DRM (Digital Rights Management) is intended to protect media from being played in an unauthorized manner. However, more often than not, it fails to serve the purpose. Today, we will take a detailed look at Cinavia, a DRM mechanism which has recently become mandatory for all Blu-ray players to support.

We will see how Cinavia is different from other Blu-ray DRM mechanisms, and find out whether it will actually help in reducing media piracy. In almost all cases, it is the law-abiding consumer who is put to much inconvenience. Will Cinavia be doing the same? While we are on the subject of Blu-rays, we will also try to identify areas where user-friendliness can be improved and how consumers can get the best possible experience from them. Read on for our opinion piece..

Software Blu-ray / DVD players are bundled with almost all OEM PCs and a necessity for consumers who want to enjoy their commercial optical media in the most legal manner possible. At AnandTech, we regularly use the offerings from ArcSoft (Total Media Theatre), Corel (WinDVD Pro) and Cyberlink (PowerDVD) in our reviews. Each of them has its own pros and cons. While WinDVD Pro is the leanest and most responsive of the lot, it is also pretty barebones. Total Media Theatre, on the other hand, has a very good user interface and integrates services like YouTube in a seamless and enjoyable manner. PowerDVD has historically been a leader in the features department, but the user interface and bloat used to be a turn off for most users.

Today, CyberLink is introducing PowerDVD 12 along with an updated Android / iOS app. With the Blu-ray functionality not needing any updates, most of the attention has been focused on the mobile apps and streamlining the user experience with the PC player. How good are the changes? Are they enough to make us change our opinion of PowerDVD? Read on for our review.

Google TV launched to high expectations a couple of months back. Users have slowly come to terms with the capabilities of the software as well as the underlying hardware platform. Without doubt, the Logitech Revue was the flagship product for Google TV at launch. However, many of its users are finding it hard to justify a dedicated device for just the functionality provided by Google TV. A detailed review of the Revue will follow in the coming weeks, but the unanimous opinion amongst the editors at AnandTech is that Google TV could only be justified as a value add-on for already existing CE devices in a HT setup such as a TV, Blu-Ray player, media streamer or even an AV receiver.

Sony was one of the first companies to jump onto the Google TV bandwagon, and they debuted some TVs and even a Blu-Ray player with Google TV inbuilt around the same time as the launch of the Logitech Revue. We have had the Sony NSZ-GT1 Blu-Ray player with Google TV in our labs for the past couple of weeks. Read on for our findings about the player.