CyberLink's PowerDVD 9, if you haven't heard of it, let me shed some light on that rock you've been living under. It's a DVD/Blu-ray player software with tons of features. This most current version will bring you movie info as soon as you insert the disc and it brings the ease of movie watching from PC to Home theater projector as simple as a click of a mouse. The initial launcher has a list of most watched movies and a few other links to partner sites. Once installed they give you a free companion program called Moovie-Live a personal tracker of all the movies you have watched and also gives you a way to catalog all the movies you own.
The setting is what makes this version much more powerful. Aside from hardware acceleration, PowerDVD9 has "True Theater" effects, which makes a real difference when you're using the different type of displays. It even has a display mode to compare your original to the True theater effect and it is quite an improvement. A simple aspect ratio setting allows you to stretch the picture to fit the projector/LCD screen. The Audio also has a few outputs settings for the home theater enthusiast giving you stereo, Dolby surround, Dolby headphone, Vitrual speakers, True theater surround (virtual speakers/ cyberlink Headphone/ cyberlink Mutli-ch. Environment Impression Tech. 2), and Pro logic IIx. It also has an audio and video setting for every scenario. Another feature that I found interesting was the Movie Remix; it lets you take a scene from a DVD/Blu-ray and allows you to add effects such as text, music, and objects to make your own parodies and enhancements. Don't knock Movie Remix till you try it trust me its fun.
The Bang:
The UI gives you many of its functions all around making it easy to find. Across the top is theater mode for large screens with remote control use. Across the bottom is all the basic functions from play to volume plus a few Moovie-Live links and the actual movie info link. It was very easy to turn down the settings if you need to since my old laptop is a bit slow, I found it useful. I highly recommend this for everyone who wants that home theater quality and look at your pc or laptop. I am making a Home theater PC and this is going to be a staple in its software inventory.
The Slack:
The launcher unfortunately doesn't recognize my browser preference and it will open up in Internet Explorer rather than my default preference. I am not at all upset about this this.
Cyberlink has been around since 1996 and I have known of them since Power DVD 5 (2003, I think) like always PowerDVD 9 doesn't disappoint as it can handle everything you throw at it. The software is simple enough to just install and play but, it gives you extra features for a variety of advanced home theater set ups and it's compatible with many pieces of equipment from a laptop to a projector. I give Cyberlink Power DVD9 a TOV 5 out of 5 for delivering more than what I expected.