Power DVD, Nero and/or Free Alternative Suggestions

So I've bought a computer off of ebay and it didnt come with any DVD playing software.  Currently, I'm using VLC for playback.  My questions are 1) is there any advantage to a retail software like Power DVD (which I've had previously on retail machines) over VLC; 2) is there any better backup software than DVD Decrypter; 3) what is the best burning software Nero? Other?

I havent had a non-retail machine since the XP days so I dont have Nero/PowerDVD compatible with Win 8.1 so I'd need to purchase them, but I dont know what the current best freeware is so any suggestions would be helpful. Cheers.

I've yet to see the purpose in buying any retail software.

VLC is great.

When I was on Windows - I did not back up much outside of USB dumps that I made for game cataloging. I don't generate much data to back up but when I built machines for others I would install Backup Maker and many of my loyal customer stand by it.

When I was on Windows I used CDBurnerXP to burn - Free Edition. It did it all for me - Making movies, Burning ISOs and backups.

VLC should be fine.  I use some free burning program, but forgot the name.  I think the only time you need to pay for a DVD playback or burning program is if you have blu-ray drive as I don't think any of the free ones do blu ray.  

I have a budget Pioneer home theatre set hooked-up to my PC (monitor and soundcard), so I use this for most of my DVD playback.

I previously used a combination of Media Player Classic Home Cinema (MPC-HC) and the Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP) for playback of DVDs and all video files. ImgBurn works really well for creating / burning images, and like @Megazell said, CDBurnerXP is a good software for creating your own discs.