Cyberlink PowerDVD 8 & Media Show 4

First Thoughts

Cyberlink continues to make some impressive software but there are still a few areas that we feel it's missing the mark:

PowerDVD 8

If you're a film-nut and want to spill your beans on a dedicated website then PowerDVD 8 has got to be the way to go, and this is even truer if you're into your High-Definition content. However the prime place for this is a Home Theatre PC, but since it's a stand-alone piece of software and not easily able to integrate into a current portal like MythTV or Windows MCE, Cyberlink is seriously missing a trick, still.

In addition, while the mashups and MoovieLive services are an ingenious market niche, I'm not going to sit on my sofa in front of my TV and start using the software extensions and website through a TV. At the same time, I'd prefer not to spend a few hours sitting in a computer chair, watching a movie on a monitor, but I know a lot of people do.

If Cyberlink was to sell a PowerDVD 8 plugin with HD support that bolts onto popular HTPC media player software it'd probably sell bucket loads. While it has a good OEM business doing this with people like Acer, for example, there are many of us that are looking for the same kind of support.

Media Show 4

As novel as the 3D engine is to use, if you're after a powerful fully featured tool, look somewhere else – Media Show is about doing things simply and quickly with a wide variety of options, but at the cost of extra finesse. It's also a damn sight cheaper than many of the alternatives though, so it could be worth considering if you don't care to play that much.

With what the software does offer though, we were greatly impressed.

DLNA Integration?

What we do feel is missing is Cyberlink’s integration to other DLNA services – Media Show 4 could become a portal for the family to organise and access media at other PCs. For example: integration with PowerDVD 8 to play video files on the same PC or from a home theatre PC?

Cyberlink could also offer a digital locker as an online backup for important files too – while uploading a whole DVD or a set of family videos and photos will take a while, having an online service integrated into Media Show will allow photo access from anywhere in the world without the need to make DVDs. Cyberlink’s free Live service already does this remote access, but only when your home PC is on – it doesn’t allow media uploading because of potential copyright infringements from those who might abuse the service to share the account and stream media to others. However, if the service is paid for it could allow this to happen: Live is due for a Premium Service update in the near future and hopefully this will be included.

When quizzed about this, Cyberlink did state that any cross-software integration wasn't due at all for Media Show 4 or PowerDVD 8, but could possibly make a future version.

It seems strange for company so heavily weighted with a digital network portfolio that it doesn't integrate its own software more closely. It could integrate everything under a large online portal and a single (secure) login: MoovieLive, Cyberlink Live, a storage service and all the home software could potentially talk to each other no matter where you are.