First let me just say that the increased speed and minimized bloat in PowerDVD 13 is a revelation and finally a feature that I would gladly pay for, unfortunately there are a bunch of problems that make this version unusable for me, problems that didn't exist in the previous versions:
* Discs with 1080i/50Hz video are unwatchable. About every 3 seconds or so there are dropped/repeated frames that cause a stutter/jerk. It's consistent throughout the playback and reproducible. Another user mentioned "glitches" while watching the European Blu-ray of Caprica here, which I think might be the same problem (that version of Caprica is 1080i/50Hz.) The only cure to this is to set the "De-interlacing" setting to "None" in PowerDVD, in all other combinations the stuttering is there, however this is no solution since you will then get combing on true interlaced content.
* There is some issue with Limited (16-235)/Full (0-255) RGB levels for me. I know on some newer AMD cards there is a "Dynamic Range" video setting in the drivers that controlled this in some versions of PowerDVD, but this setting is not available for me on my HD4670 (newest drivers). The result is that seemingly random discs display with Limited RGB levels (meaning greyish blacks). For example Taken is 1080p24 AVC and displays correctly in Full RGB, but Leon which is also 1080p24 AVC displays in Limited RGB. Jesse James is 1080p24 VC1 and is Full RGB but Baraka which is also 1080p24 VC1 displays with Limited RGB. I have no idea what determines this, all I know is that on previous PowerDVD versions all discs display correctly with Full RGB for me.
* The option to use full-range speakers is now gone from the audio settings for absolutely no reason. What this means for me who's using stereo headphones through the analog out is that the LFE channel is completely stripped out from the 5.1ch->2ch downmix even though my headphones are perfectly capable of reproducing some of the sounds that are typically encoded into the LFE channel.
* The 'Z' hotkey to toggle fullscreen mode no longer works, even though it's listed in the hotkeys.
* The 'U' hotkey to cycle subtitles no longer works. To be fair it's no longer in the hotkeys section but why would you remove it? If you decide to reintroduce it though I would request that it be used to toggle the currently selected subtitles on/off since this is a much more useful function.
If these problems could just be fixed then PowerDVD 13 would be far and away the best version ever and worth paying for, but as it is, it's an improved yet ultimately broken and non-functional release.
My specs:
Windows 7 x64
Intel Q8400
AMD HD4670 (with latest 13.1 Legacy drivers)
1080p60Hz monitor connected through DVI
Realtek ALC889A audio chip (with latest drivers)