DVD Player PowerDVD by CyberLink has already become popular all over the world for his reliable and convenient work. But the developer does not stop improving more and more its product. In this review main features of the latest version of PowerDVD, as well as differences with previous versions will be considered.

Well, let's discuss what we have in PowerDVD 6. To begin with, PowerDVD became even easier to use thanks to reduced number of controls in the player window:

In the center of the player window standard for PowerDVD wheel with buttons to control play mode (Play, Stop, etc.) is located. As in previous versions, play rate and direction can be changed with mouse wheel.

To change an audio stream to the next available in a DVD movie now you only need to click a Next Audio Stream button. It is much easier than looking for Audio Streams submenu in PowerDVD contextual menu.

Beside, there are the following buttons near the Next Audio Stream button: Next Subtitle, Capture Frame, Full Screen, Configuration, and Menu. Navigation Slider and Volume Adjustment slider now are more compact and are situated at the top of the PowerDVD player window.

More rarely used controls are placed on two additional panels on each side of the window and are displayed when clicking corresponding buttons by sides of the window. The right panel contains buttons for managing bookmarks, ejecting disk, and some others. The left panel is used to set audio and video settings. Audio settings include Audio output mode (Stereo, Dolby Surround Compatible Downmix, Dolby Virtual Speaker) and Equalizer Presets (a list of 14 presets). Video mode is set in Video enhancement mode list (Vivid, Original, Bright, Theater, etc.).




As usual for PowerDVD, all the settings and controls also can be found in the program contextual menu. This menu can be called by clicking the right mouse button on the PowerDVD window where a movie is played.

All I have told you about interface of the player relates to default PowerDVD skin Glamor. But in Configuration window you may also choose other available skins, such as Crystal or Oscar:

Additionally to DVD movies, PowerDVD plays other media files, including MPEG audio/video, graphics, audio CDs, windows media files. Thus, PowerDVD would successfully replace your MS Windows Media Player. There are even Audio visualizations implemented in the version 6, although, to tell the truth, they are very simple yet compared to MS Windows Media Player or especially Winamp. Considering also a little bit inconvenient way of choosing playlist of media files in PowerDVD and lack of a manual equalizer, so far Winamp will remain my audio player.

I would like also tell some words about an installation process of PowerDVD. First, to install PowerDVD 6 DirectX 9.0b or higher is necessary. If your DirectX is older, during the installation you will get a message advising you to upgrade DirectX. The latest DirectX can be installed from the Microsoft Co. website following the link on the PowerDVD page of the CyberLink website. New enough DirectX comes also with Service Pack 2 for Windows XP.

While installing, the program informs that PowerDVD will become the default media player for all media files, including mp3, and there is no option to not doing it. Although somebody would think it is quite convenient to play all media files with PowerDVD, for me, as I mentioned above, Winamp is more preferable as an audio player. And for such cases it could have been better if program asked what it should do.

As a whole, PowerDVD remains a good and reliable product that is surely worth its price. Having compared versions 5 and 6 of PowerDVD, I see that the developer continues improving its product implementing new features. I think, it is this fact that helps PowerDVD to remain successfully in the lead among DVD players. And if you are looking for a DVD player, PowerDVD should be the first one to try.

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