- Reviewed on: A Hewlett-Packard Media Center m380n Photosmart 3 GHz Pentium 4 PC with 1GB of RAM, twin DVD drives, 7-way media reader, a 120GB IDE and a Maxtor 250GB SATA hard drive (both running at 7200 RPM), HP F1703 LCD panel, a 128MB NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 video card, and Windows XP Media Center Edition.
- Also available for: Windows 98se through Windows XP Professional
- The Good: Easy interface; fabulous tools that do everything from speeding up playback without affecting audio quality, to helping you squeeze more movie time out of a notebook battery's charge.
- The Bad: Pricey.
- The Verdict: One of the most full-featured software DVD players on the market.
REVIEW:
If you play DVDs on your computer, you've already discovered that not all DVD playback software is created equal. The quality of both the audio and video playback can vary depending on the software engine driving the package, and high-end players also offer a slew of features to help you get the most out of a PC-based movie experience.
Intervideo's WinDVD Platinum 5 isn't cheap at $69.95 (U.S.), but it's one of the swankiest players on the market.
First of all, the quality is excellent, whether you're playing a DVD, Video CD or SVCD disc, or a DiVX file. Most players can crank out a constant stream of video these days without noticeably dropping frames, but Intervideo goes further than that. WinDVD 5 has technology that actually tweaks the video stream to make the image clearer when displayed on a high-resolution computer monitor. The tools run well on the automatic setting, with the system picking the best tweaks based on the type of video and you screen qualities, but you can also make changes manually if you choose.
There are presets to make the video look better on various types of monitors, as well as a manual setting with slider bars to let you tweak the display properties to suit your tastes. The beauty of this is that it doesn't change your notebook's own display settings, so when you go back to word processing or Web browsing, everything will look the way you left it before viewing the movie.
WinDVD also enhances the sound of movies on PCs. The audio booster pack can decode DTS, ProLogic II and SRS sound and play it back in 24-bit/96 KHz glory on computers that have a multi-channel sound card and speakers. It will handle up to eight audio channels if your hardware is up to it. If you're really picky about the way things sound, you can even adjust the delay and volume of every single speaker — that's more than my home theatre amp can do.
There are various tools for bookmarking scenes, no matter what type of disc you are watching. It identifies the name of the disc and stores the bookmarks in a database on your hard drive. You can make quick screen grabs with a mouse click at any point in a movie and use them as your desktop wallpaper or e-mail them to someone. There's even a movie encyclopedia with details about each disc you play. You'll need an Internet connection to run it, though.
One of the best features from a viewing point of view is Smart Stretch. Notebook and desktop monitors come in a variety of dimensions these days, and the software will automatically size the video to fit the screen without noticeably distorting the image in any way. I don't know how they manage it, but it's cool.
The software also makes use of special features in notebooks equipped with Intel's Centrino mobile chips to help extend battery life. By managing the memory and swap file, and by tweaking the operation of hard drives and the DVD drive, the software can significantly extend the amount of movie playback you'll get per battery charge.
The software also has some neat tools to make sure your entertainment doesn't cut into your work responsibilities. Say you're flying to a big business presentation, but the in-flight movie is awful. You don't have a full charge on your notebook, though, so you're leery about firing up your own movie on your notebook and being left with dead batteries when it comes time to run your PowerPoint presentation. Using one of WinDVD 5 Platinum's settings, you can tell the computer to play movies but shut down the DVD automatically when the batteries are drained to a certain level — say, 25 per cent.
And if the movie is an hour and 20 minutes but the flight is only an hour, you can turn on time-scaling. The player will speed up the movie so that it fits into the time frame you specify. Surprisingly, I found that I could actually speed playback up by as much as 25 per cent without really missing anything.
And your fast-playing movie won't sound like the actors are breathing helium, either. The software does an amazing job of speeding up the video, but keeping the audio slowed down so that it sounds normal (it cuts out the silent spaces between sentences automatically to keep pace with the on-screen action). The voices won't match up with lip movements exactly if you run the video too fast, but you'll catch every word.
The controls are easy to master, too. There is a popup description for each button, and comprehensive help files are available if you need more details. You can also watch the video in a sized window, from thumbnail right up to full-screen. The software can leave the control menu up all the time wherever you like on your screen, or hide it so that it only appears when you click a mouse or keyboard button.
It's a pricey packae, but if you watch a lot of DVD movies on your computer or often use your notebook's DVD player on trips, Intervideo WinDVD 5 Platinum is a must-have.
