WinDVD 8 Platinum by InterVideo has been around for quite a while, as can be deduced by the version 8 in its title. WinDVD has been the face of InterVideo since its inception, and is the flagship product of the InterVideo brand. After years of playing on their own, InterVideo merged with big corporation Corel. Usually when a small program's company joins a large corporation, the program's features are trimmed, or the product simply is forgotten. The good news is Corel does not appear to be phasing out WinDVD, and its developers continue to make some steady improvements.
While the WinDVD line of products has been around since before 2000, to be fair to the category, there simply have not been a lot of DVD software solutions available. This area has been dominated by InterVideo, CyberLink, and Microsoft, and there is no sign that will change. Although Microsoft and CyberLink have transitioned towards the ten-foot interface (for watching a DVD from the couch) of Media Center-like applications, WinDVD continues its tradition of a quality two-foot program (watching at the computer), with as much control and flexibility as one could want.
What's Hot: Quality and performance are what allow programs like this to continue in today’s era of inexpensive DVD players, or built-in media centers. WinDVD 8 Platinum has clearly been optimized for a variety of systems, with performance and playback at the forefront of their goals. Although I do not have a meager system (an AMD Athlon X2 4800+), I still tried my hardest to get this player to stutter at high-definition resolutions, while multitasking, but WinDVD 8 Platinum hung tight.
What's Hot: The installation is your standard Windows install package, which did not require a lot of clicks, nor wordy options or configurations. The install takes up the full screen, which will assist in preventing some multitaskers from utilizing their systems during the installation, possibly causing an error. I was pleased to be able to run the software immediately after installation, without having to reboot my computer.
That being said, the requirements are not the lightest I’ve seen, but still respectable. You can get by with any Intel Pentium 1.0 GHz or higher, but they recommend a dual core 2.8--that’s quite a spread. The
rest of the requirements will vary based on your quality needs; the higher-end graphics or sound cards you can install, the better your performance. What's Not: The installation for the entire WinDVD 8 Platinum software package did, however, take over five minutes. That’s quite a bit of time for a standard application. While watching the installation, I couldn’t help but notice some non-WinDVD files. I soon discovered that WinDVD prompts you if you’d like to install Google’s Toolbar, as well as Apple’s QuickTime. I do not know if those companies have paid for these placements, but for a program that comes at a price of $70, this is unacceptable. Fortunately for users, it’s not forced upon them, and a single click will remove these installation options.
What's Hot: It doesn’t take a user long into using WinDVD 8 Platinum to realize that this software is not intended for the novice. If all you want to do is take a DVD and play it, then you would be better served purchasing a $50 dvd player. However, if you are the type of person that loves fiddling with audio and video settings, and tweaking in the never-ending quest for perfect quality, then you will be astounded by the plethora of options available at a single click away.
The main user interface consists of the play screen, with your controls at the bottom. Along the top side are some convenient command icons that allow you to load files as well as launch some of the special features of the package such as: playing a VR disc, loading or saving a playlist, bookmarking a scene in a film, saving a quickplay, or snagging a screenshot. From that screen, a single right-click brings up the full context menu allowing for absolute, complete control of not only the player, but of the media itself.
Although you can enter the setup/config options from the main Setup link, you can also jump directly into certain areas of them, such as the Solution Center. Additionally, you can also directly access the Video and Audio Centers, which allow for absolute tweaking of your configuration for a given video.
What's Not: All that control and power at your fingertips definitely comes at a price, however--WinDVD 8 Platinum is far from remote-friendly. Since there is no designed ten-foot interface, if you were to try to use a remote, you would be limited to standard play and stop controls, thus limiting most of the special features that make WinDVD 8 Platinum stand out. With computers and users leaning more and more towards full implementation into home theater setups, it is a shame that you are limited to a two-foot mouse interface only.
What's Hot: And now, for the bread and butter of WinDVD 8 Platinum: all of its features—not just the standard features you have come to expect in a software DVD player, but also some innovative tools that bring a whole other aspect to your movie watching. WinDVD has always been known for using a highly optimized DVD codec, and that tradition has continued with version 8. Now utilizing and maximizing Intel’s Clear Video and nVidia’s PureVideo graphic technologies, it is now optimized for full high-definition playback.
They do recommend utilizing a dual-core Intel processor, however, as there are built-in optimizations for those specific chips. Fear not, slower-technology users: the great features of this app include the built-in hardware acceleration and quality adjustment settings. What these settings do is allow users with slower systems to adjust the program to prevent stutter and allow for the smoothest playback by lowering the quality accordingly. While you will lose a bit of clarity, you will be pleased to be able to watch without any stuttering.
In addition to the standard high-quality performance users have come to expect from WinDVD, they’ve also added some fun tools to increase the enjoyment of the movie watching experience. Within the Video Center, there is a Video Effect tab that allows you to adjust the actual picture of the film you’re watching. From simple things such as increasing the sharpness, to extreme tweaks like layering a vintage feel to the film, it can keep you occupied for quite some time. Additionally, the Audio Center provides customized audio effects to suit both your own preferences as well as what you’re listening to. There are already some pre-configured equalizer settings, and users can manually adjust those settings as well.
In addition to tweaking, WinDVD 8 Platinum can just flat out play your files. No installation of other codecs is necessary, and out of the box it can play DVD-Video files in addition to DivX, Real Player, 3GPP, QuickTime, Windows Media, AVI, MPEG-4, and even high-definition H.264 files.
It also includes some other fun features, which have absolutely no impact on playback. The Boss Key is a button that will minimize the player instantly and stop playback, presumably in case your boss walks in the room. Color themes change the skin color of the player, nothing more. The really cool extras are the Quick Clip and Capture tools. The Capture tool lets you take a screen snapshot of a particular scene, but it’s the Quick Clip that is very unique, allowing you to save an animated image (*.gif) file of a particular scene from a movie, up to 30 seconds, without sound. Again, none of these features are necessary at all for playback of a movie/video file, but they definitely increase the enjoyment and fun you and your family can have.
What's Not: The UPnP Server feature is touted as an easy way to set up folders and content to share across your network, but it is clunky and feels like a last-second addition. The standard Windows Vista networking makes sharing and locating of media files easier and better-looking, to be honest. I certainly hope that if they continue to include this feature upon newer versions that they will put a little more effort to it. For a program that appears so refined (it is version 8.0 after all), the UPnP Server just feels out of place.
What's Hot: If you are an audio/videophile, then $70 will not seem like much for the ability to have such utter control of playback of all sorts of media. The amount of tweaking you can do with the quality and sound of your files is not only useful, but also quite enjoyable.
What's Not: That being said, however, you can pick up a full-fledged copy of an entire Media Center application, such as BeyondTV or SageTV, for nearly the same price, and those will not only allow you to play back movie and video files, but also play music, TV, pictures, and other files. I’m just not sure that the majority of consumers will see the worth of the added features to make this such a hefty price. What's Hot: The good news: There
are support options :-)
What's Not: There is pretty standard support from InterVideo/Corel, with FAQs (a knowledge base) and forums, but finding a phone number was not simple, and even then it’s not clear if "customer service" equates to technical support. But nonetheless, the support information is there if you look, which is as much as you can ask from a once-small company.
I'd like to see a ten-foot user interface, as well as integration with Windows Media Center and other media applications.
If you’ve read through this entire review, certainly you have come to think rather positively of WinDVD 8 Platinum, and for just cause. It is a quality DVD playback solution. But if one thing is clear to me, it is that even InterVideo/Corel is realizing that it needs to up the ante if it is to compete with the offerings of CyberLink and Microsoft. I thought it a rather odd omission that InterVideo/Corel invested its time in smaller features such as the UPnP server/client, instead of a customized ten-foot user interface which then could be used by the millions of Windows Media Center users. While a fantastic software DVD player, it just feels too limited to justify a $70 price tag.