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What do we think of Power DVD 16?

R

RichMc

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I've just ordered an Intel NUC, and having used KODI for some time it's OK but can be a pain, I have downloaded a trial of Power DVD 16, first impressions are good. All my "backups" are on a NAS server in ISO format (around 1,200 of them) and Power DVD seems to be handling them well, the stripper seems to be identifying the films quite accurately.

Are there any disadvantages to Power DVD (apart from having to pay for it per PC!), are there any problems that users have come across?
 
RichMc said:
I've just ordered an Intel NUC, and having used KODI for some time it's OK but can be a pain, I have downloaded a trial of Power DVD 16, first impressions are good. All my "backups" are on a NAS server in ISO format (around 1,200 of them) and Power DVD seems to be handling them well, the stripper seems to be identifying the films quite accurately.

Are there any disadvantages to Power DVD (apart from having to pay for it per PC!), are there any problems that users have come across?
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Cinavia? (No problem, if your pair it with AnyDVD)
And you can mount your isos with Virtual CloneDrive.
 
Well yes I have AnyDVD and Clone drive, and clone DVD2 and have had them all for eons. But Power DVD mounts ISO seamlessly so those are not disadvantages, what I'm after is the merits and disadvantages of Power DVD 16 if their are any, for use as a media server as opposed to KODI whos add ons can be amateurish to say the least, and other software users may have experience of.
 
RichMc said:
what I'm after is the merits and disadvantages of Power DVD 16 if their are any, for use as a media server as opposed to KODI whos add ons can be amateurish to say the least, and other software users may have experience of.
Click to expand...

If you want to playback the full disc with menu's etc then PowerDVD 16 is your only choice and there is really no other option and it's good at that too.
KODI doesn't really handle full disc with menu's and is meant for simple main movie playback, where you choose a movie and it just plays, no warnings/trailers/menu's etc.
KODI is much superior as a front end for all your media IMO, but if you want 'proper' full disc playback then you need PowerDVD.

You could also use both together - KODI as a frontend and for quick main movie playback, then have KODI launch PowerDVD as an external player if you do want the full disc with menu's - works well.

A note on PowerDVD - Cyberlink tend to release new versions around March/April, so V17 will be due soon.
 
ddjmagic said:
A note on PowerDVD - Cyberlink tend to release new versions around March/April, so V17 will be due soon.
Click to expand...

I guess that's why they are doing 75% off just now. :)

I think I will have to use both as I've discovered Power DVD only mounts movies in ISO format, but not in the TV file folder seems it's just for PVR stuff, all my TV stuff is converted to ISO so unless I can make a sub folder for them it's not going to happen.

I think the way I'll work them together is Power DVD for films and music and KODI for TV series.
 
75% off is probably the biggest discount that I remember seeing for P DVD.
Everyone is waiting for UHD-Blu-ray support and no one is paying for 16 at any price.
 
Personally I'm going to hold off on PowerDVD 16 for a while, as I'm still using PowerDVD 15 and it's doing the job it's supposed to. Plus, I played around with 16 and discovered that I couldn't control it with my current remote control/EventGhost setup and haven't really looked into a solution yet.
 
Kodi and PowerDVD (16? I'll keep my version 10 as long as I can) are really different beasts.
If you want to play BD (isos or discs) Kodi sucks. Actually, everything sucks, except PowerDVD.

But Kodi shines on pretty much everything else. It is cheap, not only the software, but the hardware, too. It runs well on devices like a Raspberry Pi 3, which costs a fraction of a Windows PC. It is great if you want to have multiple playback stations accessing your movies on a central server. It can access a MySQL database to keep your libraray in sync. Including which movies you watched to which point, so you can continue a movie on a different device exactly where you left off. For "friends of stereoscopic movies" the Raspi version even plays frame packed mkv. (PowerDVD 16 does this, too, but at a much higher cost).
Kodi even runs on Android phones or tablets, in case you want to continue watching your movie during a toilet break.
Want a reasonably priced 4K playback device? Put Kodi on a Nvidia Shield TV.
Kodi has support for various PVR backends, so you can use it to watch TV (Sat, Cable, IPTV) distributed over Ethernet.
 
OK I've bought a licence for Power DVD16 and I'm playing with it on my main PC (but not reg'ed it yet) till I get my NUC next week, I'll reg it on the NUC and put KODI on as well and see how it behaves. So far it's identified about 80% of the movie files I have and getting the cover art for the rest seems easy. Possibly once registered it will find most of the rest automatically on line, we will see. KODY wouldn't stand a chance, it usually guesses wrong and is a pain to put right!
As it is I'm not really bothered about 4K as all my stuff is ripped DVD or BluRay and all the TV's I've considered will up scale to 4K anyway, probably what I will need to do is upgrade my receiver as my old Onkyo is getting long in the tooth.
At £31.99 Power DVD 16 seemed like a bargain even if it is soon to be upgraded.
If anyone else can think of more pros and cons I would appreciate it.
 
RichMc said:
OK I've bought a licence for Power DVD16 and I'm playing with it on my main PC (but not reg'ed it yet) till I get my NUC next week, I'll reg it on the NUC and put KODI on as well and see how it behaves. So far it's identified about 80% of the movie files I have and getting the cover art for the rest seems easy. Possibly once registered it will find most of the rest automatically on line, we will see. KODY wouldn't stand a chance, it usually guesses wrong and is a pain to put right!
As it is I'm not really bothered about 4K as all my stuff is ripped DVD or BluRay and all the TV's I've considered will up scale to 4K anyway, probably what I will need to do is upgrade my receiver as my old Onkyo is getting long in the tooth.
At £31.99 Power DVD 16 seemed like a bargain even if it is soon to be upgraded.
If anyone else can think of more pros and cons I would appreciate it.
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You did good, even though Forum members ddjmagic and Jeff R 1 have just noted, PowerDVD 17 will come out in a month or two from Cyberlink, and will have the latest bells and whistles (hopefully 4K/UHD Blu-ray) but like you, I recently bought an additional copy of PowerDVD 16 Ultra (2, in fact, for my 2 laptops) so I wouldn't have to near my PC all the time.

I couldn't beat the very low price for the software, and whenever I get PowerDVD, I try to get it when it's on sale, or that I can get at discount since I'm a long time user of their products. You should do likewise, so that you'll never pay full price for their products.
 
RichMc said:
KODY wouldn't stand a chance, it usually guesses wrong and is a pain to put right!
Click to expand...
Strange, I am very satisfied with the Kodi scrapers if you set them up right and use them correctly (Movies in own directories named with the title, TV series in own directories named with the series title containing files names with season and episode in the name, like lalala.S01E12.mkv (Season 1, Episode 12).
 
My PLEX + chromecast = win. My file structure is like

<show name>
--<season 01>
------showname - S01EXX - episodename.mkv
------showname - S01EYY - episodename.mkv
--<season 02>

Plex requires a certain file naming convention for automatic recognition of meta info but very easy to do with something like "filebot"
 
James said:
Strange, I am very satisfied with the Kodi scrapers if you set them up right and use them correctly (Movies in own directories named with the title, TV series in own directories named with the series title containing files names with season and episode in the name, like lalala.S01E12.mkv (Season 1, Episode 12).
Click to expand...

I've got far too much stuff to start fafing with checking and changing file naming paths. As you posted earlier KODI and RasPi was a good alternative till the point I decided to buy the Intel NUC, that's when the Pi failed with a strange smell from around the regulator area!
The NUC arrives tomorrow will post back with how I get on with it. Thanks all for the input.
 
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