Blight
28th February 2002, 13:34
Quite a bit of changes from the previous beta, so make sure you read the change list. No more big features are going in into this version. Try finding bugs so that 2.50 final would be as stable as possible.
Some things that have changed from the beta (and not specifically written in the list):
1. DVD Language listing code.
2. Options dialog revamped again. It's a bit ICQish now.
3. MP3 info uses the OSD font settings.
4. Maybe other stuff, can't recall.
* The FAQ.TXT files has been re-written and moved online, it can be
opened by pressing the "FAQ" button on the Options dialog or by
going to:
http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/faq
* Restructured the Settings dialog into sub-functions and generally
cleaned up parts of the Options dialog.
* After some investigation it seems that the Elecard MPEG2 decoder
package contains an MPEG2 Demultiplexor filter that allows SVCD
playback directly off a CD or from a mounted BIN/CUE file. I
further modified the code so the "file not found" issue should
not pop for SVCD CD files.
* The left mouse button can now be assigned a different function
if the player is in DVD Mode. An additional DVD Mode-Only function
is to force menu select.
* You can now modify the OSD size so that it will be bigger while in
Zoom/Fullscreen modes (Options -> OSD).
* New Interface (Options -> Values -> MP3). Using this interface,
you can have MP3 ID3 data made visible during playback. Select
how the information is displayed, it's position on the screen and
more.
* New Setting (Options -> Settings -> Other) to enable filtering
of the DVD/Media Folder images. With filtering enabled, the
image is filtered so it isn't as "jaggy" when stretched. This
filtering takes more CPU power (when you actually resize the form,
not when it's idle). I'm currently using a Factor scaling code
of my own design. It's pretty fast (considering it isn't ASM/MMX
optimized), but it's not as good at enlarging the image as it is
at shrinking it.
* New Setting (Options -> Settings -> Other) to disable the drawing
of Navigator backgrounds. This should further offload some CPU
usage. I don't recommend turning off both outlining and background
as that will make the fonts hard to read.
* New Setting (Options -> Settings -> DVD) that allows you to have
the DVD Stop Position auto-loaded only if the disc played is the
same as the last played disc.
* New Audio Selection System (Options -> Values -> DVD) that allows
you to specify the preferred Audio track. The system is comprised
of three values.
1. The Language
2. The Audio Type (AC3/DTS/Etc...)
3. The Number of Audio Channels
When a DVD presents Zoom Player with a new list of Audio Tracks,
Zoom Player gives each track a merit according to the number of
values it matches against the user specified entries. The highest
value (4) is given to the Language, a medium value (2) is given to the
Audio Type and the lowest value (1) is given to the number of channels.
The first audio track with the highest merit points is consistently
activated throughout the disc (some discs have different audio tracks
for different sections of the disc) until the user manually specifies
a different Audio Track. At that point, the Audio Select System (Or
"ASS", hehe - I just had to put that in here) is temporarily disabled
until playback is stopped (Stop button).
* New Value (Options -> Values -> DVD) that allows you to select the
preferred Subtitle language. The first language matching the
specified subtitle language will be selected and enabled.
* New Value (Options -> Values -> Other) allowing you to select which
file extensions will be used when opening directories and when using
the Open dialog (the files that will appear in the dialog).
* New Value (Options -> Values -> Other) allowing you to set an
alternative path to look for Media Chapter files. If a chapter file
isn't found in the same directory as the Media file, this directory
will also be scanned (useful if you want to create chapter files for
files that are already burnt on CD).
* New Value (Options -> Values -> Other) allowing you to set the
Zoom Player thread priority. When using a non-normal priority, you
should make sure your thread priority is set prior to playback.
* New Value (Options -> Values -> DVD) allowing you to set the DVD
play rate speeds. By default they are 2/4/8, but you can also
set them to 3/6/12, 4/8/16 and 5/10/20.
* New Function (Ctrl+"R") to turn Random (Shuffle) Play ON / OFF.
* New Function (Shift+"S") to Show/Hide the Resize Navigator.
The resize navigator is an easy to use interface that allows you
to adjust the position and size of the video on a pixel level.
This is especially useful for remote devices.
* New Defintion File command (see "zplayer.zdf") to save the Custom
Aspect Ratio values into the definition file. And of course a
command (see "default.df") to set this data from Definition files.
* New Skin Scripting Constat "<ovColor>" allows you to fill parts of
the Control Bar using the Overlay Chorma Color-Key thus making it
transparent.
* The various "Move Window" toggles have been revamped! Now when in
Window mode, they move the video, however in Fullscreen/Zoom mode,
they move the Video area! This makes it extremely quick to position
the video using the mouse.
* The Increase/Decrease Play Rate functions now loop back to Normal
Play once they've reached their max/min settings.
* Changed the language code a bit so that it may work better with
non-english versions of windows.
* You can now use the Right/Left arrows on the PlayList and
Chapter/Bookmark Navigator interfaces to jump half pages at a
time for quicker scrolling.
* You can use the mouse wheel to scroll through navigator interfaces
and the left mouse button to select.
* Completely rewrote the Multi Track AVI Audio code. It should now
compatible with more Multi Track AVI files and have less "issues".
* Set that when setting Zoom Player to the On-DVD-Insert application,
the "/PLAY" parameter is also given so that Zoom Player will auto-play
and not only run.
* The "Seek to Start" command wasn't listed in the keyboard list, pressing
"T" will seek to the first frame of the Video.
* For VORBIS playback to work properly under Zoom Player, you must make
sure you have the latest Ogg DirectShow filter installed as previous
versions were highly unstable. You can find the latest version at:
http://www.doom9.org
P.S.
I'm not even sure if current versions are very stable ... a bit
early to tell.
* Going to Fullscreen doesn't break the Play List "Add Dir" button.
* You should no longer get "File not found" errors when trying to
play MPEG files from VCD/SVCD.
* The DVD Angle Cycle function should now cycle properly.
* When playing audio files with folder images active at times the
folder image would not disappear correctly.
* Using ALT-F4 to close the player while the Task Bar was hidden
didn't restore the Task Bar.
zoomplayer250rc1.zip (http://pisho.net/dvdgenie/zoomplayer250rc1.zip)
Some things that have changed from the beta (and not specifically written in the list):
1. DVD Language listing code.
2. Options dialog revamped again. It's a bit ICQish now.
3. MP3 info uses the OSD font settings.
4. Maybe other stuff, can't recall.
* The FAQ.TXT files has been re-written and moved online, it can be
opened by pressing the "FAQ" button on the Options dialog or by
going to:
http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/faq
* Restructured the Settings dialog into sub-functions and generally
cleaned up parts of the Options dialog.
* After some investigation it seems that the Elecard MPEG2 decoder
package contains an MPEG2 Demultiplexor filter that allows SVCD
playback directly off a CD or from a mounted BIN/CUE file. I
further modified the code so the "file not found" issue should
not pop for SVCD CD files.
* The left mouse button can now be assigned a different function
if the player is in DVD Mode. An additional DVD Mode-Only function
is to force menu select.
* You can now modify the OSD size so that it will be bigger while in
Zoom/Fullscreen modes (Options -> OSD).
* New Interface (Options -> Values -> MP3). Using this interface,
you can have MP3 ID3 data made visible during playback. Select
how the information is displayed, it's position on the screen and
more.
* New Setting (Options -> Settings -> Other) to enable filtering
of the DVD/Media Folder images. With filtering enabled, the
image is filtered so it isn't as "jaggy" when stretched. This
filtering takes more CPU power (when you actually resize the form,
not when it's idle). I'm currently using a Factor scaling code
of my own design. It's pretty fast (considering it isn't ASM/MMX
optimized), but it's not as good at enlarging the image as it is
at shrinking it.
* New Setting (Options -> Settings -> Other) to disable the drawing
of Navigator backgrounds. This should further offload some CPU
usage. I don't recommend turning off both outlining and background
as that will make the fonts hard to read.
* New Setting (Options -> Settings -> DVD) that allows you to have
the DVD Stop Position auto-loaded only if the disc played is the
same as the last played disc.
* New Audio Selection System (Options -> Values -> DVD) that allows
you to specify the preferred Audio track. The system is comprised
of three values.
1. The Language
2. The Audio Type (AC3/DTS/Etc...)
3. The Number of Audio Channels
When a DVD presents Zoom Player with a new list of Audio Tracks,
Zoom Player gives each track a merit according to the number of
values it matches against the user specified entries. The highest
value (4) is given to the Language, a medium value (2) is given to the
Audio Type and the lowest value (1) is given to the number of channels.
The first audio track with the highest merit points is consistently
activated throughout the disc (some discs have different audio tracks
for different sections of the disc) until the user manually specifies
a different Audio Track. At that point, the Audio Select System (Or
"ASS", hehe - I just had to put that in here) is temporarily disabled
until playback is stopped (Stop button).
* New Value (Options -> Values -> DVD) that allows you to select the
preferred Subtitle language. The first language matching the
specified subtitle language will be selected and enabled.
* New Value (Options -> Values -> Other) allowing you to select which
file extensions will be used when opening directories and when using
the Open dialog (the files that will appear in the dialog).
* New Value (Options -> Values -> Other) allowing you to set an
alternative path to look for Media Chapter files. If a chapter file
isn't found in the same directory as the Media file, this directory
will also be scanned (useful if you want to create chapter files for
files that are already burnt on CD).
* New Value (Options -> Values -> Other) allowing you to set the
Zoom Player thread priority. When using a non-normal priority, you
should make sure your thread priority is set prior to playback.
* New Value (Options -> Values -> DVD) allowing you to set the DVD
play rate speeds. By default they are 2/4/8, but you can also
set them to 3/6/12, 4/8/16 and 5/10/20.
* New Function (Ctrl+"R") to turn Random (Shuffle) Play ON / OFF.
* New Function (Shift+"S") to Show/Hide the Resize Navigator.
The resize navigator is an easy to use interface that allows you
to adjust the position and size of the video on a pixel level.
This is especially useful for remote devices.
* New Defintion File command (see "zplayer.zdf") to save the Custom
Aspect Ratio values into the definition file. And of course a
command (see "default.df") to set this data from Definition files.
* New Skin Scripting Constat "<ovColor>" allows you to fill parts of
the Control Bar using the Overlay Chorma Color-Key thus making it
transparent.
* The various "Move Window" toggles have been revamped! Now when in
Window mode, they move the video, however in Fullscreen/Zoom mode,
they move the Video area! This makes it extremely quick to position
the video using the mouse.
* The Increase/Decrease Play Rate functions now loop back to Normal
Play once they've reached their max/min settings.
* Changed the language code a bit so that it may work better with
non-english versions of windows.
* You can now use the Right/Left arrows on the PlayList and
Chapter/Bookmark Navigator interfaces to jump half pages at a
time for quicker scrolling.
* You can use the mouse wheel to scroll through navigator interfaces
and the left mouse button to select.
* Completely rewrote the Multi Track AVI Audio code. It should now
compatible with more Multi Track AVI files and have less "issues".
* Set that when setting Zoom Player to the On-DVD-Insert application,
the "/PLAY" parameter is also given so that Zoom Player will auto-play
and not only run.
* The "Seek to Start" command wasn't listed in the keyboard list, pressing
"T" will seek to the first frame of the Video.
* For VORBIS playback to work properly under Zoom Player, you must make
sure you have the latest Ogg DirectShow filter installed as previous
versions were highly unstable. You can find the latest version at:
http://www.doom9.org
P.S.
I'm not even sure if current versions are very stable ... a bit
early to tell.
* Going to Fullscreen doesn't break the Play List "Add Dir" button.
* You should no longer get "File not found" errors when trying to
play MPEG files from VCD/SVCD.
* The DVD Angle Cycle function should now cycle properly.
* When playing audio files with folder images active at times the
folder image would not disappear correctly.
* Using ALT-F4 to close the player while the Task Bar was hidden
didn't restore the Task Bar.
zoomplayer250rc1.zip (http://pisho.net/dvdgenie/zoomplayer250rc1.zip)