Cyberlink PowerDVD 23 Ultra Blu-ray player software for the year 2024 (user review)

[HDTV1080P]

Back in the year 2019 I purchased some Pioneer BDR-211UBK (also called BDR-211M) 4K Ultra HD BD-ROM drives for $129.95 each. I am also running the latest Pioneer firmware update that is version 1.54 from the year 2023. But sadly, when I recently played a out of print used rental Blu-ray disc that has major deep scratches from being damaged by a prior rental customer, while the year 2016 OPPO UDP-203 will only freeze for a few seconds and skip ahead a few minutes past the bad area of the disc. However, the latest Cyberlink PowerDVD 23 Ultra program when it encounters a very deeply scratched disc will lockup and freeze and loses all communication with the BD-ROM drive. The Cyberlink programmers need to write a firmware update so when a consumer is playing an optical disc that is extremely damaged with a lot of scratches, that instead of the BD-ROM drive sitting there for 10 to 15 minutes trying to play the exact same spot on the disc, instead the PowerDVD 23 Ultra program needs to tell the BD-ROM drive to skip ahead a few seconds and keep skipping ahead until it finds an area of the disc that is not damaged. There are both rental and sometimes brand-new optical discs that sometimes have faint deep scratches that are sometimes not visible to the human eye, and in the ideal world all computer and standalone Blu-ray players should perform like the OPPO UDP-203 and skip ahead a few seconds or a few minutes until the unplayable damaged portion of the optical disc is skipped over. That is better then having to power cycle the computer or standalone Blu-ray player.

On November 24th 2022 Pioneer released the new and improved Pioneer BDR-S13U-X which is offered on Amazon’s website for $290. Even though the “Ultra HD Blu-ray” logo was removed from the drive, the spec sheet still claims it still reads 4K Blu-ray discs but of course no legally licensed Windows software exists to playback 4K Blu-ray discs. Some of the reasons for the jump in price from the $129.99 list price of the year 2019 Pioneer BDR-211UBK drive I own and the year 2022 Pioneer BDR-S13U-X for $290, is because of two factors. Inflation in computer components and also since there is less demand for optical drives they are now more expensive do to being made in lower QTY’s. But even if I purchased this new $290 Pioneer drive, I believe the PowerDVD 23 Ultra program would have the same exact problem when reading a very damaged scratched rental disc no matter which optical drive is attached. The PowerDVD 23 Ultra program is what controls the BD-ROM drive, and the programmers just need to tell the BD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives what to do when trying to read a very bad scratched disc. The entire PowerDVD 23 Ultra program locks up for 10 to 15 minutes when reaching a bad area of the disc, and sometimes after 10 or 15 minutes of being freezed in the same spot, it will stop and pop up a message that the disc cannot be read. But if one does not want to wait 10 or 15 minutes, they have to either power cycle the computer or try and end tasking on PowerDVD 23 Ultra in Windows task manger so the program and BD-ROM drive do not remain locked up. I really hope this issue is fixed with a firmware update from Cyberlink, but if one has all perfect optical discs with no major scratch damage, like I do in 99.9% of my collection, then one will never experience this problem with PowerDVD 23 Ultra or prior versions of PowerDVD Ultra.

https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/P...ves/BDR-211UBK (the old 2019 Pioneer BD-ROM drive I am currently using with the latest 2023 1.54 firmware update)

https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/P...ves/BDR-S13U-X (the latest year 2022 Pioneer BD-ROM drive offered for sell)