Blight
27th November 2003, 10:17
This new beta represents a new step in Zoom Player. A step toward Simplification. With this
new beta, Zoom Player's massive options dialog has been split into a Basic/Advanced dialogs, making it
much more accessible toward new users. I have also restructured the Right-Click context menu to make
it simpler, a bit more intuative and it now contains the keyboard hotkeys for each function.
Changes since v3.20 :
* I highly recommend that on the first run, you should go to
"Options / Values / Extensions" and press on all the default
buttons so that all the latest file formats will be properly
listed on the open dialogs.
* The Options Dialog has been split in two. The Basic options
dialog (default) will show a very limited feature-set that is
should simplify setup. The Advanced options dialog is the
same dialog as in previous versions. This should now make
Zoom Player much less intimidating to new users.
* I'm intentionally breaking the options dialog translation code
as I'm in the process of rewriting the code so that every message
and dialog could be translated.
* New "System" Options dialog, allowing you to see an overview of
which codecs on your system are available for the various audio
and video formats and wrappers and which are missing which may
prevent proper playback.
* It seems that Vorbis Audio in an OGG container is not the same
thing as Vorbis Audio in a Matroska container. The only way to
get proper 100% smooth playback for both formats is to use the
older Vorbis decoder that comes with the OGGDS package along
with the CoreVorbis decoder (http://corevoribs.corecodec.org)
set to a higher merit. If you don't like to mess around with
filter merits, I have created properly working Customized Media
Playback profiles as well (Requires Zoom Player Professional in
Custom Media Playback mode).
* You can now specify a forced Sub-Type identification on
Customized Media Mode Source Filter profiles. In some cases,
source filters may not properly identify the file being played
and may not assign a proper Sub-Type. By entering one manually,
you assure that the correct Splitter filter will get connected.
You can see an example of this in the MPEG2 Transport source
profile.
* Can now associate the ".MID" Midi Audio extension.
* New setting (Options / Settings / Playback) that allows you to
select whether the Speed Control on the User Interface is used
for "Fast Forward/Rewind" or "Fast Play/Slow Motion" as it was
in previous versions (v3.10 and older).
* New setting (Options / OSD / Navigators) allowing you to decide
whether you want "Play all files in this Directory" to appear
in the File and Media Library Navigators.
* Included support for Matroska Aspect Ratio handling. This works
well as long as no filter modifies the Aspect Ratio (like
DirectVobSub does when set to enforce an aspect ratio).
* When playing matroska files with multiple audio tracks, you will
now be able to see the track name alongside the language (as long
as a track name is entered by the original author).
* Alt+"I" will now Minimize the Player.
+ More changes to the default settings to make them friendlier to
a new user.
+ Restructured the Right-Click context menu to be a bit more
useful and less cluttered. It also context the keyboard context
for activating each of the functions. Only relevant if you use
the default keyboard mapping.
+ Playing a Media file containing two video streams in Customized
Media mode will have Zoom Player intercept the second video
stream and connect it to a null renderer so no other video
window will pop-up. Customized media playback could still fail
as certain filters will not allow themselves to be loaded twice
(ffdshow, corevorbis, etc...).
+ Window snapping is now smoother and also made on
vertical/horizontal matches.
+ There seems to be some weirdness in the XCard DVD support, at
some point, the XCard DirectShow filter allowed for SubPicture
decoding (Displaying DVD Subtitles), but this functionality seems
to have been removed, causing the Zoom Player Customized DVD Mode
profile not to load. I've made some modification and now a
"NoSub" profile for the XCard is available for experimentation.
- The Next/Previous buttons on the DVD Skin Control Bar were set
to the wrong function.
- Fixed a couple of inaccuracies in the Auto-Segment loading code.
- A chapter file saved when the media file was on a read-only
media (such as a CD) wasn't saved under the right name and was
basically useless.
- Play List formats were not being listed on the File and Media
Library navigators.
- Having the Internal Zoom Player Audio DSP filter enabled with
the InterVideo Audio Decoder could cause audio issues if you
change the number of audio-channel output while playing.
- Small cosmetic bug fixed dealing with folder images scaling
to fullscreen even though the setting was set not to.
- 8 Bit Buffer Processing fix to the Zoom Player Audio DSP filter.
Download Zoom Player v3.30 beta 1 here (http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_beta.shtml)
new beta, Zoom Player's massive options dialog has been split into a Basic/Advanced dialogs, making it
much more accessible toward new users. I have also restructured the Right-Click context menu to make
it simpler, a bit more intuative and it now contains the keyboard hotkeys for each function.
Changes since v3.20 :
* I highly recommend that on the first run, you should go to
"Options / Values / Extensions" and press on all the default
buttons so that all the latest file formats will be properly
listed on the open dialogs.
* The Options Dialog has been split in two. The Basic options
dialog (default) will show a very limited feature-set that is
should simplify setup. The Advanced options dialog is the
same dialog as in previous versions. This should now make
Zoom Player much less intimidating to new users.
* I'm intentionally breaking the options dialog translation code
as I'm in the process of rewriting the code so that every message
and dialog could be translated.
* New "System" Options dialog, allowing you to see an overview of
which codecs on your system are available for the various audio
and video formats and wrappers and which are missing which may
prevent proper playback.
* It seems that Vorbis Audio in an OGG container is not the same
thing as Vorbis Audio in a Matroska container. The only way to
get proper 100% smooth playback for both formats is to use the
older Vorbis decoder that comes with the OGGDS package along
with the CoreVorbis decoder (http://corevoribs.corecodec.org)
set to a higher merit. If you don't like to mess around with
filter merits, I have created properly working Customized Media
Playback profiles as well (Requires Zoom Player Professional in
Custom Media Playback mode).
* You can now specify a forced Sub-Type identification on
Customized Media Mode Source Filter profiles. In some cases,
source filters may not properly identify the file being played
and may not assign a proper Sub-Type. By entering one manually,
you assure that the correct Splitter filter will get connected.
You can see an example of this in the MPEG2 Transport source
profile.
* Can now associate the ".MID" Midi Audio extension.
* New setting (Options / Settings / Playback) that allows you to
select whether the Speed Control on the User Interface is used
for "Fast Forward/Rewind" or "Fast Play/Slow Motion" as it was
in previous versions (v3.10 and older).
* New setting (Options / OSD / Navigators) allowing you to decide
whether you want "Play all files in this Directory" to appear
in the File and Media Library Navigators.
* Included support for Matroska Aspect Ratio handling. This works
well as long as no filter modifies the Aspect Ratio (like
DirectVobSub does when set to enforce an aspect ratio).
* When playing matroska files with multiple audio tracks, you will
now be able to see the track name alongside the language (as long
as a track name is entered by the original author).
* Alt+"I" will now Minimize the Player.
+ More changes to the default settings to make them friendlier to
a new user.
+ Restructured the Right-Click context menu to be a bit more
useful and less cluttered. It also context the keyboard context
for activating each of the functions. Only relevant if you use
the default keyboard mapping.
+ Playing a Media file containing two video streams in Customized
Media mode will have Zoom Player intercept the second video
stream and connect it to a null renderer so no other video
window will pop-up. Customized media playback could still fail
as certain filters will not allow themselves to be loaded twice
(ffdshow, corevorbis, etc...).
+ Window snapping is now smoother and also made on
vertical/horizontal matches.
+ There seems to be some weirdness in the XCard DVD support, at
some point, the XCard DirectShow filter allowed for SubPicture
decoding (Displaying DVD Subtitles), but this functionality seems
to have been removed, causing the Zoom Player Customized DVD Mode
profile not to load. I've made some modification and now a
"NoSub" profile for the XCard is available for experimentation.
- The Next/Previous buttons on the DVD Skin Control Bar were set
to the wrong function.
- Fixed a couple of inaccuracies in the Auto-Segment loading code.
- A chapter file saved when the media file was on a read-only
media (such as a CD) wasn't saved under the right name and was
basically useless.
- Play List formats were not being listed on the File and Media
Library navigators.
- Having the Internal Zoom Player Audio DSP filter enabled with
the InterVideo Audio Decoder could cause audio issues if you
change the number of audio-channel output while playing.
- Small cosmetic bug fixed dealing with folder images scaling
to fullscreen even though the setting was set not to.
- 8 Bit Buffer Processing fix to the Zoom Player Audio DSP filter.
Download Zoom Player v3.30 beta 1 here (http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_beta.shtml)