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Over the past couple of years, I've tried playing the new 4K UHD Blu-ray discs with several software players. Many crumple under the load. Up until now, MPC-BE was my best experience, playing flawlessly, but without any disc menus. I own PowerDVD13 and PowerDVD17, and neither could play the 4K media, it was just a stuttering mess at best.

I just bought PowerDVD 20 and gave it a try, and to my surprise it plays 4K UHD Blu-ray perfectly, menus and all!

I've never tried PowerDVD 18 or 19, so I don't know when CyberLink improved support. But I can vouch for PowerDVD20.

One word of caution, I read a report that CyberLink has removed Blu-ray 3D support from PowerDVD 20. If this is something you want/need, PowerDVD 19 is the last player with 3D support.

That's good to know. I have been watching the prices of powerdvd 20 since I am running out of licenses for 17. I also have been told on a forum I frequent that intel SGS compatibility isn't required when their product is used to treat a disc in order to backup a title. Paul, have you tried that with an AMD CPU or NVIdia, or AMD GPU?

Jamie

I'll check once my new 4k drive arrives. USPS is overwhelmed.

I do have an update to share. In the course of investigating a related issue, I've learned that PowerDVD 20 officially permits playing non-protected 4k UHD Blu-rays without imposing the Intel SGX requirement. This "feature" or capability was added to later versions of PowerDVD 19, but not all PDVD 19 versions have the feature and not all users were able to get it to work. So PowerDVD 20 really is the first version to officially have this capability.

Of course, if you are playing a protected 4K UHD Blu-ray, Intel SGX is still a requirement. From what I hear, because the little red fox removes protections, this results in removing the Intel SGX requirement too.

But, for some reason HDR is still an issue. I think PowerDVD 20 may be artificially binding HDR capability to Intel integrated GPU's only. So even though I can play 4K UHD Blu-rays, I always get prompted that my system can't do HDR and I can either stop playback or play without HDR. Playing without HDR is also broken - the movie itself looks okay, but if the menus contain HDR then they do not display correctly. On one of my discs, the text on the menus was in HDR, so I can't make out any text, it's all just blobs of white.

MPC-BE of course plays back 4K UHD Blu-rays with HDR, but you can't load menus at all.

So PowerDVD 20 is very close to being great, but the HDR support for non-Intel platforms is artificially broken, probably a brokered deal...

Hi Paul,
I still haven’t upgraded my HTPC yet. I did finally set up my server, and it’s running just fine now. Still have to bring my htpc online, but that will be next weekend. Now that PVD 20 plays 4k UHD discs, I may pick that up. Even though the little red fox removes the sgx requirement from your observations, PVD20 still issues with with non intel gpu’s. If it wants intel hardware, I might as well give it what it wants to avoid the issue you observed.

That's my thinking too. Though I should have a more complete answer in a week. I have an Nvidia card on backorder for the PC, and I'm hoping that HDR works on Nvidia where it doesn't on AMD. The card is supposed to be back in stock tomorrow.

Pauven wrote: ↑Mon Jan 11, 2021 9:58 am That's my thinking too. Though I should have a more complete answer in a week. I have an Nvidia card on backorder for the PC, and I'm hoping that HDR works on Nvidia where it doesn't on AMD. The card is supposed to be back in stock tomorrow.

I decided to pull the trigger and buy power dvd 20. I decided that the blue ray play back was pretty good especially bluray episodes. If it doesn't play bluray UHD I figure that it is no loss. I will have a good Bluray tester and player.

Jamie

I got an email on my backordered Nvidia GPU. It was supposed to come in stock yesterday, so today they emailed me a new in-stock ETA another week out.

I've been on this rollercoaster ride before. I have a feeling it might not come in for months, if ever...

Pauven wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 10:03 am I got an email on my backordered Nvidia GPU. It was supposed to come in stock yesterday, so today they emailed me a new in-stock ETA another week out.

I've been on this rollercoaster ride before. I have a feeling it might not come in for months, if ever...

This graphics card shortage is nearly as bad as the Bit Coin shortage. I think this shortage is due to Nvidia and AMD not keeping up with demaind and forcing people to pay more money for a GPU.