You wouldn’t be far off in thinking of PowerDVD as Windows Media Player on steroids.

One of PowerDVD’s greatest strengths is its ability to play or display just about any common video, music, and image files, as well as many of the more esoteric ones (such as APE audio). If $100 is too rich for your budget, you can sign up for a subscription plan that costs $15 every three months or $45 every year. The only other major title that I’m aware of is Corel’s WinDVD 11 (also available as a download from Amazon, for $60). PowerDVD is one of the only Windows programs that can play Blu-ray discs, including 3D Blu-ray. Those are all great improvements, but why would you need something like PowerDVD when there are plenty of free players out there, such as Windows Media Player/Movies & TV, Media Player Classic – Home Cinema, VLC, and others? Two words: Blu-ray and quality. You can switch back to the regular interface at any time. PowerDVD’s new 10-foot interface (for use with a remote from that distance), is clean and intuitive. On the audio side of the coin, the news is support for high-resolution DSD (Direct Stream Digital) audio files. The big news this time around is media-casting support, so you can stream audio and video to Apple TV, Roku, and Chromecast devices on your network.

The time when Cyberlink releases the latest version of its venerable and powerful software video/multimedia player, PowerDVD ($100 MSRP, available as a download or physical disc at Amazon).

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