CyberLink PowerCinema 5: Move over Media Center, there's a new boss in town
Written: Mar 07 '07 (Updated Mar 14 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Handles all your media from one interface.
Cons: Didn't recognize my TV card remote.
The Bottom Line: Merge all your media and access it from a single program.
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| Gr8ful's Full Review: CyberLink PowerCinema 5 |
Windows what? Media Center? Who needs it! CyberLink has everything you need to turn your computer into the focal point of your entertainment center with PowerCinema 5. PowerCinema 5 is Windows Vista compatible for those who want to know, so fear not. I had been using PowerVCR II 3 to record my television shows on my PC for the past six months or more but PowerCinema goes beyond simply recording television. PowerCinema 5 takes care of all your multimedia needs including games in an organized, easy to use way.
The friendly interface scrolls through the options of television, movies, music, games, photos, options, help and extras by clicking the left and right arrows. It will even tell you the weather and time all from the main menu. The main menu is 3D accelerated and looks very nice compared to other media programs I have used before. But the real meat of the program is its ability to find and organize all the media on your computer for use from a single interface. If you are one of those people who record video, music, movies and keep hundreds of photographs on your computer, this program is a real necessity.
How many times have you forgotten where you saved a photo you wanted to show someone? Couldn’t find that song you downloaded last month, you know the one you really liked but can’t remember the file name? This program makes it much easier to find those things by organizing them and displaying them for you to easily browse through.
With PowerCinema 5, there is no need for any other media player for the most common multimedia types. It will even play DVD movies without any other media player needed.
PowerCinema 5
PowerCinema 5 is an all-in-one media management program. Not only can you play your DVDs, CDs, movie and audio files but you can create photo slide shows, and get the latest local weather and news. You can also access podcasts and national news, blogs, sports and much more all from one program. PowerCinema 5 closes the gap between the different types of media available today.
With many expansion plug-ins and add-on software, you can do anything with your media. PowerCinema 5 becomes the focal point of multimedia tasks on your PC making it easier than ever to manage your multimedia experience.
Out of the box, you can play any standard DVD or CD. You can rip music from CDs in WMA format at 64k, 96k or 128k. You can edit your photos with automatic adjustments and remove red eye quickly and easily. You can view photos as a slide show with or without background music and several different transition effects. You can get instant weather reports and the latest sports news and scores. You can capture video from Composite and S-Video devices, and from HDV camcorders and DV cameras as well as playback high-definition MPEG-2 and WMV-HD files.
Supported media files
* Video playback: ASF, WMV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, DVR-MS, DAT, DVR-MS, and AVI.
* Audio playback: MP3, WMA, and WAV
* Audio ripping: WMA
* Image files: BMP, JPG and PNG
If you have a radio tuner card, you can also listen to radio and list your favorite stations. PowerCinema 5 supports dual television cards and you can watch one program while recording another with dual television tuners. You can also watch two channels at once with picture-in-picture.
PowerCinema 5 also allows pausing live television for up to 30 minutes at a time. You can not record while using this feature but it comes in handy if you need to answer the phone or get the door.
System Requirements
* CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.6 GHz or higher (higher CPU speed will yield better video quality)
* Memory: 256 MB of RAM (512 MB or more recommended)
* Operation System: Microsoft Windows XP (Home or Professional edition), Microsoft Windows Vista
* DirectX: Version 9 or above
* Windows Media Player: Version 9 or above
* Remote Control: Windows XP Service Pack I is required to operate the remote control.
* Hard Disk: 200 MB of available hard disk space required for installation (500 MB required for running the program, 1 GB of free disk space is required for running the TV always time-shifting function).
* Video Display Card: DirectX-compatible display adapter for 16-bit color displays (32-bit color displays recommended). When using 3D UI mode, a graphic card with 64 MB or more of video memory is recommended. A 3D display card is required for PowerCinema’s transparent index.
* Audio Card: DirectX-compatible PCI soundcard, USB audio box, or built-in audio device required for audio playback and recording.
* Optical Device: DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD-RAM, DVD+R/RW, DVD-Dual, DVD-ROM/CDRW, or DVD Multi-drive with 1394, USB 2.0, ATAPI, SCSI, or Card Bus interface.
* TV Tuner Card: CyberLink’s bundled hybrid TV tuner card has been tested and is recommended for use with PowerCinema 5. Windows-compatible analog tuner cards with a WDM driver or a digital/hybrid tuner card with a BDA driver may also be compatible.
* Display: Windows-compatible display with at least 1024 x 768 pixel resolution.
You can purchase PowerCinema 5 bundled with a TV tuner card that is guaranteed compatible. The analog TV Edition comes with an analog TV card. The digital TV edition comes with a hybrid digital and analog television card. I already have a V-Stream analog TV card with a front-panel, drive-bay interface capture device installed and it works fine with PowerCinema 5. The only thing that doesn’t work with PowerCinema 5 is the remote control for the V-Stream television card.
My V-Stream system came with PowerVCR II 3 which is another program from CyberLink so it is no wonder that PowerCinema found it and works with it so well. CyberLink offers a remote control for PowerCinema 5 for an additional $24.99 plus shipping.
My Experience
I have been using PowerCinema for over two weeks now and it is fantastic for capturing TV programs and the ability to pause live TV. The compression used by the capture process is much better than the PowerVCR II 3 I had been using. The playback is much crisper and looks more like the original broadcast. I have my cable television coaxial cable plugged into the coaxial plug on my card and PowerCinema 5 recognized the signal in seconds.
I have played one DVD movie with PowerCinema 5 and it played just as well as with PowerDVD 7 using the same technologies for vivid playback and surround audio. You can set up the audio for 2, 4, 6, 7, or 8 speakers, SPDIF or headphones.
PowerCinema 5 natively supports widescreen displays at 16:9 aspect ratio, but you can also select ‘Pan and scan”, “CLPV” or “Letterbox” as well. I have a regular 4:3 aspect ratio monitor and I have widescreen movies displayed as letterbox which works well.
PowerCinema 5 quickly found all of my 3,027 audio files and lets me play them in succession or I can set up a play list. You can even turn on visualizations to display while listening to your MP3, WAV or WMA music files. All of my music is organized by the folders I have them stored in on my computer or by song title or file name.
It really is nice to have a single media program that handles all of my audio and video playing from one central interface. The lines between television, radio and internet are blurring and soon they will all become one single entity in the home and CyberLink is one step ahead of the game with PowerCinema 5.
Update: 3-14-2007
I originally forgot to mention the reason I gave this software 4 stars instead of 5 is because I could not get the games functionality to recognize any games on my system. I have several 3D games, a few window based games (like Pool and Slingo), and some web based games (like Text Twist and Snood) but PowerCinema does not list them and there is no information in the help file oh how to add games. There is also nothing listed in settings of the program about games. It lists television, music, movies, news, extras and weather but nothing on games. So I couldn't rate the software 5 stars.
I also do not have a radio card in my computer, so I did not try the radio functionality of the software. Other than that the software functions as expected and works rather flawlessly on my system. I had no trouble installing it and it did not require me to remove any other media software, so I could keep my PowerVCR II 3 for when I feel lazy and want to use my remote control for my V-Stream.
It's also nice to be able to get the weather on the main menu at any time with up to the minute reports. In the settings you just enter your zip code and Weather.com reports your current weather to your main menu. This does require an active internet connection though.
My system specs
For anyone interested
* Pentium 4 660 3.6GHz 64-bit processor
* Dual-1GB OCZ PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2
* Primary HD: Hitachi 500GB SATA II 7200RPM
* Secondary HD: Hitachi 500GB SATA II 7200RPM
* Audio: SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS w/Creative 7.1 speakers
* V-Stream Video capture/TV tuner card
* HP DVD640i DLDVD+/-R/RW
* USB 2.0 9-in-1 card reader/floppy combo
* Windows XP Professional w/SP2 and IE7
Conclusion
If you would like to have all of your media accessible from a single program, this is the product you have been waiting for. I would recommend spending the extra $20 for the digital TV version because it comes with a hybrid TV card that can receive analog or digital television signals so you can use either. Even if you don’t have digital television yet, you will be ready for when you inevitably get it. Hats off to CyberLink for creating an exceptional product for merging media.
Thanks for reading,
Gr8ful ;-)
Recommended:
Yes
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