Lets start by saying the first time I installed CineMaster 2000, I deleted nothing, and gave it no help. However, sometimes that simply isn't enough. As with all installs, the condition of your system has a lot to do with problems. How ship-shape is your registry? Do you have other conflicting software installed? Are your drivers good quality? If these issues come up sour, any install can go awry.

That said, we cut to the chase. Older CineMaster players were loved not just for their sweet DVD playback, but because they were EASY. They were sparse on controls, they didn't even give you access to all their features without help from programs like DVD Genie; but they installed easily and they co-existed fine with other DVD software simultaneously installed on your system.

CineMaster 2000 requires overlay video support (most newer cards offer that) and Windows 9x/2000. Windows 2000 support is new to this latest major build, Non-CineMaster 2000 versions were not NT/2000 compatible.

Install involved running setup, and watching it copy files. Upon running the player for the first time, it asks if you want it to be the DEFAULT PLAYER for DVD and/or CD AUDIO. I answered NO, and the player disabled auto-play of DVD titles as expected. However, the player developed a DVD ID block. Unless it was enabled as the default player on the test system, it wouldn't properly identify a DVD that was inserted after the player had already played a different title. It was frequently necessary to close and restart the player to get it to accept the new title.

CineMaster 2000's setup seems to have deviated from the install stability of versions past. CineMaster 2000 didn't seem "right" after install, and going into the setup screen quickly told me why. The setup screen said "PowerDVD 2.55" on the side?! Huh?! The DirectShow filtering which determines resources and controls for DirectShow programs was written poorly in CineMaster 2000. DirectShow programs have a priority level, so that the system knows which DLL's and programs get called by DirectShow, and when. Past CineMasters did this fine. I tried re-install, and various tweaks, but it simply wouldn't configure properly as long as other players were installed.