All in all, it was not great user experience. Eventually, after more than 24 hours, the pop-up box disappeared, and the playback started. On the Bean Canyon NUC, I let the system idle with the program active. After 6 hours, I gave up attempting to use the software on the Beebox. On both machines, attempting the playback of a UHD Blu-ray triggered the 'Initiating components for Ultra HD Blu-ray' pop-up box and the progress bar ended up getting stuck close to completion (similar to the issue reported here for an older version. We also installed the software on the Bean Canyon NUC. The company offered us an early look at PowerDVD 19, and we took it out for a spin on a couple of different systems - on the Kaby Lake Beebox which plays UHD Blu-rays perfectly with PowerDVD 17, the newer version forced us to update our drivers. Usage ImpressionsĬyberLink's PowerDVD and UltraHD Blu-ray Advisor Tool are used in every HTPC review published on AnandTech, as physical disk playback evaluation continues to be an oft-requested point in our reader feedback. The exact differences in the features are brought out in the slides reproduced at the end of this piece. The fourth flavor is the Live version, which is a subscription-based offering at $15 per quarter (or $45 per year). Similar to the previous PowerDVD versions, CyberLink plans to offer four different flavors of PowerDVD 19 in the market - the Ultra, Pro, and Standard versions are perpetual licenses at a one-time cost of $100, $80, and $60 respectively. PowerDVD 19 also brings improvements to the VR HMD playback feature, with the 360° video support getting complemented with new support for 360° spatial audio. While PowerDVD 18 focused on TrueTheater effects mainly for HD videos, PowerDVD 19 brings 4K support for post-processing features related to color correction, contrast enhancement, and HDR. While 8K playback is looking more into the future, CyberLink's advancements in TrueTheater (their video and audio postprocessing features set) can be seen by consumers right away. PowerDVD 19 also makes improvement in the YouTube interface, allowing for the selection of the video quality before making a title available for watching offline. The new version also brings support for the HEIC/HEIF image format, and can play back HDR videos without taking over exclusive control of the desktop's HDR configuration.
The improvements in PowerDVD 19 include the ability to play 8K videos, video postprocessing enabled for higher-resolution videos compared to PowerDVD 18, and the transition to a 64-bit playback engine.
It continues CyberLink's tradition of incremental improvements to the playback software. Over the last few years, the company has been trying to add value to the software with extra features such as support for VR HMDs and 360° videos. CyberLink's PowerDVD remains the only legitimate Blu-ray playback software in the PC space.
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