PowerDVD Taps the Power of Honeycomb
CyberLink has always done a good job of at least trying to move its flagship PowerDVD product beyond simply being a media player by jumping on new disc formats and building a social experience via MoovieLive, but now CyberLink is adding some mobility to its repertoire. Their new PowerDVD Mobile looks like a pretty solid Android media player with some iOS design cues for good measure, but it also taps into the power of DNLA for sharing and streaming between Android tablets and to other devices.
Given that media management and playback has been the clunkiest aspect of the Android platform in my experience, a streamlined, integrated app could be a nice addition to an Android tablet. It doesn’t hurt that we haven’t seen a lot of developers targeting Honeycomb exclusively and really designing their Android apps specifically with tablets in mind. CyberLink’s focus on streaming media also suggests the company is smartly preparing for the distributed computing future that we all seem to be hurtling toward.
It’s known as PowerDVD Mobile for Android, but don’t let the name fool you, because smartphones need not apply. The software allows users to stream media from PowerDVD on their computer directly to the tablet, share media between tablets, and stream media from the tablet to DLNA-certified TVs.