Audio Video News

PowerDVD Player Now Supports 4K Blu-ray with HDR

SV Staff  |  Apr 11, 2017

Taiwan-based CyberLink today released the latest version of its popular PowerDVD movie and media player for Windows PCs.

The new PowerDVD 17 player adds support for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive virtual reality (VR) headsets and is the first software player to be certified by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) for the playback of Ultra HD (UHD) Blu-ray Discs.

Lifetime licenses are available for three versions of PowerDVD 17—Ultra ($100), Pro: ($80), and Standard ($60)—while PowerDVD Live is available with an annual ($45) or quarterly ($15) subscription.

The player supports HDR10 high dynamic range and is equipped with TrueTheater HDR technology that “creates HDR video from standard dynamic range content for better viewing on HDR displays.” Support for the 3D-360 videos is also included for owners of Oculus Rift and HTC Vive headsets.

Photo collections can be viewed in high-resolution on PCs or TVs with one-click slideshows and the player has a TV mode for displaying videos, photos, and music on the big screen.

On the audio side, PowerDVD 17 is said to provide broad support for lossless formats and supports Roku, Apple TV, and Chromecast, enabling users to “cast” video, photos, and music files not supported by the TV-connected devices themselves.

For more information, visit cyberlink.com.

COMMENTS
Billy's picture
Submitted by Billy on April 11, 2017 - 9:08am

Interesting, but what hardware changes will I need? Does anyone even make a 4K computer drive? Haw much of a CPU will I need, will my quad core i5 work? More importantly, has anyone even broken the 4K copy guard so I can rip my own discs onto a HD and use with my Kodi system? That is very important to me. I only purchase blurays now that I can rip so I can have for instant playback. I could die waiting for the DRM to allow me to use my legally bought movies. I bet 4K is even worse. When will Hollywood figure out that their real enemies are the off shore pirates, not good guy consumers?

David Vaughn's picture
Submitted by David Vaughn on April 11, 2017 - 10:00am
Recommended specs are in this article. Hope this helps. http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/1/25/14387744/pioneer-ultra-hd-bluray-drive-4k-pc
prerich45's picture
Submitted by prerich45 on April 13, 2017 - 5:36am

Pioneer drives are being sold in Japan and on Ebay. The lowest price I've found so far is $289 the average about $330. You could buy a 4k player for that much. Now here's where they really get you:
Required - Windows 10, Intel 200 series motherboard and Kaby-Lake i7-i5 processor (7th generation), at least 6gb of ram, you must you onboard video (intel 650 gpu) so no Nvidia 10xx series or AMD for that matter.

Its a very closed system. I usually try out new formats via PC before I buy a standalone unit - but this time...I think I may just bow out all together.

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