The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected - Swedish proverb
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PowerDVD 10 will support 3D
SOFTWARE MAKER Cyberlink has released the latest installment in its PowerDVD series sporting support for more file formats, psuedo-3D conversion and Blu-ray 3D.
PowerDVD 10 has out-of-the-box support for the Matroska container format, which in the past few years has emerged as the format of choice for dodgy video release groups. The files, with the suffix .mkv, are a method of packaging videos in formats such as MPEG with relevant data such as audio tracks and subtitles. Previously, the easiest way to play Matroska files was to use free players such as VLC or Media Player Classic.
With the aid of various codecs, those players could even do hardware acceleration for Blu-ray titles, but setup was fiddly. PowerDVD aims to make it seamless, albeit for a cost. The firm aims to release three versions with pricing starting at £40 but expect to pay double that if you want all the features. Only the £50 and £80 versions will have two of the other headline features, eventually.
Should you fork out £50 you'll be able to - once the "Mark II" version comes out - convert 2D content to 3D. In a trial run when paired with Nvidia's 3D Vision stereoscopic glasses we found this to be a hit and miss affair. Various settings had to be configured and then tweaked, but even then only some of the audience were able to see any 3D effects.
If you're feeling flush, spending £80 will get you all that plus the ability to play Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D titles. The firm has yet to announce when the second edition supporting these features will come out, but it mentioned that they will be free to those who purchase PowerDVD 10 and that they'll be out before Blu-ray 3D titles are available.
Cyberlink's problem is that PowerDVD is up against very capable free alternatives and at £80 for the "Ultra 3D" version, it's hard to see how many will want to hand over the best part of the price of a standalone Blu-ray player for some software that at present offers little more than VLC or Media Player Classic. µ
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Better, stronger and faster. If I was going to use Cyperpink, then it would have to be v5 OEM which is available online for $1.50
Also Divx 7 and CoreAVC packages.
They both enable you to play .mkv with very low CPU utilization in your favourite video player.
Using PowerDVD is justified only if you get it from a bundle with your video card for free...
Media Player Classic - HomeCinema 64bit is what I love the most. Plays everything under the sun, DXVA accelerated for your MKVs and supporting media, and custom shader support which can make even 100 year old clips look fresh. I would never waste money on this.
That's great. You're just the kind of guy they're looking for.
Personally, I use VLC, Videolan's excellent free media player. It also includes video hardware acceleration if you have compatible equipment. I don't, but still have ultra-smooth playing videos. VLC also lets you tweak it relentlessly with a wide variety of settings to optimize video and even audio just for your system or for your personal preferences. KMPlayer is another excellent choice.
My advice is to look around before you give more money to the Cyberlink pirates. I suffered from their DRM infested crap once, and never again.
Absolutely not I love PowerDVD 9 as it is one of the only media players out there that supports hardware acceleration for H.264 media. Right now if you rename a .MKV file over to .mp4 it will play it and use the video card acceleration (Radeon for me!). I for one will shell out for their latest version that plays MKV files natively... not that I have many of them......
PowerDVD 10 includes 3D video support and 2D to 3D conversion in the first release.
how to be candid without being censored...OK...let's try it this way...
...They friggin' suck!!! I despise products and companies like this that try to gouge you for limited functionality proprietary media players. Why anyone would pay these pirates for a friggin' media player is beyond me. It reminds me of sTeve "tHe sOn oF sAtan" jObs tActics and Adobe's Flash...utter and complete crap.