Cyberlink PowerDVD 11 Ultra review

The smartphone apps are a mixed bag. If the phone is connected to the same network as the PC running PowerDVD, it will list the PC as a server. Once you’ve connected you can use the phone’s touchscreen to control Blu-ray or DVD playback with onscreen controls, or use the screen like a laptop touchpad to control your mouse pointer. It all works well enough, but if a phone call comes in on the iPhone you’ll have to reconnect to the server, and the app’s Video, Photo and Music functions seem superfluous – all they do is bring up the pointer control feature so you can navigate to the appropriate tabs in PowerDVD’s interface on your PC.

We did find one feature particularly useful, though – connecting your smartphone to PowerDVD over the network means you can view any photos or videos on your handset from within the software on your PC, without having to plug your phone in first. You can’t use this interface to copy files across, unfortunately.

If you want to play Blu-ray discs on your PC, you’ll need to buy some kind of playback software. The main competition is Corel’s WinDVD Pro 2010, which also supports 3D Blu-ray playback. This is around £13 cheaper than PowerDVD, but has a clunky interface and none of the extra features of CyberLink’s software. Considering you can buy a standalone Blu-ray player from a major manufacturer for £70, you’d have to really want to play Blu-ray discs on your PC to spend this much on software, but if you do PowerDVD 11 works well and has some interesting extra features.