Tools and other software Why buying Cyberlink PowerDVD is like burning money... (2 Viewers)

[mmf]

Hi fellows,
I ordered From Paris with love (don’t watch btw.) at a online video rental and tried to watch it with PowerDVD 9 (which I bought 2 years ago). Strangely the movie could not be played, as PowerDVD always wanted to update itself to „support the movie“.

Didn’t work – trivial reason, which is stated on the Cyberlink home page:
As the development phase of CyberLink PowerDVD 7/8/9 Ultra retail version has now ended, there will be no further Blu-ray Disc compatibility updates for those versions.

What’s the actual meaning of this? Cyberlink won’t publish updates any more. Understandable, not easy to support four major version released over the last 2 years (WTF?).

But it’s easily proved by e.g. installing a trial of AnyDVD HD that they are just not providing their customers the Digital Rights Management licenses, which are needed for playing back newer BDs. It just „works“ then
I.e. you’re going to pay every two years (worst case scenario like me) for an update, which enables you to watch new movies. Splendid.

Imagine, trying to install software on your Windows 7 clients (released 2009). Oh, but the bad, bad software is just so new, you have to upgrade to Windows 8. Oh, and btw – the update is just as expensive as the full version
Cyberlink – you’re the worst. Welcome to the axis of evil. Never ever again.

 

[Owlsroost]

Yep (although this is a potential issue with standalone hardware players as well) - you could say this is payback from Hollywood for someone cracking the DVD encryption years ago (as in Blu-Ray has much more 'active' encryption key control, including the ability to revoke existing keys in the player).

I took advantage of the cheap Cyberlink christmas/new year upgrade offer to update my PDVD9 OEM to PDVD11 Ultra (so I should be 'safe' for at least 18 months), but I did think hard about just buying a cheap standalone player instead......

Tony

 

[mmf]

Never encountered this problem on hardware for a looong time. Btw - nice reaction from Cyberlink - I posted this text in their forums and they just removed it. The truth hurts too much, I guess.

 

[vuego]

AnyDVD HD is also expensive. You could try DVDFab Passkey lite for free decryption of Blu-ray discs and then play back using MediaPortal from Area 51

 

[mmf]

AnyDVD is too expensive, true. Thanks for the tip, exactly what I needed. Maybe even my PowerDVD (that is too old for playing back "new" discs") will work too

 

[Larry Heart]

Well, I also have 8 version, it's annoyingly slow and randomly quits. The only reason I'm still using it that it plays BR discs...