Blight
30th May 2004, 04:13
Lots of changes, fixes and new features introduced in this release candidate. This is also the first release to introduce Zoom Player WMV Professional (http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/pro/wmv.shtml) which is a new separate version of Zoom Player allowing for DRM encoded Windows Media file playback.
An upgrade path between Zoom Player Professional and the new Zoom Player WMV Professional versions is available.
* New Stream Selection Interface (Only for the Professional Version)
allowing you to automatically select Audio and Subtitle streams
according to Language Codes, Stream Name text matching and specific
stream numbers.
* Zoom Player will now try to load JPEG image files outside of
DirectShow. It seems that DirectShow is very resolution-limited
and even the best display hardware doesn't support a video-surface
with the resolution captured by recent Digital Cameras.
The new JPEG Module uses a software bilinear scaler to resize the
images, so quality should be better than standard image viewers,
although a bit slower.
You can disable the JPEG Module and let DirectShow try to load
these images under "Advanced Options / Filter Control / Settings".
* New TCP/IP external control interface. This interface is still
experimental. The interface is similar to the SendMessage code
currently in use, but allows you to send control information to
Zoom Player and can be accessed accross a network.
By default, it is set to off and can be enabled at
"Advanced Options / Values / Interface" where a connection port
can also be selected.
* Customized Media Playback Splitter, Audio and Video profiles can
now blacklist themselves according to the file extension being
played (previously you could only whitelist extensions).
* New Toggle (Advanced Options / Settings / Toggles) allowing you
to choose how text is truncated to fit the desired space. This
effect a lot of text elements within Zoom Player such as the
Navigator display and ID3 display.
The default setting is to "Vowel Decimation" which tries to remove
vowels so that more text remains readable. The alternative is
to cut the end of the text.
* The DVD AutoAR feature can now execute an external program when
a DVD Aspect Ratio mode changes.
* New "/LOCKFS" command line parameter which locks Zoom Player in
fullscreen mode (useful for Kiosk-Type operation).
* New Setting (Options / DVD Setup) allowing you to hide the
Audio/Video decoder profiles that are not currently registered
on your computer.
* New Settings (Advanced Options / Settings / Windows Media) allowing
you to use AC3 Filter as an Audio Post-Processor for Windows Media
DRM content. Make sure you have PCM input enabled in the AC3 Filter
property page, otherwise it won't work.
* New Setting (Advanced Options / OSD / Navigators) allowing you to
select whether the Left Pane on the File and Media Library navigators
is visible. When the Pane is invisible, the top-directory box
will show additional details about the media category and drives.
* New Color Selection for Navigators Internal, External and Select
Framing Colors (Advanced Options / OSD / Navigators).
* New Button (Advanced Options / Filter Control / Management /
Registered Filter Manager) on the Registered Filter Manager allowing
you to Re-Register the DirectShow filters that come as default with
windows. This should help in such cases where a 3rd party program can
destabilize the default system or in case you want to unregister all
filter and restore your system to a default state.
* The LCD interface has been extended and can now be used to call
Zoom Player standard and extended functions.
* Two new ID3 display tags "<Length>" returning the length of the
currently playing file and "<PlayListTotal>" returning the total
duration for the entire play list.
* The ScanCode button (Options / Keys) now shows you when
a multi-media key is pressed so you can now identify such
keys and add support for them in the keyboard file using
the "mcAddKey" function.
* New Keyboard Macro (Shift+"V") to enable/disable the Internal
Screen Saver. This macro uses the new "fnSSaverToggle" function.
+ Zoom Player can now acquire WMV DRM Auto-Licenses as long as WMP has
individualized the system (usually happens when originally playing
DRM content).
+ Zoom Player now supports VMR7 Windowed playback in Customized Media
mode. If you previously used a customized renderer, make sure to
update your setting.
+ You can now use VMR7 and Overlay Mixer when playing WMV DRM content.
+ Subtitles can now be viewed with WMV DRM content using DirectVobSub.
+ The External Audio Track support has been greatly expanded. You
can now specify an alternative search path for External Audio Tracks
(Advanced Options / Values / Other), audio track naming is now more
flexible, for example:
MyVideo.avi
MyVideo.english.mp3
MyVideo.spanish.wav
MyVideo.japanese.mpc
All are valid names now. You can use any file format specified
as an audio extension under "Advanced Options / Values / Extensions".
+ The Customized Media Playback configuration dialogs should now be
a little easier to understand.
+ The System Overview now lists the filter version numbers when the
filter files contain them.
+ The Alt+"A" macro will now also open the AC3Filter property dialog.
- Playing multiple VIDEO_TS.IFO file through a play list should now
work again (as long as the IFO files are not looped in a DVD Menu).
- Clicking on a missing format link on the Basic Options dialog would
throw a protection fault error.
- The /OpenDrive parameter would open a dialog asking you to insert
a disc if a CD drive has been ejected and the drive then opened.
- The "/TRAILER", "/KEY" and "/KEYDVD" command line parameters were
broken.
- The gradient skin functions were giving bad results.
- Custom Media Playback should now work with WMV file that use internal
scripting code.
- With Random Play enabled, items would play that were previously
removed from the play list.
Download Zoom Player v4.00 RC1 here (http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_beta.shtml).
An upgrade path between Zoom Player Professional and the new Zoom Player WMV Professional versions is available.
* New Stream Selection Interface (Only for the Professional Version)
allowing you to automatically select Audio and Subtitle streams
according to Language Codes, Stream Name text matching and specific
stream numbers.
* Zoom Player will now try to load JPEG image files outside of
DirectShow. It seems that DirectShow is very resolution-limited
and even the best display hardware doesn't support a video-surface
with the resolution captured by recent Digital Cameras.
The new JPEG Module uses a software bilinear scaler to resize the
images, so quality should be better than standard image viewers,
although a bit slower.
You can disable the JPEG Module and let DirectShow try to load
these images under "Advanced Options / Filter Control / Settings".
* New TCP/IP external control interface. This interface is still
experimental. The interface is similar to the SendMessage code
currently in use, but allows you to send control information to
Zoom Player and can be accessed accross a network.
By default, it is set to off and can be enabled at
"Advanced Options / Values / Interface" where a connection port
can also be selected.
* Customized Media Playback Splitter, Audio and Video profiles can
now blacklist themselves according to the file extension being
played (previously you could only whitelist extensions).
* New Toggle (Advanced Options / Settings / Toggles) allowing you
to choose how text is truncated to fit the desired space. This
effect a lot of text elements within Zoom Player such as the
Navigator display and ID3 display.
The default setting is to "Vowel Decimation" which tries to remove
vowels so that more text remains readable. The alternative is
to cut the end of the text.
* The DVD AutoAR feature can now execute an external program when
a DVD Aspect Ratio mode changes.
* New "/LOCKFS" command line parameter which locks Zoom Player in
fullscreen mode (useful for Kiosk-Type operation).
* New Setting (Options / DVD Setup) allowing you to hide the
Audio/Video decoder profiles that are not currently registered
on your computer.
* New Settings (Advanced Options / Settings / Windows Media) allowing
you to use AC3 Filter as an Audio Post-Processor for Windows Media
DRM content. Make sure you have PCM input enabled in the AC3 Filter
property page, otherwise it won't work.
* New Setting (Advanced Options / OSD / Navigators) allowing you to
select whether the Left Pane on the File and Media Library navigators
is visible. When the Pane is invisible, the top-directory box
will show additional details about the media category and drives.
* New Color Selection for Navigators Internal, External and Select
Framing Colors (Advanced Options / OSD / Navigators).
* New Button (Advanced Options / Filter Control / Management /
Registered Filter Manager) on the Registered Filter Manager allowing
you to Re-Register the DirectShow filters that come as default with
windows. This should help in such cases where a 3rd party program can
destabilize the default system or in case you want to unregister all
filter and restore your system to a default state.
* The LCD interface has been extended and can now be used to call
Zoom Player standard and extended functions.
* Two new ID3 display tags "<Length>" returning the length of the
currently playing file and "<PlayListTotal>" returning the total
duration for the entire play list.
* The ScanCode button (Options / Keys) now shows you when
a multi-media key is pressed so you can now identify such
keys and add support for them in the keyboard file using
the "mcAddKey" function.
* New Keyboard Macro (Shift+"V") to enable/disable the Internal
Screen Saver. This macro uses the new "fnSSaverToggle" function.
+ Zoom Player can now acquire WMV DRM Auto-Licenses as long as WMP has
individualized the system (usually happens when originally playing
DRM content).
+ Zoom Player now supports VMR7 Windowed playback in Customized Media
mode. If you previously used a customized renderer, make sure to
update your setting.
+ You can now use VMR7 and Overlay Mixer when playing WMV DRM content.
+ Subtitles can now be viewed with WMV DRM content using DirectVobSub.
+ The External Audio Track support has been greatly expanded. You
can now specify an alternative search path for External Audio Tracks
(Advanced Options / Values / Other), audio track naming is now more
flexible, for example:
MyVideo.avi
MyVideo.english.mp3
MyVideo.spanish.wav
MyVideo.japanese.mpc
All are valid names now. You can use any file format specified
as an audio extension under "Advanced Options / Values / Extensions".
+ The Customized Media Playback configuration dialogs should now be
a little easier to understand.
+ The System Overview now lists the filter version numbers when the
filter files contain them.
+ The Alt+"A" macro will now also open the AC3Filter property dialog.
- Playing multiple VIDEO_TS.IFO file through a play list should now
work again (as long as the IFO files are not looped in a DVD Menu).
- Clicking on a missing format link on the Basic Options dialog would
throw a protection fault error.
- The /OpenDrive parameter would open a dialog asking you to insert
a disc if a CD drive has been ejected and the drive then opened.
- The "/TRAILER", "/KEY" and "/KEYDVD" command line parameters were
broken.
- The gradient skin functions were giving bad results.
- Custom Media Playback should now work with WMV file that use internal
scripting code.
- With Random Play enabled, items would play that were previously
removed from the play list.
Download Zoom Player v4.00 RC1 here (http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_beta.shtml).