If you want to watch movies on your desktop or laptop or, if you’re like me, plug the laptop into the big screen TV and play the Movies you downloaded, then you want to get a good quality DVD player for your computer.If you have windows 2000, XP or Vista you already have a media player that will do a decent job. But if you want exceptional quality audio and video, then you want to use PowerDVD 7 by Cyberlink.

Power DVD 7 is the number one ranked DVD player by the product review website toptenreviews.com

This program provides some of the best quality video and audio I have experienced when using the laptop connected directly to my high definition big screen TV. I can hook up to the home theater speakers I have and I have theater quality surround sound.

PowerDVD 7.0 can play all DVD formats including DVD-ROM movies and VCD titles. The Ultra version supports Blu-ray disc and HD DVD formats. You can also play video files encoded for your hard drive. Since this program cost between $50 and $100, it is definitely worth the cost.

System Requirements:

• Microsoft Windows ME, 2000, XP or Vista
• Screen Resolution minimum of 800 x 600 pixels with 1024 x 768 or higher recommended
• PCI sound card, USB audio box or motherboard built-in audio device
• Available hard disk space of at least 40 MB
• DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD-RAM, or DVD+RW drive with a 1394, ATAPI, SCSI, USB 2.0, or Card Bus interface
• A Video Display card supporting DirectDraw overlay

Features

While some of these features are not available on all versions of the software, PowerDVD 7 Ultra has all of the following features:

• It’s easy to install on windows XP and Vista and the program has an uncluttered appearance that makes navigation easy. One really nice feature is the ability to toggle the control panel to a mini size and put in the taskbar.
• All features can be accessed from the icons on the toolbar or by right-clicking your mouse anywhere on the screen. Then you can bring up context sensitive menus.
• PowerDVD 7.0 supports the Windows Media Center remote control.
• An automatic screen aspect ratio technology using CyberLink Pano Vision (CLPV) that adjusts to the size of your screen so you won’t have to spend time trying to get the best ratio
• The ability to play movies directly from your hard drive
• Let’s you drag and drop the video object file (VOB) in windows explorer onto the player to automatically start the movie.
• Ability to program your mouse or keyboard to make chapter selections, control volume, fast forward, reverse, etc.
• Has a built in power control feature for notebooks that balances the power to allow the movie to continue to the end.
• Supports H.264 playback, DivX Pro, WMV-HD, DVD Audio, CPRM, VCPS, DVD-VR, DVD-RAM, HD DVD, and Blu-ray disc
• CLEV-2 video technology is used to balance viewing quality by removing the dark overlay from night scenes and  adding contrast to brighter scenes to give you the most vivid, crisp and clear images possible. It also uses an adaptive de-interlacing program to avoid smeared, jagged or tiled spots on each individual frame.
• CLMEI-2 (Cyberlink Multi-Channel Environment Impression) uses Dolby Pro Logic technology to convert a two channel audio source into multi-channel audio for output. It also supports two headphone channels, a virtual speaker, dynamic range compression and low frequency sound effects providing a surround sound effect when the multi channel output is played through two or more speakers. There are also settings for quiet, noisy or normal listening environments. PowerDVD 7.0 also supports all of the major audio technologies such as Dolby Digital EX 7.1 Surround Sound, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, Dolby Pro Logic II multi-channel surround, and SRS TruSurround XT.
• The Say-It-Again feature lets you repeat what was just said so you don’t need to rewind to hear the part you missed
• Read-It-Clearly lets you move subtitles into the black bar below the viewing screen on wide screen movies.
• PowerDVD 7 provides support for multiple monitors, media servers and Universal Plug & Play (UPnP) devices.
• PowerDVD 7 provides good embedded help documentation, indexed by category with a built in search feature. There is also online support available.

Conclusion

The only negative I found is that the program doesn’t remember the screen size you used from the last session, which I find annoying. Other than that, PowerDVD 7 is the best DVD Player software available. It is well worth the cost. Not all of the features described above are available in all versions of the program so make sure you read the box to be sure the version you are buying has the features you want.