CyberLink PowerDVD 7.3 Ultra

The pricey Ultra version of this venerable player adds support for HD DVD, BD (Blu-ray Disc), VC-1, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, and DTSHD, among other things. However, my enthusiasm is tempered by limitations in the very hardware that would compel you to buy PowerDVD Ultra in the first place.

CyberLink provides technologies to sharpen video, enhance audio, fit a movie into a mobile device’s remaining battery time, and even to make subtitles movable. However, many of these features don’t work with BD. PowerDVD’s interface isn’t as easy to use and intuitive as WinDVD 8’s, but it’s skinnable. The app did play some BDAV home video WinDVD wouldn’t, although both apps can be updated. I tested BD playback with a Sony BWU-100A.

On a Windows XP Pro system with an Athlon X2 4800+, 2GB, a GeForce 8800 GTS, and a standard (not widescreen) 19-inch analog VGA 1,600 x 1,200 CRT PowerDVD played DVDs and SVCDs just fine. However, it couldn’t scale BD movies to the screen, instead showing only the upper-left quadrant of the films.

On a Vista system with an FX-55, 1GB, and an analog VGA 1,280 x 1,024 LCD, a Radeon X850 XT wouldn’t display any BD video at all. Then again, neither this card nor the FX-55 meet PowerDVD 7’s system requirements (!). An 8800 GTS card showed BD movies without cropping, albeit at 720p. This system tuttered during the VC-1 “Corpse Bride,” and froze often during the MPEG-4 “X3: The Last Stand.”

Finally, I tried a WinXP, dual FX-74, 4GB, 8800 GTX SLI system with a Dell 3007WFP 30-inch monitor. This 2,560 x 1,600 widescreen has dual-link DVI but supports only 1,280 x 800 over a singlelink connection. Frustratingly, playback was limited to 720p because the 8800 only provides HDCP over single-link DVI. A monitor that supports single-link 1,920 x 1080 should work, though.

HD on most PCs still sucks, but it’s not PowerDVD’s fault.