Cyberlink PowerDVD 5.0 Deluxe

If you like acronyms, you'll love PowerDVD 5.0 Deluxe. CLMEI (CyberLink Multi-Channel Environment Impression), CLPV (CyberLink Pano Vision) and CLEV (CyberLink Eagle Vision) - all of which are impressive names for some useful, but hardly earth-shattering, enhancements to the latest version of this popular DVD decoder software - are just some of the acronyms CyberLink's hyperactive marketing department has come up with. Luckily, all the strengths of previous versions have been kept or improved on, making this a must-have desktop accessory.

PowerDVD has been around a long time and we've always liked it due to its ease of use, stability and sensible level of configuration options, which make it suitable for either experts or novices. Version 5.0 continues this tradition, maintaining a skinnable main control panel that's identical to the previous version and accepting the same skin packages. All menus can be accessed either from icons on the panel or by right-clicking the mouse anywhere in the PowerDVD window.

We decided to put the new enhancements through their paces, starting with CLMEI. This is basically a multichannel surround effect for stereo source material, such as MP3s or audio CDs. It's configurable via volume sliders for front, rear, centre and LFE channels individually or you can use one of the three presets. There are also two-speaker surround effects available, Dolby Virtual Speakers, SRS TruSurroundXT and Dolby Headphone.

These work well, although modern sound cards often offer similar effects in their drivers, so you'll need to experiment to see which you prefer.

If you own a 24-bit/96Hz sound card, PowerDVD supports LPCM output in this format.

The next tool, CLPV, is a non-linear video stretching technology that Cyberlink claims gives minimal distortion in the centre of the screen.

It's a way of maximising video window size if you're watching widescreen 16:9 material on a 4:3 display. The SmartStretch setting crops a bit off the edges and gives the least distortion, whereas Linear Stretch doesn't crop, but gives more distortion. It's not perfect, but is a good attempt.

CLEV is probably the most notable new technology. It's a smart way of dynamically optimising the colour and contrast of a video display to counteract the gloominess found in many DVD titles. There's a split mode so you can compare the effects on one-half of the screen. We found it to be a great enhancement, although it needed adjustments to the saturation control to make colours look more natural and you can't use this feature if you enable hardware MPEG-2 acceleration.

The Time Stretch feature offers the ability to play movies at half or double speed without affecting the pitch of the audio. Cyberlink suggests this could be useful for language learning, but other uses don't readily spring to mind.

With support for Dolby Digital, DTS multichannel sound in up to 7.1 channels, plus practically any multimedia format, there's little lacking in PowerDVD 5. It's a product that gets a definite thumbs-up from PC Magazine.

Contact: Cyberlink
www.gocyberlink.com

System Requirements:

• OS: Windows ME/98SE/2000/XP.
• CPU: Pentium II 400MHz.
• Memory: 128MB.
• Hard Disk Space: 40MB.
• Graphics: Support for DirectDraw overlay.

Like this story? Spread the news by clicking below:

 del.icio.us     Digg this     reddit!