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Disclaimer:
You are not allowed to view this page if you think/know you will discuss the contents of this page with me.
You should not view this page if you are offended by harsh language.
You should view this page if you are a developer for Cyberlink.
are a developer for Intervideo.



Cyberlink PowerDVD and Intervideo WinDVD are two very popular software DVD players. Most of their features are great and are what you might expect from a DVD player. But, as with everything else in this world, they also have their limitations and less wanted features. Let me explain.

PowerDVD:

The name PowerDVD sounds great. It looks great, supporting skins and all. But beauty is far from everything. Most of its features are great, the rest of them are fucking annoying.

1. The shit begins on startup.
PowerDVD creates a 0 byte (empty) playlist in the folder Cyberlink\PowerDVD, which is created if it does not exist, in the My Documents folder. Why create two folders and an empty file for nothing? Stupid? Indeed.
This might seem like no big deal for you but if you have the My Documents folder specified as the root of a drive it very annoying.
This playlist is used when selecting source 'Open Media Files'. Adding files to the playlist on that dialog automatically saves the playlist in the folder mentioned above. Also, on that dialog is an option to save the playlist. The purpose of the auto save is a mystery and a fucked up feature.
Maybe Cyberlink thought that you might close PowerDVD without saving the playlist so they figured, "Hey, let's make it save the playlist automatically. That way the user can play the same files next time he/she starts PowerDVD". If I want to save the playlist I will fucking do it myself in the folder I want. The playlist is only used when opening media files(avi, mkv, wmv ...), not DVD files so in the DVD case the playlist is created for no purpose. Fucking stupid.

2. The shit continues on startup.
Cyberlink likes high volume. Let's say that you lowered the volume on Winamp because somebody called you on the phone. Then you start PowerDVD. What does it do? Well, it changes the volume to max. Stupid? Yes.

3. Ever more shit on startup.
This occurs with the Soundblaster Live! soundcard, not with my current card (C-media). Let's say that I have a quadrophonic (4 speaker) sound system and the rear speakers are a bit more far away from me than the front speakers. Using the Soundblaster setup prog I change the volume to be a bit louder from the rear speakers to make to sound even. PowerDVD resets this on startup. Fucking stupid? Oh yeah.

4. Exiting full screen
PowerDVD resizes the preview window to the movie size when opening the movie files. OK, I resize the preview window because I think it's unnessesary to have it hiding the other windows behind it. I go to full screen mode and later exit full screen mode. What does PowerDVD do? Yes, it resizes the preview window back to the movie size! How fucked up is that??!

5. Master of volume
Now for the most unwanted fucked-up feature of PowerDVD. Using the volume control in PowerDVD changes the volume for the ENTIRE OPERATING SYSTEM, not just for PowerDVD (as it should). It's like a five year old kid would have coded the volume control part of PowerDVD!


WinDVD

To come...