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CyberLink's PowerCinema

ATI has chosen to develop the Theater550 around Cyberlink's PowerCinema software much like the approach that we saw in AOpen's XC Cube AV Edition which had tuner software based around Intervideo's Home Theater. PowerColor's PR material does state that "ATI has worked closely with Cyberlink, InterVideo and Microsoft to create a robust user experience that brings out the advanced features of the THEATER 550 PRO video processor." PowerCinema does have a similar look and feel to Home Theater, large buttons and easy to read text should be useful for those who are sitting back from the computer while navigating through the PowerCinema software. The software is simplistic to use but this turns out to be both a blessing and a hinderance depending on who the end user is.

The PowerCinema software is more than just an interface for the strictly the TV tuner. The software is a multimedia hub that also allows for music playback, picture viewing and movie playback.

We will focus on the TV/PVR aspect of the PowerCinema software as this is the subject that is the most pertinent to the user looking to purchase the PowerColor Theater 550Pro. Set up is pretty straight-forward, choose a directory and choose the country you reside in so the tuner will use the proper mode for the audio. We used a direct coxial cable feed our input selection was left on cable. We did have the option of patching this through a regular cable box with SVideo or RCA out so this may be an option for some people out there. Country selection is one of the areas that highlights some of the weaknesses in the design of the CyberLink PowerCinema software. The user interface is simple and is much like a regular Digital TV cable box. This will be absolutely essential if computer based PVRs are to become mainstream solutions. However there are very annoying limitations, the example that will be used is country selection. The default selection is the United States - Canada is some 20-30 countries away. A dropbox is a standard GUI item in the PC world. However, the simplication process has removed the dropbox as a means to navigate to the proper country. Instead, we have to click through each country linearly. This would not be a problem if the GUI was snappy and responsive. Unfortunately it is not and it takes roughly a second or so before the next country appears. If the end user was in Uruguay this would not be a huge concern. That's only a couple clicks and a couple seconds away. For those that have country names that are buried in the middle of the list it is an aggravating experience. The GUI definitely needs to be sped up somehow. This is not just a knock against the PowerCinema software, this is also a prevalent problem in the Intervideo Home Theater solution we looked at earlier.

The standard features which is expected from PVR software is all there including timeshifting live shows and doing scheduled recording like a classic VCR. Quality options are a bit on the limited side, again it looks like the simple approach won out - the only three settings available are good, better and best.

Here's a shot of the schedule and a listing of recorded shows. Again one of the weaknesses of the scheduler is the inability to enter in a time using either the keyboard or the remote - the remote does have a full number keypad on it so it is somewhat baffling understanding why time can only be modified with two arrows.

Again the responsiveness of the PowerCinema application can be improved. The arrow buttons to change quality settings or to set times are still sluggish compared to a regular Windows application. Channel changing is a bit on the slower side also.

Game consoles can also be patched through the Theater 550Pro easily