Unhappy with the movie player that came with your computer? With today’s DVD player software, you can turn your movie watching experience from good to superb.In this article we compare 3 of the most popular players found today on the market.

PowerDVD, CyberLink's latest DVD player software.

Feature set:10
We found PowerDVD the most versatile program on the market. PowerDVD automatically adapts the video to your specific monitor or screen size. This stretching technology means you'll have no more annoying black spaces, just optimal picture with the best ratio for your screen.
Unlike most DVD player software, PowerDVD can play movies directly from your hard drive; simply select the movie folder and press OK.
PowerDVD includes convenient mobile power settings for notebook computers. When you watch a movie on a notebook computer in battery mode, PowerDVD will balance your power usage to allow the movie to continue to play through to the end.

Ease of use: 10
PowerDVD is simple to use. The program has an uncluttered screen that makes selecting and navigating simple. The buttons and icons are easy to see and each option includes a footnote explanation.

VideoQuality:10
PowerDVD gives outstanding video quality. The software uses technology to analyze the video image and enhance brightness, contrast and saturation. This technology will adjust scenes that are too bright or screens that have a dark overlay.
The program gives you optimal viewing for any system: TV screen, computer, or HiDTV (Hi Definition Television).

AudioQuality:10
PowerDVD offers superb audio quality to give you cinema sound quality at home. It offers advanced control features so you can customize your sound to your home environment and desired output.
For example, you can define your environment as noisy or quiet, pick between living room, theater, or stadium, and define your desired sound as movie, music, or even onstage music.

Summary:10
If you want to experience the ambiance of the theater without leaving your home, PowerDVD is the DVD software player for you.

WinDVD Platinum, manufactured by InterVideo.

Featureset:10
WinDVD Platinum has the most impressive image-capturing tools of any DVD player software on the market. By accessing the toolbar you can grab a snapshot of your favorite movie image then save, email a copy or send a copy to an editing program for editing.

Ease of use:10
WinDVD Platinum has a simple navigation system housed in a user-friendly panel. The main control panel is divided into six supplementary control panels-it's easy to find the tool you need by looking in the right category.

Video Quality:9
WinDVD Platinum offers the extraordinary Cinema Enhancement program; this functions similarly to PowerDVD's CLEV technology-you can adjust the visual intensity, color variety, and you have the option to eliminate the overlay from dark scenes, creating a sharp, clear picture. WinDVD also includes a fun vintage viewing setting-black and white-so that you can create an old-fashioned movie viewing experience.

Audio Quality:9
WinDVD hosts high-quality audio sound with multi-channel support and audio boosters to heighten sound. You can opt to view lyrics and bonus features or you can automatically adjust your player controls to play music discs by default.

Summary:9.5
WinDVD Platinum is excellent DVD player software. The program includes tools to help you acquire outstanding video and audio play quality in a user-friendly package. WinDVD Platinum provides fabulous support as well.

WinDVD Platinum could use some improvement when it comes to playing movies from the hard drive. The program also needs to be adjusted to make playing an open file less challenging; WinDVD Platinum currently allows you to play only one video object file at a time, impeding your ability to view the entire movie from a file at once.
Beyond this, we found no faults in this product.

Direct DVD, produced by Orion Studios.

Feature set:8
DirectDVD offers a comprehensive feature set, including an on-screen mesh (see-thru).display of the elapsed play time and chapter number. DirectDVD offers a variety of formats for image-capturing, including jpg, tiff, bmp and ico.
However, the program interrupts you each time you attempt to capture an image and the program does not automatically save the image to a folder.

Ease of use:10
DirectDVD is easy to use. The only required steps include inserting a DVD movie into the player and pressing the play button.

Video Quality:9
DirectDVD's video quality is superb, but the program lacks additional video picture fine-tuning adjustments. The only adjustment factors available are standard contrast, brightness, and saturation controls. DirectDVD does offer various screen aspect settings, however, such as letterbox, crop, and fit-to-screen.

Audio Quality:10
DirectDVD includes access to some excellent quality audio software (by download). This first-rate audio system is the most outstanding feature of the product. It offers a variety of additional audio plug-ins, contributing to outstanding audio diversity.

Summary:9
DirectDVD is one of the best players on the market for playing both DVDs and VDs (video disks). However, if you want to play movies from your hard drive or if you want to play DIVX-converted movies, this is not the product for you. DirectDVD cannot recognize some movies formats created when you make a backup copy of your DVD with copying software.

Conclusions:
The first place: PowerDVD                               You can download PowerDVD from here.
The second place : WinDVD Platinum              You can download WinDVD from here.
The third place: Direct DVD                             You can download Direct DVD from here.

written by Cristian L.