PowerDVD 17 No New Library Functionality

blackcoffee

Newbie Joined: Mar 09, 2009 13:37 Messages: 35 Offline

Solved by

Apr 18, 2017 18:34

Well, I downloaded the trial and was fairly disappointed with the lack of work done on the GUI interface. Cyberlink wants to talk about PowerDVD being the one stop application for HTPC, but do absolutely no work on what the user sees every time it opens. Suggestions from the past that were ignored:

Fix the display of TV shows. You open the library for TV shows and every season is displayed. Instead of displaying "Show Title" and then opening to Seasons, then episodes, all the seasons pop up. Even though the folder structure is layered in the traditional heirarchy. Scrolling down through every season is tedious.

Season 1 is displayed without a number and Season 0, which is usually pilots and bonus material, is combined with season 1.

Display of Movie Graphics is clunky at best. Even when a DVD or BD cover is loaded, the Movie library attempts to display a spash screen and then hangs switch the display to the cover format. Not very pretty.

Searching, indexing, and building the library takes forever. When updates are made, they don't always take in the display. Unreliable library registration.

Audio section takes forever to register and update the library and doesn't offer any of the usually filtering, playlist, or organizing functionality.

All the these problems have been known and are ignored in the change requests.

So, what do you get with the upgrade. The esoteric functionality of UHD which requires you to find the one Pioneer drive from somewhere in Japan at $300, to play a 4K disc. Some streaming improvements, and VR stuff.

Pretty disappointed, think I will skip this year's annual contribution to the Cyberlink employee fund and see if PowerDVD 18 improves the GUI. Right now there are better things I can do with my $45.00

Branais

Senior Member Joined: May 27, 2011 07:21 Messages: 202 Offline

Apr 18, 2017 23:28

For my own part, blackcoffee, thanks for the comments.

As a long-term PDVD user, of course I'm interested in each new version that arives, but I don't upgrade automatically. Returns are diminishing, as the improvements or new features each version can provide are growing thin.

UHD, of course, has been a boon in that respect, but frankly I have neither the interest nor the funds for upgrading my video format again. And after looking at the system requirements for playing UHD through PDVD 17, I realise what a major upgrade that would require, including an entirely new PC.

I did see that Cyberlink was touting the rewritten audio routines in PDVD 17, which for my own usage levels may be the only reason to upgrade. But there doesn't seem to be a lot of information on it all. Did you notice any clear differences with the audio in the new version that you could comment on?

blackcoffee

Newbie Joined: Mar 09, 2009 13:37 Messages: 35 Offline

Apr 19, 2017 05:22

Quote For my own part, blackcoffee, thanks for the comments.

As a long-term PDVD user, of course I'm interested in each new version that arives, but I don't upgrade automatically. Returns are diminishing, as the improvements or new features each version can provide are growing thin.

UHD, of course, has been a boon in that respect, but frankly I have neither the interest nor the funds for upgrading my video format again. And after looking at the system requirements for playing UHD through PDVD 17, I realise what a major upgrade that would require, including an entirely new PC.

I did see that Cyberlink was touting the rewritten audio routines in PDVD 17, which for my own usage levels may be the only reason to upgrade. But there doesn't seem to be a lot of information on it all. Did you notice any clear differences with the audio in the new version that you could comment on?

I do like the audio, but the TruTheater Sound appears to be just another equalization setting. Since my setup has this going through a Yamaha Amp, I can manage the sound through other means. I like that PowerDVD allows for adjustment of audio and video synchronization, but I also notice that sound is pretty well synchronized when played back through other apps. So this feature is to compensate for what Cyberlink is doing, not the inherent synchronization of the source files.