A Real User Review of PDVD16

nullack

Member Joined: Dec 29, 2010 04:09 Messages: 139 Offline

Solved by

Apr 16, 2016 23:36

Unlike the great majority of reviews that have conflicts of interest, here is my honest user review of PDVD16:

Missing Features Found In Other Players Including Free Open Source Players

No 10 bit HEVC main10 GPU full hardware decoding support

No WEBM playback support

Subsequently I dont know if VP9 full hardware decoding is supported

Some types of TS videos wont playback. M2TS content does work however

I do not have the equipment to test high resolution colour, outside of 709 into BT2020 and the like

I'm not counting UHD BD support as a missing feature cos it was never meant for this version. VP9, WebM, 10 bit should be in this version though as it is in every decent open source software player, its in FFMPEG and basically everywhere.

This is all 32 bit when the world is 64 bit. Performance suffers as a result.

Bugs

When viewing music in the library, some of my music repeats pictures that are not associated to the song. Like I keep seeing a Bee Gees picture for songs that are not the Bee Gees at all.

Subtitles in non-disc based videos continue to be badly bugged. When running a 4K UHD screen, windows defaults to a font scaling of 300% to accomodate the high DPI display. The subtitles in videos of say MP4 or MKV (not disc) become way too large and basically wreck the video playback because it is so large. When a user tries to adjust the subtitle font size in the settings, this setting actually has no effect in playback. Nothing changes in playback regardless of the size the user puts for the font in the Cyberlink subtitle setting.2A) I reported this in the Cyberlink 15 beta, it was ignored. Raised a support ticket, no result.2B) I reported this in the Cyberlink production release, it was ignored. Raised a support ticket, no result.2C) Now in the next version, this bug continues to not be resolved HOW TO FIX THIS: You must disable the UHD performance mode. This mode turns off all the subtitle processing and allocated an arbitary default font size that does not work on UHD 4K screens with high DPI and font scaling. I discovered this myself, Cyberlink support has been useless with this. Now the problem seems to be I am always falling back to software and I cant get hardware decoding working, so I need to fiddle around with it more.

Deinterlacing does not work properly. I have submitted to Cyberlink, two simple test files, one if top field first and the second in bottom field first interlacing. This was way back in Powerdvd 10, were talking years and years ago. Despite ongoing feedback about this bug and the implications it has, the "world best media player" continues to be unable to do things which the most basic free open source media players do. In PowerDVD 16, deinterlacing continues to be broken.

When a video file is played back that has no audio track, the player will in error say unsupported audio when in fact there is no audio.

The upgrade process is bugged. PowerDVD 15 remains an "...open with" right mouse click option for media files, even though in the upgrade.

The Good Of Version 16

Its faster and the new audio support is welcome

Gone is the horrid clhelper sys object that failed the Microsoft tests for Windows platform readiness and failed the Windows Hardware Quality Labs requirements. That device driver has been removed and the world is a happier place without it. Cyberlink were slient about this on their forums but it's good to see they actually fixed something for once.

3D playback is now more reliable on Windows 10. Cyberlink were quick to blame Nvidia or Microsoft, without detailing how they were partnering with them to actually work on fixing it, so it worked. It now works, but then again I am on the fast ring for the windows insider OS previews so I dont know if the current production version of Windows 10 is OK or not.

The smart theatre enhancements for video in particular are most excellent, both from an image quality and performance perspective.

Conclusion

Cyberlink are the last commercial supplier of real software for home theatre duties, the other commercial ones are missing even more features than PowerDVD and arent suitable for home theatre. None of the open source players work correctly as they are missing the blu ray menu support and the commercial ones with a full feature set have ceased trading. This is a better version than 15, but it has bugs and features which are missing; of which most of those features are present in free to use open source software players. Cyberlink need to vastly improve their beta testing process and community engagement on fixing bugs. Cyberlink have a support process that is painful and actually getting Cyberlink to fix bugs is hit and miss. It is my sincere hope that Cyberlink get serious about fixing bugs and truly achieving the worlds best media player, without pretending like they currently do. The worlds best media player needs to be more reliable, with more useful features, than open source competitors. PowerDVD16 is neither more reliable or more feature full than FFMPEG, say with LAV filters and MPC-BE.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at Apr 16. 2016 23:43

zmarty

Newbie Joined: Sep 16, 2015 01:01 Messages: 8 Offline

Apr 17, 2016 00:59

"I'm not counting UHD BD support as a missing feature cos it was never meant for this version."

Why not? When did they announce that?

nullack

Member Joined: Dec 29, 2010 04:09 Messages: 139 Offline

Apr 17, 2016 22:30

It slipped out awhile back on the PowerDVD 15 forum

I can understand why. 10 bit display even in full screen on windows 10 is cutting edge. That takes a fairly significant investment of people and time. Then, you need to add new decoders and demuxers.

Even after youve done that, the system requirements for real time playback of HEVC Main 10 60 FPS would mean greater than 80% of the people buying it cant use it. The only way to do real time HEVC MAIN 10 60 FPS display is on something with a full hardware HEVC decoding engine like a Nvidia GTX 960 or 950. Everything else *wont work* you cannot do this via CPU software.

The spec allows for 127 MBPS in HEVC MAIN 10, think on that

ALso, thats not even getting into all the coding required to keep the UHD bluray license OK and actually be approved to license it in software. Thats a major bit of work

zmarty

Newbie Joined: Sep 16, 2015 01:01 Messages: 8 Offline

Apr 17, 2016 23:27

Interesting, and HEVC hardware encoding is somehow a major new feature in PowerDirector 15, although as you mentioned almost no cards support it.

sjeter

Newbie Joined: Sep 04, 2006 12:39 Messages: 14 Offline

Apr 19, 2016 01:14

Disregard this comment.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Apr 19. 2016 01:24

sjeter

Newbie Joined: Sep 04, 2006 12:39 Messages: 14 Offline

Apr 19, 2016 01:21

"PowerDVD 15 remains an "...open with" right mouse click option for media files, even though in the upgrade."

I ran into this between 14 and 15. I ended up just uninstalling 14. So for 16, I uninstalled 15 to begin with, and the install for 16 just asked me for the code for 15.

nullack

Member Joined: Dec 29, 2010 04:09 Messages: 139 Offline

Apr 19, 2016 03:54

Quote: Interesting, and HEVC hardware encoding is somehow a major new feature in PowerDirector 15, although as you mentioned almost no cards support it.

In PowerDVD 15, we got main profile HEVC hardware acceleration support.

Both PowerDVD 15 and 16, do not support main 10 profile HEVC which is basically the 10 bit high defintion colour standard that will be common in UHD bluray 4K discs up to 127 MBPS

There is not much content in say BT2020 colour formats outside of UHD bluray. It will become common I imagine with digital TV but so far I'm not aware of it being routine apart from special test broadcasts of say sporting events in high defintion 10 bit colour.

mike.T

Member Joined: May 17, 2012 05:05 Messages: 67 Offline

Apr 26, 2016 22:40

Hi it's kinda interesting and decent reviews.

For bug#1, do you mind zip the folder including the songs that are having problem and share here?

For bug#2, you may try turn off "high performance mode" in [Settings] > [Video, Audio, Subtitles] > [More Video Settings] > [Miscellaneous] and see if it looks better

For bug#5, what happened if you select a file and "open with PowerDVD 15"?

Ron1n11

Newbie Joined: Apr 27, 2016 22:20 Messages: 2 Offline

Apr 27, 2016 22:33

Thanks for the info.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Apr 27. 2016 22:37

nullack

Member Joined: Dec 29, 2010 04:09 Messages: 139 Offline

Apr 27, 2016 22:39

On bug two, if you read my post you will see that I came to realise the work around is to disable the UHD performance mode. However it is only a work around as I do not seem to be able to get hardware acceleration happening with this off while running a 4K 60 Hz desktop resolution 3840 x 2160. It is not desirable as hardware acceleration is needed for complex video codes with say high FPS, eg 60 FPS, and high bit rates. Software just cant keep up with those sorts of videos and you must use GPU decoding for it to work not software. The real solution that is needed here, is for the hardware acceleration to still work while having readable subtitles in 4K resolutions at high DPI rates. The current solution does not accommodate the gamut of DPI differences properly on 4K displays.

On bug five, there is no longer PDVD15 as it was uninstalled as part of the PDVD16 upgrade. What is left, is cruft, unwanted artefacts that did not install correctly. Windows 10 knows that PDVD15 is no longer installed so when a user tries to click on the open with PDVD15 command verb right mouse click option, Windows 10 goes into the select which application to run this file process because PDVD15 is no longer installed.

On bug 1 Ill see about posting data on that

Cheers

stewart_pk

Member Joined: Jan 10, 2014 06:36 Messages: 130 Offline

Apr 27, 2016 23:12

Quote: On bug five, there is no longer PDVD15 as it was uninstalled as part of the PDVD16 upgrade. What is left, is cruft, unwanted artefacts that did not install correctly. Windows 10 knows that PDVD15 is no longer installed so when a user tries to click on the open with PDVD15 command verb right mouse click option, Windows 10 goes into the select which application to run this file process because PDVD15 is no longer installed.

Yep I had to painfully remove all over those PowerDVD 15 registry entries.

juu-zo

Newbie Joined: Apr 28, 2016 05:16 Messages: 6 Offline

Apr 28, 2016 05:22

I just received my first 4k uhd bluray disk. I tried that with powerdvd 16 trial and obviously, as expected, it didn't work. I think it's strange that cyberlink didn't provide any support for 4k bluray beacuse computer hardware is totally compatible with 4k bluray. My computer hardware is Pentium G3528 processor, GTX950 GPU, Gigabyte B85 mobo and the most important LG BH16NS55 bluray drive (formerly BH16NS40). The drive can read the disk and I can see the whole file structure and the files, but powerdvd only says that files are corrupted. I hope that we can see update to powerdvd that it will support 4k blurays.

mike.T

Member Joined: May 17, 2012 05:05 Messages: 67 Offline

May 04, 2016 09:59

Quote: On bug two, if you read my post you will see that I came to realise the work around is to disable the UHD performance mode. However it is only a work around as I do not seem to be able to get hardware acceleration happening with this off while running a 4K 60 Hz desktop resolution 3840 x 2160. It is not desirable as hardware acceleration is needed for complex video codes with say high FPS, eg 60 FPS, and high bit rates. Software just cant keep up with those sorts of videos and you must use GPU decoding for it to work not software. The real solution that is needed here, is for the hardware acceleration to still work while having readable subtitles in 4K resolutions at high DPI rates. The current solution does not accommodate the gamut of DPI differences properly on 4K displays.

Cheers

Hi,

Thank you for further info, the "High Performance mode" actually is to enable the "Overlay" rendering mode. The decoding is still accelerated by the GPU. It's indeed a temporary workaround, back for the days that there was just NVidia 7600, Overlay was used for BD titles as at that period of time most GPU are not capable of BD H.264 @ 40Mbps.