PowerDVD vs WinDVD ?

[eviltoon]

I am going to purchase one of these two in a couple of hours. From what I've read, the WinDVD has a better picture while Power DVD offers better sound options and better features. I guess I'm looking for picture quality as my biggest concern, but what kind of picture difference between the two is there really? They are both identical in price. I'd love to hear pros and cons from any who have these software players.

Also, I have the ability to get the WinDVD 2000 version for a very good price $19.95 Canadian. Is there a reason to go for the higher priced WinDVD3 of Power DVD 4?

Thanks to any who can guide me here.

 

[richleader]

Windvd is sharper in capturing the original grain of the film. Powerdvd has grain that seems to be more from the decompression than the actual film, but it has a smoother picture (motion wise) if you have a high resolution screen.

WinDVD 2000 has the highest visual quality, higher than later versions (though only slightly, and only during freeze frame to a discerning eye, really). It's more processor intensive though. And I can't guarantee it will run flawless with Win Xp like Windvd 3 does. But if that isn't an issue, go for it.

 

[eviltoon]

To clarify the operating system and processor speed...I am running Windows 2000 and have a P4 1.5.

Thanks

 

[corkyg]

 

[richleader]

Go for the windvd2000 then, no reason not to.

Just FYI, I have Windvd 3 and powerdvd, I prefer the skins for windvd (it has vertical oriented ones which are nice if you have non wide screen videos, as you can have the player next to a 75% screen window). I don't have a fancy speaker system so I can't vouch for the better sound of powerdvd.

 

[corkyg]

I have bought both WinDVD and PowerDVD. I first got the latest version of WinDVD last fall for use with 98 and ME. It worked great! Then I upgraded to XP, and WinDVD insisted on giving me a patch. But the patch was incapable of doing its thing because I do not put my apps on C:\ Program Files. The patch was so stupid as not to allow me to tell it where to find the WinDVD files. I screwed around with that for a week and it really got annoying, so I uninstalled it.

I then downloaded and paid for Power DVD 4.0, and it was perfecto as far as XP was concerned. End of story. I now have PDVD on all my XP systems. It's the only one that worked with XP and did not demand an unfulfillable upgrade.