Black Boxes: CyberLink PowerVCR II 3.0 PVR software

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by John Davis
Winter 2001

CyberLink
(510) 668-0118
[www.gocyberlink.com]
$130

With the rapidly growing number of choices vying for our television viewing attention, managing all those choices has become increasingly difficult. One of the recent solutions is the personal video recorder (PVR), which allows smarter and more meaningful time shifting through services such as TiVo and ReplayTV.

Another new way of managing your broadcast entertainment is the PVS, or personal video system, which essentially is software that converts your computer into a full-function PVR. Somewhere between the world of the plain vanilla multimedia computer and one that is dressed-up as a PVS, lies the world of the PowerVCR. The PowerVCR is a dynamic time-shifting and media conversion specialist that, with adequate hardware under the hood, will add another level of control over your broadcast media.

What is a PowerVCR?
Going beyond the traditional functioning of a set-top VCR, CyberLink's new PowerVCR II 3.0 takes things a step further. Performing real-time MPEG-2 (and MPEG-1) recording from analog sources and converting from .avi video files or from DV sources allows you to build a high-quality digital video archive library of all your favorite footage, productions and programs. Also included is programmability for time shifting.

The PowerVCR breaks down its functions into nine broad areas, specified by nine buttons found on the "Master Panel," which floats to the left of the display. The panel consists of: Live/Digital Recording; Instant TV Replay; a button which powers up PowerDVD CyberLink's DVD player software; File Player; Recording Scheduler; File Converter; Video Trimmer; DV Tape Transcode, and i)Power, which opens a Web site to an electronic program guide, program demos, and some editing and production resources.

The Run-Through
Installation of the PowerVCR II 3.0 software went smoothly, although since they also add the latest Indeo drivers to our system, a restart was required. Once installed, we watched some TV and recorded a few minutes of different shows. The picture quality of the recorded programming was slightly better than VHS. We then went on to try out some of PowerVCR's more powerful features.

The PowerVCR's transcoding features intrigued us. The transcoding of DV to MPEG-2, from .avi to MPEG-2, and from MPEG-2 to DV all occurred in real time, with good, clean results.

We were disappointed, however, with the EPG and the "one-click recording scheduling." The EPG is simply a link from the i)Power page to Yahoo!'s TV listings. There was no interactive program guide that fed the selected programs into the PowerVCR II. Perhaps this is a feature that was not fully implemented in the version we reviewed.

The Low-Down
Our take on the PowerVCR? It could certainly compete with just about any VCR out there in terms of features and ease-of-use. Perhaps when it sends out PowerVCR III, CyberLink will have made the product into a true PVR, with interactivity and preference learning, etc. In the meantime, this is an adequate performer, and should be considered by those looking for another cool, inexpensive gadget.

SMART SPECS