WinDVD 2010 Pro

Written by Adam | posted in Corel | 1 Rating

RRP $99.99 $59.99

For playing DVDs and Blu-Rays on your home computer or laptop, WinDVD 2010 by Corel is a strong choice in playback software. WinDVD offers all of the standard features of modern DVD playback software, including the ability to use Dolby Digital Sound, crystal clear digital video quality, full menu navigation using keyboard or mouse, and subtitle management. But this program goes one step further than the competition by also offering battery optimization for those who watch movies or videos on their laptops, as well as providing an easy to use touch screen interface for touch screen computers running Windows 7.

Searching through your DVDs for your favorite scenes is no longer a hassle using WinDVD 2010. Using bookmarks, quick-track, and chapters, navigation through DVDs is both fast and easy.

There are two different editions of WinDVD: Standard and Pro. The Pro version offers all of the same features as the Standard, along with support for high definition formats such as Blu-Ray or AVC-HD and GPU hardware acceleration of high definition content for smoother, more fluid playback.

In addition to these new video processing features, the Pro version also provides a multitude of sound processing options, including Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, Dolby Headphone, and Pro Logic IIx. These allow the sound of movies to really come to life if you are using a two-speaker or headphone setup instead of surround sound, like you would on most home computers or laptops.

The final benefits offered by the Pro version of WinDVD 2010 are Trimension and ALL2HD, two video stream processors. Trimension is a technology that evaluates the entire video and inserts extra frames in between those which already exist, increasing video fluidity and smoothness. This creates a more lifelike feel to the video, eliminating screen judder and other inconsistencies in filming.

ALL2HD is an upscaling technology which can take any standard definition video source and convert it to high definition. Doing so takes a decent bit of processing power, but the image quality improvements are very dramatic. Using this feature will require a modern computer with a decent speed processor as well as a separate discreet graphics processing solution. For anyone with the available hardware, however, the results look absolutely fantastic.

Corel’s WinDVD 2010 is very powerful software, and works just as well as any of its competitors. Where it really shines, though, is in the advanced video processing that can be done with the Pro version. The standard edition is nothing to write home about, but the difference in video quality evident in WinDVD Pro is so stunning it simply must be seen.

Overall, if video quality is of top concern, and you have the graphics and general computing power to handle the job, WinDVD 2010 Pro comes at the top of my recommended list. It truly is a step above the competition in the high definition video processing market.

If you are just looking for low-priced DVD viewing software for your low-end computer, however, there are many options available at a lower price which will work just as well, if not faster due to their more optimized interfaces. WinDVD 2010 can tend to run quite slowly on an aged machine, so new hardware is necessary.

System Requirements

• Intel® Core™ II Duo T2400 1.83 GHz, AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0 GHz or higher recommended
• Windows 7, Windows XP SP3 or Windows Vista SP1 (recommended)
• 1 GB of RAM
• NVIDIA G8x and above; AMD M7x and above; Intel GM45/G45 series (Windows Vista/Windows 7). Minimum 128 MB VRAM; recommended 256 VRAM
• 250 MB of free disk space
• Windows-compatible sound card
• Windows-compatible optical drive for DVD/AVCHD playback
• Windows-compatible BD drive for BD playback
• Internet connection required for online features (BD-Live)

Best Place to Buy: Publisher Direct - RRP $99.99 $59.99