Software : Corel WinDVD 9 (PC)

Rating: - Worth it for the Dolby Virtual Surround
I've never previously bothered paying for DVD software. I've already got 4 free software DVD players from different companies and they all have their strengths and weaknesses but at the end of the day they play DVDs that look and sound great on my PC so who cares about anything else.

Until last week when I bought a 2nd-hand CRT widescreen TV with Dolby Digital and Pixel Plus and started to become obsessed by virtual surround sound. My studio and living room are too small for a decent affordable wireless surround sound set-up; my wife refuses to have the wires trailing everywhere and I refuse to fork out a penny for a sub-standard system so I started to research virtual surround which led me to decide on two purchases: a set of surround sound headphones for the living room and a software DVD player for the studio with the latest Dolby Virtual Speaker function and the new Dolby Headphone function, which is supposed to re-create a convincing 5.1 surround sound field in a set of headphones or on a pair of stereo speakers by the clever use of some nifty psycho-acoustic processing.

I installed the software this afternoon and loaded up a Dolby Surround speaker test video to see if it actually worked. It does, in a muted fashion. It wasn't as dramatic an effect as I was hoping for but for both Dolby Speaker and Dolby Headphone the front speakers sounded as though they were coming from in front of me and the rear surrounds did feel as though they were coming from somewhere behind my back (or behind my head for the Dolby Headphone tests). When it came to playing a film with Dolby Speaker the effect was more subtle in terms of hearing things coming from specific locations in front or behind but when I switched it from "reference" to "wide 1" and "wide 2" modes it created the most magnificent and dynamic sonic field which sounded much wider and more enveloping than the actual speaker placement. It was quite dramatic, the audio equivilent of putting on 3D glasses. Very clever. In Dolby Headphone mode (with my closed-backed studio Sennheisers) it was more subtle and it was necessary to switch between "stereo" mode and "surround" mode, and switch to "theater" mode (which gives you the full cinematic dynamic range) to hear what a dramatic difference the processing was making. I tried the same thing again with open-backed headphones and it seemed to work better. I am suitably impressed.

To move on to the video side of things, the user settings are versatile and (contrary to another review I have read) the upscaling is actually available on this version, as are the various other "enhancements". But as the second reviewer pointed out: if you've got a half-decent computer with a modern graphics card many of these functions are either going to detract from the picture quality in some way or else introduce artifacts (unnatural side-effects). Your own PC will almost certainly do a much better job of scaling the picture up to fit the screen than this software, but I suppose it's a matter of taste. I suspect that these functions are intended more for poor quality video footage, blocky, compressed downloaded videos or grainy 16mm film footage. I'm glad that the options are there, even though I think they're unnecessary at the moment.

For the low price I am very happy with this purchase. It is far and away the best DVD software player I have ever used and I am (however subtly) blown away by the Dolby Virtual Speaker technology, so now I'm not totally missing out on those lovely 5.1 soundtracks on my DVD collection.

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Rating: - Very good with few problems
In my opinion, this is one of the best programs to play dvds, have been using it for quite a while, and this new version is quite a good improvement.
Good Points: very good picture quality, great sound,, very reliable, big choice of menu options, video and graphics card settings, and audio settings compatible with surround systems.
- No compatibility issues at all, and works great with windows XP SP2, SP3.

Some bad points:
I had some problems with some dvds, as the program used to freeze, and I had to shut it down and run it again. It did not happen with all Dvds, so probably it is not the program's fault.
- It did slow my system a bit, and it takes long time sometimes to load.

I tried other alternative programs, both bought and free ones, but always came back to this one, as it gives the best picture quality, and best performance. Highly recommended.

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Rating: - Not as good as expected
I have previously used Power DVD (v4.0) which has been fine but with a new computer and screen I needed something more up to date. As my computer is my entertainment system, good DVD playback is important to me and WinDVD 9 seemed to fit the bill. Yes, it is better, pictures are sharper and more realistic, movement more natural and sound is good (excellent with DTS disks). There are also some nice little features such as capturing video clips as well as the usual stills.

So why only three stars? Two reasons; the first is that the product description is misleading, the second is that the 'enhancements' just reduce the quality both visually and audibly.

Taking the first point the description says, "Watch standard DVD movies at near-HD quality" and on the box it says "Advanced upscaling". This product DOES NOT upscale standard DVD's. All these functions are disabled and only found in the 'plus' version.

As for the second point, to get the best quality just use the 'setup' menu and let your graphics card and sound card work to their full potential. Enhancements from within the program look and sound awful. It is a classic case of less is more, less processing the better the result.

The whole interface does not feel as natural as Power DVD but I expect that is just a case of getting used to it. Overall I am both pleased and disappointed and on balance it was probably worth the price, but only just.