Articles - > WinDVD Review

Title:	WinDVD Review
Description:	A comprehensive review of Intervideo/Corel WinDVD, one of the world's most popular DVD player software
Author/Publisher:	Digital Digest
Ease of use:	Beginners
Latest Version:	9.0 (details)
OS Support:
Software Used:	WinDVD
Date Added:	Jul 2, 2000
Last Updated:	Mar 27, 2008
Page Viewed:	274658 times

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muchfedup: I upgraded last year from preinstalled...
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Categories:

Main Categories: DVD/SVCD/VCD (MPEG-1/2), High Definition (Blu-ray, HD DVD, HDTV), Play, Reviews
Sub Categories:
Playing Videos -> Blu-ray Playback
Playing Videos -> DVD Playback (Software Based)
Playing Videos -> HD DVD Playback

Introduction:

WinDVD 9 is here, the 9th generation of WinDVD. Once produced by Intervideo, who has since been purchased by software giant Corel, this is the first new version of WinDVD for quite a while (since November 2006, in fact) and is also the first version to be produced by Corel. And to continue the "firsts", this is also the first commercially available version of WinDVD to feature Blu-ray (and HD DVD) playback - the previous WinDVD HD/BD versions being OEM affairs only.

To be perfectly blunt, WinDVD 8.0 was a bit of a disappointment. It didn't even install properly on my main test machine. But when it did install and run, it was a good player, but with PowerDVD as the main competition, it just wasn't good enough. Since then, PowerDVD 7 and PowerDVD Ultra have come and replaced WinDVD as the "must-have" DVD playback software on PCs, so WinDVD 9 has some catching up to do. So does WinDVD 9 have what it takes to take on PowerDVD? Read on to find out ...

P.S: I've changed the way this article is presented. Previously, all archived reviews were placed at the end of the main review. I have now split them off into a separate "archive" guide, so please refer to the WinDVD Review Archive if you want to read the review of WinDVD 8.0 and all earlier versions right up to WinDVD 2.0!

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Article Navigation:

Page 1: Introduction <--
Page 2: What's new in WinDVD 9
Page 3: Full Review of WinDVD 9
Page 4: WinDVD 9 Review Conclusions/Ratings

Revision History:

Version 9.0:

Date Updated: Mar 27, 2008
Updated review for WinDVD 9

Version 8.0:

Date Updated: Nov 16, 2006
Added review for WinDVD 8.0

Version 7.0:

Date Updated: Jun 28, 2005
Added review for WinDVD 7.0

User Rating:

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Non-Registered Users:	(38 votes)

User Comments:

I upgraded last year from preinstalled WinDVD 5 to WinDVD 7 Platinum on a brand new Toshiba Qosmio player W pro SP2 MCE. Wasn't too impressed as the program only starts when it wants. Sometimes ok, sometimes I get nothing at all on double click. Support never replied. This year, I decided to write over this failed install and upgraded to WinDVD 8 Platinum. The install process went fine, wrote over a perfectly fine, registered and up to date version of Quick Time. the installer then downloaded a newer(...) version of Windows installer, went through the install process and left me at the end with an error 1628 failed installation. I can see WinDVD 8 in c/program file but if i click on the exe file, it first sends me to a registration page, then asks me if i would like to take part into some kind of online survey and then I get a Windows error, would you like to send the file to Microsoft. I repeated the same full process several times emptying the temp file every time. No program icon has been created, no short cut in the start menu, no entry in the "add remove program". Arghhhhhhh. How do I get rid of it. I tried contacting support @ intervideo through their automated link and received an email bak: user unknown. I tried "sales" with the same result. Their agent in the UK doesn't answer the phone. I finally managed to send an email to "billing" and await a reply. I have lost a lot of time and money. No way to contact the company and my computer is now clustered with a useless program impossible to remove. Shame there is no 0 rating.

muchfedup: This support document from InstallShield might help your situation: http://consumer.installshield.com/kb.asp?id=Q108464

I am absolutely disappointed by WinDVD 8. As as producer of DVD-Audio disks, up to now I used and recommended to my customers older versions of Inter Video WinDVD to play DVD-Audio Disks. I recently tried to update to WinDVD 8 and was not anymore able to play DVD-A's, not even my own disks. Apparently this feature was deliberately omitted in Win DVD 8 without any notice to potential customers. Fortunately Cyberlink's PowerDVD and Creative's DVD-A Player still work with DVD-A's. Don't ever update programs if not absolutely necessary! Gregor Antes, www.laborantes.com

laboraudio: WinDVD 8 does not have DVD-Audio playback due to issues that relates to people using it to rip the DVD-Audio discs. Our review did not really cover DVD-Audio in extensive detail, but I will be sure to update it to reflect this in the future.

WinDVD9 is a big disappointment for me. It completely removed DSP playback of MP3's. Even the equalizer is disabled. WinDVD's digital signal processing of mp3's is unrivaled. This has been the best reason why I use WinDVD and Corel completely ripped it off! The other complete disappointment is that WinDVD9 is memory hungry. It will drain most of your computer resources if you run it on an old system. It will keep crashing if you force it to play something and poke around the settings. I'm reinstalling back WinDVD7, the most stable so far.