Cyberlink Media Suite 9: All the Roar?

How do I pick the best laptop? Which brands make the best laptops: Asus, Acer, Lenovo, HP, Dell, Toshiba, Samsung, Sony, Apple? Should I get the newest model or hold off?

There are lots of questions, and the selection of laptops today is so big that it’s tough to choose. Actually, it’s not that hard. In this article, I will explain the core ideas and priorities: low cost and high performance.

Choosing the brand

There are various views, but it’s best to go for a brand that has high sales worldwide, where making laptops is a key focus: Lenovo, HP, Dell, Acer, Asus, Toshiba, or Samsung. Apple and Sony laptops are seen differently because their brand prices are very high, and Apple uses its unique operating system. These brands are often picked by those wanting to show status, even though the quality of these brands is more about marketing and repairs can be very costly.

From what I found online, the top laptops (for quality and price) are Asus models, while Acer and Lenovo offer the best performance for the price, though usually with lower quality. Samsung, Toshiba, and Dell face various issues, and the reviews on HP are so mixed that I can’t reach a clear decision. It’s important to point out that all brands have certain models with a short lifespan, often due to overheating.

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Look in the package

The components of Media Suite 9 are the following products:

Cinematic entertainment

• PowerDVD – Plays Blu-Ray (Ultra only), HD and 3D

Video editing and record creation

• PowerDirector: HD video editing
• PowerProducer: Blu-Ray and DVD creation

Editing the audio track

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• WaveEditor – audio editing

Video Conversions: New!

• MediaEspresso (Ultra and Pro only) – Media conversion

Disc burning and data security

• Power2Go: burn discs
• PowerBackup: backup copies of your data
• PowerDVD Copy: Copy DVDs
• InstantBurn: A bundle of burning options
• LabelPrint: Create labels

Quick photo management

• MediaShow – Photo Organizer
• PhotoNow! – quick and easy photo editing

Interface and operation

After installation, Media Suite 9 presents you with an app launcher that resembles the Apple Dock.

Launching applications

The app launcher is divided into seven activity areas, behind which the appropriate entries are hidden.

Depending on the selected action, the app launcher launches the appropriate application or accesses its internal functions (e.g. audio ripper, disc image burning, etc.).
Individual programs can also be started directly.

Short individual presentation

Below we will briefly present the individual parts of the program in more detail.

PowerDVD

Cyberlink PowerDVD 10 is beyond reproach and is by far the best DVD/BD playback software on the market. This is proven by numerous tests from various magazines.
PowerDVD enables CPU/GPU-accelerated DVD and Blu-Ray (Ultra Edition only, including 3D) playback as well as lossless HD audio playback. TrueTheater 3D makes it easy to convert DVDs from 2D to 3D and visually enhance DVD and video files with TrueTheater HD enhancement technology. As usual, using the software is simple.

Additionally, PowerDVD also integrates into the Windows Vista and Windows 7 media center so it can also be used as a DVD/BD playback module.
Additionally, PowerDVD can also be used to play music and other movie material, and can even access DLNA servers on the Internet.

PowerDirector

PowerDirector is the first choice for comprehensive video editing. With its clear interface, broad format support, real-time editing of HD material, functional timeline, PiP functions, numerous effects, filters, transitions and much more, the program has been gaining a top spot among video enthusiasts for years.

However, Media Suite 9 only includes the older version PowerDirector 8, which does not yet offer the optimized techniques for accelerated HD video editing and full 64-bit support.
You can find a detailed introduction to PowerDirector version 9 here.

PowerProducer

PowerProducer 5.5 takes care of Blu-Ray and DVD authoring. You can use the program to transform pre-edited films or other video material into an attractive form with interactive menus, background music or introductory videos.

The user is supported by assistants during creation. The software can process almost any video material and convert it according to the output media.

There are numerous menu templates, but not all of them are pleasant and often seem too playful. There are others that can be downloaded from DirectorZone, but they are not particularly convincing. Unfortunately the software is not very flexible when it comes to creating custom templates and imposes significant restrictions on the user. For example, you can’t invite or create your own buttons. The text functions are also not convincing. We expected more from a software that costs just under 50 euros in the stand-alone version. Competitor Nero shows how it can be done better with Nero Vision.

Video conversions with MediaEspresso

With MediaEspresso 6 multimedia files can be converted and optimized for numerous devices. MediaEspresso not only works with video files, but can also convert audio and image files, even in batch mode and with multiple files at the same time. For users of Windows Vista and Windows 7 there is a desktop gadget with which you can use the program and which automatically recognizes connected devices (and, if necessary, converts and copies the content directly). Video files can not only be converted, but also automatically uploaded to YouTube or Facebook. The support of large formats makes the program the ideal tool for format conversions, e.g. for iPhone, iPad, PSP and other portable devices.

We had already presented the program in more detail in 2010, so we refer you to this presentation.

Wave Publisher

For audio editing (for example for your own video production with PowerDirector), Cyberlink provides the internal WaveEditor, which offers enough options to edit your own audio files with trimming and trimming functions, numerous effects and support for VST plugins. Thanks to the undo function up to 50 times, changes can be easily undone.

Data burning and backup options

Several programs take care of burning and backup tasks.

With Power2Go7 User can burn data, photos, music and videos to DVD, CD and Blu-Ray. The burning program also supports the BDXL format, which allows you to burn up to 128 GB on a single disc. The operation of Power2Go is task-oriented, as the following screenshot shows.

The display while burning files corresponds to the usual 3-part display:

If desired, you can verify the written data. There are no special features such as creating bootable disks. Disc images can be created or burned in the program’s native P2i and open ISO formats.

The audio ripping function, also used by the app launcher to play music, is very basic. Only WAV or WMA (maximum 128 Kbit) can be specified as the output format.

It is not known which Internet database is used for the ID tags, but the result is not very convincing: Almost none of the test CDs were recognized, so the tags had to be entered manually.

PowerBackup creates backup copies of files and folders on DVD/CD or Blu-Ray, but can also store backups on hard drives (USB) or over the network. The backup is then saved in its own container format. In addition to the backup, a recovery tool may also be located on the backup media.

The backup program offers full, differential and sequential backup methods, can encrypt and compress the backup. The backup verification function, activated by default, is also commendable. Log files and point-in-time backups complete the positive impression of the backup solution.

Copy PowerDVD On the other hand, it transcodes DVD movies as long as they are not encoded in CSS. Since this is the smallest number of films available for purchase and rental, the benefit is very limited without additional programs, which are illegal in Germany. Ideally, the user can determine which components (main film, trailer, menus, soundtracks, etc.) make it to the target medium and how good the overall quality will be compared to the original.

PrintLabel deals with the printing of labels for booklets or record stickers. The Lightscribe feature is also implemented in LabelPrint.

Quick photo management

The suite offers 2 components for the photo management area.

PhotoNow! it’s a pretty poor photo editor in both appearance and functionality, and doesn’t match the other components of MediaSuite. It can add effects to images and crop them, as well as make color adjustments and remove red eye. At least there’s a New:Original view.

MediaShow On the other hand it is a Picasa style image management system with integrated facial recognition, rating, photo tags, etc.

As with Google’s free offering, you can output images as films or video discs or upload them to Flickr or Facebook.

Conclusion

While Nero Multimedia Suite has its roots in the burning industry, Cyberlink Media Suite is exactly the opposite. PowerDVD and PowerDirector are the heavyweights and driving forces of the suite, alongside the other satellites. All that glitters is not gold, as PowerProducer proves. The burning functions with Power2Go are sufficient, but not exhaustive. The suite’s lack of functionality is particularly flawed when it comes to reading audio data carriers. PowerBackup, on the other hand, stands out as a gem, even if no one buys the suite just for the backup program. MediaEspresso also knows its job well as a format converter. It seems that the two modules for editing and image management have been added. We expected and missed proper multimedia management for images, video and audio as well as a DLNA server.

If you look at the individual prices of PowerDVD 10 3D and PowerDirector, if you purchase both products you are already well above the full price of Cyberlink Media Suite Ultra. However, you get PowerDirector version 8, which is bearable given the savings. Therefore all potential buyers of PowerDVD or PowerDirector should check in advance whether it would be better to purchase Media Suite in the appropriate edition. If, however, the focus of your purchase is more on the «burning» area, there are certainly better alternatives.