WinDVD Pro 12 Review

WinDVD Pro 12 is a decent Blu-ray and DVD playing option for your PC, although it lacks some features that other softwares provide.

Corel WinDVD Pro 12
(Image: © Corel)

Top Ten Reviews Verdict

Corel WinDVD 12 is easy to use, widely compatible with movie formats and packed with features, giving you a Blu-ray player that rivals a movie-theater experience.

Pros

  • +

    Doesn't need much CPU resource

  • +

    Widely compatible

Cons

  • -

    No smartphone control

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WinDVD Pro 12 is a quality piece of software that works with most video formats. It lets you tweak audio and picture settings for optimal viewing and has various customization options. Windows 10 does not have a native Blu-ray or DVD player, so you'll need something like WinDVD Pro 12 to play discs of any variety. It is compatible with virtually all physical and digital media formats, giving you a source to view your entire video collection. However, it is not available for macOS, Linux or Ubuntu. It currently sits on our guide to the best Blu-ray player software packages you can buy.

WinDVD Pro 12 review: Features

This software is a great option for playing videos on your computer, as it doesn't dominate your CPU while running. It averaged just eight percent of the CPU power during our testing – the program easiest on system resources was Leawo Player at four percent. It did a great job playing all video types, loading them quickly, so there was little wait time before viewing. The player has an intuitive interface that looks modern and clean.

You don't have to worry about degraded sound quality with the lossless audio playback, which is good news for anyone who likes to watch movies with a pair of decent headphones plugged in. Additionally, the software has Dolby and DTS pass-through support, so you can optimize your home theater or surround sound system for high-quality, cinematic sound.

You can also easily upgrade your movie library with the software's built-in upscaling features, which can turn standard-definition videos into HD and 2D flicks into 3D. However, you still need 3D glasses and a compatible screen in order to properly watch the upscaled 3D video.

The digital video player offers a wide variety of optimization and interactive features, letting you achieve the best possible movie-watching session. It can adjust the picture hue, saturation and brightness from a simple menu while you watch your video to get the best picture, and you can also stretch its dimensions to fit your screen. The auto-resume function remembers where you leave off in a video and automatically starts it from that same point if you start watching it again, making it easy to watch a movie over a few sittings. A power manager lets you conserve battery power if you're using the software on a laptop.

Watching foreign movies is a cinch with this software, as it lets you change world regions. It has a multi-language output, and you can select subtitles for multiple languages if the disc or file has the information.

For fun, you can customize the player skin, letting you make the software yours, and share whatever you're currently watching as well as a comment to sites like Twitter with its social media connectivity. With the BD-Live functionality, you can access additional special features not found on a Blu-ray disc. A useful feature it's missing, however, is smartphone connectivity, which would allow you to use your phone as a virtual remote control.

Should you buy WinDVD Pro 12?

The WinDVD Pro 12 Blu-ray player software offers high-quality audio, impressive operating system and video format compatibility, and some free technical support options. You can tweak picture settings to enhance your viewing experience and share your playlist with social media. All things considered, this is one of the top Blu-ray software players you can get, although it isn't as impressive as CyberLink PowerDVD 20 - our first-choice selection.

J.D. Chadwick
Contributor

J.D. Chadwick started writing articles for Top Ten Reviews 2008 and, after filling the role of Multimedia Editor, the keen video creator and expert in software was one of the most prolific members of the TTR team, authoring articles on things like antivirus software, video editing apps, and more.