The PowerDVD media player is one of the industry standard DVD/ Blu-ray/ music and photo players and version 12 is no slouch. This $100 (as of March 8, 2012) software is powerful and easy to use and makes movies look great and audio sound amazing. It's also quite tweakable and it supports a wide range of file formats and even 3D video. It also integrates with MoovieLive an online movie news database and social media services such as Facebook and YouTube. It can act as a DLNA server and client and it supports Intel WiDi for wireless streaming to TVs. It can also sync with Android devices and play back media stored on them.
It's a very full and rich program with lots of options for the more advanced user and it has an excellent help file that covers a wide range of topics. The help is clearly written making it easy to understand for novice and expert users alike. The developers are constantly updating the software so there is always something new to try out. There is a community forum and Cyberlink offers first class customer support to its users.
The most significant addition to this version is the inclusion of 3D support for both blu-ray and video files. It's not a true native 3D format but it does add some depth to movies without the need for special glasses. The speed of locating scenes within movies is also improved thanks to the new preview optimization feature. The only downside is that enabling the 3D features increased CPU usage on our review rig by over 40%.