I read Ian's announcement about this new software. Frankly, I'm a bit excited by it. As much as Cyberlink PowerDVD has gained a lot of the market, their software has major problems working for users without local-admin privileges (read: any smart networked environment), and Cyberlink has stated in documented support calls in the past that it is intended to be this way, and is meant to be a home-use product (apparently to some end-users they were downright snarky).
Whereas, I've had no problems with Intervideo WinDVD in this area. We're only using version 3 (all we're licensed for, as it came with our systems) but this product has worked great without complaint. When we buy new systems, I'm making sure WinDVD is part of our RFP, not Cyberlink PowerDVD, for this very reason.
I'm curious to know as to whether WinDVD can use ATI's Avivo technology for hardware accelerating H.264 and some other codecs --I know some versions of PowerDVD can.