PowerDVD 5

Other products by Avanquest

Product Features

• Offers maximum video and audio playback entertainment on the PC
• Sharp, rich video quality; audio support for any environment
• Fully customizable interface
• Feature-rich navigation controls
• Plays DVD's MP3s, Audio CDs, DivX files, and more

Product Details

Data Sheet [442kb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000CDVUN
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 2, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,478 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

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  Software > Video & Music > DVD Viewing & Authoring

• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Product Description

PowerDVD 5 is the latest evolution of the world acclaimed DVD software player that offers maximum video and audio playback entertainment on the PC. It comes with leading video and audio technologies to deliver the highest quality viewing and listening experience possible on the PC. PowerDVD 5 offers feature-rich navigation controls, for an interactive and tailored DVD movie viewing experience. It's the obvious choice for anyone wanting to enjoy the highest-quality and most interactive DVD movie experience on the PC!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Can't get it to work - useless tools and painful support, December 12, 2003

By	Chris Edmonds "wanna-be river rat" (Illinois) - See all my reviews

I carefully read the box before purchase to be sure my system met the specs. Did a custom install. Even though I told it to install on drive F: it created a directory on C: and put files there. An error free install. Ran included diagnostic without error as far as I can tell. Fired it up to find no audio and 1 frame displayed each 3 seconds. However InterActual player and MS Media player using the PowerDVD decoder ran flawlessly.

The manual gives a tech support web site (elibrium) which doesn't have PowerDVD listed as a supported product. If you dig a bit you discover there is another web site (gocyberlink - not in the manual) where there is an appropriate tech support message board. (You have to pay for dial up support which is only open 5 days during normal work hours.)

The support web page asks a ton of questions the average user would never know. (All in XP System Info though.) A day after my initial query tech support responded with the instructions to uninstall and reinstall plus directions on how to clean up the files that uninstall isn't intelligent enough to deal with. This didn't fix anything. Recontacted tech support. The next day they told me to uninstall and reinstall again, this time with instructions on how to edit the registry to clean stuff up. They also told me to download and install a 6.6 MB patch file to PowerDVD plus to find, download, and install any and all audio and video board driver updates that might exist. Six hours later I was in exactly the same place as after the initial install.

Besides all the other issues: Why don't they have a system diagnostic that tests the system for compatibility and lets you know of issues? (The diagnostic displays a test pattern and asks you if it is OK without telling you what OK is.) Why doesn't the diagnostic collect the readily available system info and provide a report that is useful instead of asking for manual entry of this info in the support query? Why doesn't uninstall really uninstall the program? Why does tech support only have one answer (uninstall and reinstall)? Why the shotgun approach (update everything and try again)? For these reasons alone I would not recommend this program.

After 2 weeks of email back and forth I've given up on getting this SW to work. The last two suggestions were: "Replace your soundcard" and "Backup your entire disk and reinstall Windows XP." Again, techsupport has done no troubleshooting and no other SW is giving me any problems.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Kludgy Software. Poor Tech support, November 29, 2004

By	Recif (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews

My experience was similar to that of topher666. On a brand new laptop, on which the OEM DVD player ran fine, this software ran extremely slowly with no sound. Tech support was of no help. After filling out a long form on the gocyberlink website, they do not even respond directly to you. You have to login into your account to check if a response has been posted. This is anyway just a form response, to reinstall the program after first editing your registry (something most people are rightfully reluctant to do) to complete the uninstall. The form has to be filled out all over again for each follow-up. I gave up after three weeks of fruitless exchanges, after having sent at their request several diagnostic files, with not a single constructive suggestion.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pretty impressive, October 15, 2003

By	Thomas F. Hooker "bulmabriefs144" (Accomac, VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is the software that I used for my school computers. It handles multiple regions from what I've seen, which is good as I use it for Japanese movies that aren't shown in Region 1. It also returns to the last viewing, which I have found is essential whenever I get interrupted frequently. I prefer this over WinDVD any day, though my home computer happens to run on that software. It also lets you adjust for noisy environments, and is slightly more compatible than WinDVD for troublesome drives.