good YouTube integration and I have seen no trouble at all (well, no worse than when I use a browser) when using it to interact with YouTube. I have found that when searching for video content online it insists in loading and showing thumbnails of the videos and the loading of these thumbnails takes a little time if there is a large number of returns in the search results.

Included in the box is a set of instructions for downloading companion mobile apps. For those with an Android or iPhone, this is great. For those of us that have something else (like a Windows phone or a Blackberry) then these applications are not useful at all and cannot be run. If the mobile apps are important to you and you don’t have a supported phone OS, you will be disappointed.

PowerDVD is a bit expensive: $100 full retail and still in the $80 range here on Amazon. That’s a fairly steep price for a media player when the built-in Windows Media Player can handle some of what PowerDVD can handle (though not as well in many cases, and certainly not as much functionality). Whether this price is reasonable is a matter of opinion. Personally, I think it’s a little high and that $60 is more reasonable.

PowerDVD is a very nice and very capable media player that does a great job of being a one-stop source for all media playing needs. In my experience it has been very fast and stable, it has a LOT of power and functionality and it is a better media player than the built-in media player that comes with Windows. It is expensive, though, and the price may be a sore spot for some. It is unfortunate that there is no trial mode, either, which would allow users to decide if it meets their needs before shelling out some cash.