CyberLink Introduces PowerDVD 13 – Sports ‘Video Beyond HD’, 4K Support & Windows 8 App

It’s not often that we talk about commercial media player software here, but CyberLink’s latest PowerDVD packs in some new features that are worth talking about. As mentioned a couple of years ago, I’ve come to prefer PowerDVD for my video needs because I feel it delivers the best image quality, and the folks there are always quick to adopt advanced features made possible by the likes of Intel, AMD and NVIDIA.

PowerDVD 13 is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it touts “Video Beyond HD”, which aims to improve the look of any video, including Blu-ray and HD content in general. To master this, edge-detection is implemented, along with advanced color and lighting technologies. I am pretty interested in seeing if I can actually a spot a difference here.

The application has also received a code overhaul, resulting in the fastest, most responsive PowerDVD yet. This is something I feel is long overdue, so I’m glad to see it finally taken care of. Of course, with this overhaul comes a couple of upgrades. APE audio support has been added, along with AVCHD 2.0 and of course, 4K video support is now standard.

Perhaps most interesting about this release is the update to the company’s mobile video player. Now, Windows 8 is supported, along with Android and iOS. This is a player I actually haven’t given a try before, so I am interested in testing it out with this new version. Good video players are pretty hard to come by on the mobile side, so I’m hoping this one manages to impress. At $20, it certainly costs a lot more than most other video players on mobile platforms.

Other enhancements to this version includes an all-new movie library, high DPI mode, enhanced DLNA compatibility, a new subtitle rendering engine, folder drag and drop support (something I thought already existed), improved playback controls and so more.