Ive talked about playing Blu-ray movies on your PC before. I thought Id take a quick moment to highlight another wonderful app for Windows 7 that includes Blu-ray playback support: Cyberlink PowerDVD 10 Mark II.

Along with the standard Blu-ray playback support, if you have a 3D PC using PowerDVD 10 you can play 3D Blu-ray movies as well! PowerDVD 10 also upscales regular DVDs when output to an HDTV for higher quality and clarity. PowerDVD 10 also supports high-definition audio formats from Dolby Digital and DTS. For a more complete overview of PowerDVD 10, click here.

PowerDVD 10 also utilizes several Windows 7 features such as Taskbar Previews where you can stop, play rewind for fast forward video content you are playing.

You can also right-click on PowerDVD 10 on your taskbar to take advantage of PowerDVDs Jump List which features quick tasks such as accessing your Blu-ray player or opening media files.

And if youre an extensive Windows Media Center user like me, when PowerDVD 10 is installed, it creates a menu option within Windows Media Center which enables quick access to PowerDVD 10 right from Windows Media Center.

You can download a free trial of Cyberlink PowerDVD 10 here.

Audio junkies and gamers listen up imagine a device that could easily upgrade any stereo headset to 7.1 Channel Dolby Surround Sound. Turtle Beach is lifting the covers on a device that does just that. Today, Turtle Beach is announcing their Ear Force DSS product a surround sound processor that takes in audio from an analog stereo source (like a stereo headset) and upgrades it to Dolby Pro Logic IIx for virtual surround sound (7.1 Channel Dolby Surround Sound). With any stereo headset, you can use the Ear Force DSS to get 7.1 Channel Dolby Surround Sound while watching movies and TV (or Internet TV) through Windows Media Center, Blu-ray movies, or playing games all on your Windows PC. Turtle Beach makes some amazing headset products that the Ear Force DSS serves as a perfect complement to such as the Ear Force X31, X11, XLC, Z1 and PX21. The Ear Force DSS and Ear Force headsets are perfect for gamers looking to have impressive audio capabilities while gaming and work not just with Windows PCs, but also with Xbox 360s (and PlayStation 3s) as well.

Converting audio streams already contained inside an MKV can be a daunting process for the beginner. First, well need to extract the audio tracks from the MKV container then well begin the process of converting the track. Finally, well re-mux the entire project back into a new MKV file. There are any number of reasons why one would want to convert from one audio type to another, compatibility with certain hardware such as Media Center Extenders not being the least of them. For this guide well convert from an incompatible DTS stream to an AC3 stream for Media Center Extender compatibility.

Before we get started well need to download and install a few programs. First, in order to read and thereby convert the DTS stream we need a decoder such as FFDShow installed. Under a default installation FFDShow should be all set to decode a wide variety of audio formats including DTS. Next, we need to download and install MKVToolnix and MKVExtract. Installing MKVToolnix

PowerPlaylist adds a strip in the start menu of Windows Media Center which adds five different tiles. These tiles represent audio, slideshow, and/or virtualization combination and according to the developer they are highly customizable. In order of appearance, they are Audio only, Slideshow only, Audio+Slideshow, Audio+Visualization, Audio+Slideshow+Visualization.

Here is how the Audio+Visualization looks like. Note that I have selected bars and you can change the visualization by hitting the Ctrl -/+ hotkey.

Download PowerPlaylist

Apart from Windows 7 Media Center, it also works with Windows Vista Media Center. Enjoy!

Previously, getting MKV to work properly inside Windows 7 Media Center has required quite a bit of effort on the part of the end user. It was necessary to install a number of third party codecs, make modifications to the registry and tweak codec settings to get everything to play nicely. By default Windows 7 Media Center uses a new method for playing back audio video content known as Windows Media Foundation which replaces the older method known as DirectShow. Unfortunately, every codec package available to this point is programmed for DirectShow and doesnt take advantage of the new WMP format meaning playing non-supported formats was a substantial hassle.

Luckily for us there is a small light at the end of the tunnel in the form of Divx Labs MKV project. The Divx Labs project aims to utilize the Windows Media Foundation to enable playback of the popular MKV format on both the main Media Center machine as well as extenders. Not only does this mean support for extenders but it could also very well mean the end to playing with various codec package settings to tweak the audio/video settings to match the output of the default Media Center playback.

Beyond enabling playback through your Windows Media Center Extenders, the picture quality of the Windows Media Foundation solution is incredible and contains complete DVXA hardware acceleration support. So not only is the quality fantastic but hardware acceleration will keep frame rates right where they should be without the drops that can sometimes occur with CPU intensive codecs such as FFDShow.

Using Divx Labs MKV preview video quality is amazing in full 1080p without so much as a hint of latency in the playback. There are still a few downsides to using the preview though. For instance, youll still be required to install a third party codec for audio playback depending on the audio encoding used for your movies. The newest version of AC3Filter is all youll need though and provides ACM wrapper allowing the playback to be passed through Windows Media Foundation as well.

To give this great new product a try just head on over to the Divx Labs MKV Tech Preview page and create an account. Then hit up the Project Rmoulade Apps group page for a list of downloads and grab the latest version of the tech preview. To get your MKV files to show up in the native movie library youll still need to install the registry fix for either x86 systems or x64 systems depending on the OS being used. Dont forget to grab the latest version of AC3Filter Full as well if you need extra support for AC3 audio and install that as well.

Thats all you need to give this tech preview from Dixv Labs a try and get MKV videos playing through the new Windows Media Foundation system. Be sure to subscribe to Hack7MC to get the latest info and updates on this ongoing Divx Labs project and Windows Media Foundation.

So you want to watch Blu-ray movies on a computer? Then PowerDVD Ultra 9 is the program for you. The latest version of Cyberlinks media player, at a cost of $99, is all about high definition movies and Blu-ray, plugging the hole left Vistas lack of native Blu-ray support. PowerDVD Ultra 9 is a solid step in the right direction. Nothing revolutionary but improvements all around.

PowerDVD Ultra New Features
Cyberlink was kind enough to provide me with a release candidate version of PowerDVD Ultra 9 to review for this article. From the press materials they provided me, the following features were added to PowerDVD:
TrueTheater Technology up-scales DVD for playback on HD displays
Cinema Mode provides seamless Blu-ray playback to Microsoft Windows Media Center PCs
Up-to 8-channel high-definition audio is supported for Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound
systems
FancyView enables easier, more pleasurable navigation of DVD titles, chapters and movie information.
Library features allow information to be stored about both DVD and Blu-ray titles
MoovieLive.com enables sharing of stored movie information, personal ratings and reviews.

The Good
For me, PowerDVD Ultra 9 offers two main upgrades over version 8: tight integration with Windows Media Center and DVD upconverting through its new TrueTheater settings. Support for HD Audio codecs is once again included, as it was in version 8 (note: hardware is still not available to actually listen to these HD audio codecs and wont be until Q3 of 2009).
Media Center integration works well. No dropping to the desktop or anything funky like that. The experience is almost seamless. Just dont hit the back button too many times or you will get kicked out of Media Center. Third-party plugins are able to piggyback on to PowerDVD. This means programs like Open Media Library and Media Browser are able to launch ripped movies from the media center UI. Finally.

PowerDVD Ultra had been losing market share in the media center word to TotalMedia Theatre by Arcsoft, mainly because TotalMedia Theatre was integrated better with Windows Media Center. Cyberlink had worked with OEMs like Velocity Micro PC to develop a media center plugin but it was never made available to the public. PowerDVD 9 rectifies this and once again appears to be the top choice for watching Blu-ray movies on a PC.

The Bad
PowerDVD suffers from an odd design choice, the inability to play ripped Blu-ray movies. You have to rip movies as an ISO file and then use a virtual drive to load the discs. For media center users, playing digital movies from a hard drive is essential. This has nothing to do with piracy. People just want to organize their movies like they organize their digital music files.
Out of Cyberlinks control, the copy protection for Blu-ray movies can be a real pain, especially on a computer. You have to have a video AND a monitor that both support HDCP. If you have a monitor or video card older than two years, you are most likely out of luck. I use a 24 Dell monitor to watch Blu-ray movies on my desktop. I have to use AnyDVD HD to strip out out the content protection since my monitor does not support HDCP.

Moovielive.com also seems kind of pointless. I really am not too interested to see what other PowerDVD users are watching. It seems like everyone is trying to add social networking to their products. Moovielive.com information should be made available though the media center interface.

Conclusion
With Blu-ray drives now easily found for under $100, high definition movies are more attainable than ever for the home theater computer crowd. PowerDVD Ultra 9 is an evolutionary product that should be looked at by any media center user, especially those with Blu-ray drives. If you are just looking for a software DVD player, PowerDVD is overkill, with cheaper options available.

For Brits, or anyone else who enjoys BBC radio, theres now a new plugin for Vista Media Center that lets you listen to BBC Radio from within Media Center: BeebMC. This plugin is pretty cool, but there are a couple of downsides that you should be aware of: 1) it uses Real Player to do the streaming (so you need to have that installed in order to use it) and 2) it doesnt work with extenders. Both of these problems have to do with the fact that the BBC streams their radio via Real Audio, an unfortunate choice on their part considering how many different options there are today. Still, if youre interested in listening to the British perspective on things, this could be a fun way to do so using your Media Center PC. You can download the plugin from here.

(via We Got Served)