Announcing Zoom Player v8.5 Release Candidate 1

[Blight]

http://t.inmatrix.com/dnsmirror/wpromo.jpg

I am very happy to announce Zoom Player v8.5 Release Candidate 1.

In version 8.5, we worked diligently to improve the user experience by:

Polishing the user interface, making it look modern & sleek.
Creating alternative user-interfaces for higher resolution screens and touch interfaces (http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/skins/).
Improving over-all stability and robustness.
Improving the user-experience by adding Task-Bar thumbnail control buttons, better color-keying of visual elements and extending fine-control over the skin-engine.
Improving performance of several sub-systems by rewriting the systems from scratch using improved methodology.
Including 1080p fullscreen navigation interfaces and background images with the PRO and MAX versions.
Making Zoom Player even more flexible & customizable.

Download:
Click here to download v8.5 Release Candidate 1 (http://inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_beta.shtml).

Change list from v8.1.6:

Legend :

"*" = New
"+" = Change
"-" = Fix


New :

* The Onyx (default) skin has undergone a modernization process,
making the icons clearer, sharper and everything a little more
intuitive.

* Introducing the 'Alba HD' skin.
A clean elegant white design for higher resolution screens,
Alba HD is 25% higher resolution than Default while retaining
all the functionality.

Alba HD replaces the Fusion skin, still available for download
through the Zoom Player Skin Gallery:
http://inmatrix.com/zplayer/skins/

* Confirmation dialogs are now skinned by default with new skin script
parameters that control their appearance.

* Under Windows 7 (or newer), the Taskbar thumbnail, which appears
when hovering with the mouse cursor over the Zoom Player task bar
button now features 4 functions:
1. Mute
2. Previous Chapter/Track
3. Play / Pause
4. Next Chapter/Track

* The Install center can now install language packs.

* The Install Center now remembers the 'Silent Installer' and
'Automatic Configuration' checkbox values after restarting.

* The Play History cache (used to store last media position and
display the play history) has been rewritten from scratch,
performance has been greatly improved.

* New Short,Medium,Long seeking buttons option on the Control Bar when
using the default skin.

* New Settings "Adv. Options / Playback / Audio / Visualizations" that
control whether visualization displays when playing audio or video media.

* New Setting "Adv. Options / Playback / History" used to override the
Play History cache file save path.

By specifying a shared network path, media can be pause on one computer
and playback resumed on a second computer.

* New Setting "Adv. Options / Playback / History" to automatically save
the play history cache on pause.

* New Setting "Adv. Options / Playback / Paths & Files" that controls
whether archive files are automatically extracted and played when opening
an entire drive or folder.

In previous versions, opening and playing of archive files was always on
and could cause stability or accidentally unforseen consequences
(long extraction times).

* New Setting "Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings"
that when enabled, add a 'Randomly Play all files in this directory' entry
to the Media Library and File Browsing navigation interfaces.

When used, the function adds all the files in the current directory to the
play list and then sorts the playlist randomly before beginning playback,
making it very useful when playing music.

* New Setting "Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings"
that overrides the "Open File" dialog, accessible through the main user
interface, the right-click context menu and by pressing the "O" key with
the fullscreen file navigation interface.

* New "Very Long Seek" Backward and Forward functions using the
Ctrl+Shift+"," and Ctrl+Shift+"." keyboard macros.

By default the seek action is 10 minutes. This value is adjustable
through the Advanced Options dialog under the [Playback / Controls]
sub-menu.

* New Function "fnMainContextMenu" that opens the right-click context menu
used by the main user interface.

* New Function "fnPLContextMenu" that opens the right-click context menu
used by the playlist editor user interface.

* New Function "fnResetBalance" that resets the Audio Left/Right balance
to the center.

* New function "fnResetPlayRate" that resets the Play Rate to normal speed.

* The Playlist editor's scroll bar background is now skinnable.
For more information, visit the skinning tutorial:
http://inmatrix.com/zplayer/highlights/skintutorial.shtml

* The Playlist editor's search-box font and background are now skinnable.
For more information, visit the skinning tutorial:
http://inmatrix.com/zplayer/highlights/skintutorial.shtml

* The Playlist editor's scroll bar widget is now skinnable with an
Alpha (translucency) bitmap, as used by the modernized default onyx skin.

* The Skin Script 'CreateExButton' function has been enhanced to support
a disabled button state image.

* The Skin Script 'CreateExButton' function has a new parameter that adds
finer button animation smoothness control.

* The Skin Script 'CreateExButton' function has a new parameter that adds
auto-repeat capabilities with a custom repeat rate value.

* When running "Zoom Player FREE" with a Zoom Player PRO or MAX activation
key installed, a notification dialog asking you to install the version
matching the key now appears.


Changes :

+ The Playlist editor's scroll widget now moves smoothly.

+ The Auto-Update feature no longer notifies you of new components on
the Install Center if the new components are not automatically enabled.
In the previous version, an update to a language pack would display a
'new component' notification window.

+ If you previously used a Zoom Player trial version and the evaluation
period ended, Installation the latest version lets you re-evaluate
Zoom Player for another 30 days.

+ The Extended menu fullscreen navigation interface has been cleaned,
removing functionality that exists in other navigation interfaces and
adding better structuring to the stream selection options.

+ The 'Opening a drive or directory includes opening image files' setting
is now disabled by default (applies to old and new installations).
You can re-enable the feature in the options dialog.

+ The Equalizer preset editor has been redesigned.

+ The Red error message dialogs are now skinned with an improved layout.

+ Auto-Update notification now issues a notification that a new final
version has been released if you are currently running a beta version.

+ The Playlist editor's search box now uses the Advanced Playlist Control's
search method ('starting with' or 'containing' text).
Previously, all searches were based on 'starting with' text.

+ The default change value for the volume up/down functions is now "4%",
replacing the previous "5%" default.

+ Changing the play rate using the play rate bar now pops an OSD listing
the play speed.

+ Smoother Audio Track folder image updates when using the 'PgUp/PgDn' keyboard
macros to play the 'previous/next' audio track in a directory.

+ Right-clicking the fixed clock display now hides it.

+ Version display is now more consistent with web (8.1.x vs. 8.1x).
API version structure remains the same for backward compatibility.

+ The keyboard editor no longer shows scan code character value for
MultiMedia keys (since multimedia keys are not mapped to characters).

+ A few optimizations to the skin parsing code.

+ With the new Play History caching optimizations, the Advanced Options
[Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings - Highlight previously
viewed files] is now fast enough to work with large (1000's of files)
directories on modern hardware.



Fixes :

- When using Windows 7 with a non-default Font DPI value (125%/150%),
Windows incorrectly scaled the user interfaces, causing the interfaces
to appear blurred and preventing Zoom Player from covering the windows
task bar in fullscreen mode.

- The Random Play feature wasn't as random as it should have been.
Zoom Player now tries not to repeat the same track until at least 50%
the number of items in the playlist have played.

- The playlist editor's items were not vertically centered inside their box,
this was especially evident when using large playlist fonts.

- The wrong folder image was used when playing audio media.
The first image in the folder was used instead of the
'Background image search mask' value specified in the adv. options.

- The 'Open Drive' and 'Add Directory' functions would accidentally add
non-media files if their file extension was a sub-set of a proper media
file extension.

- Fixed a bug introduced in v8.1.5 that listed all file sizes as "0 bytes"
in the play history.

- The 'Open Drive' dialog did not allow you to select the first drive in
the list.

- Opening a folder from the playlist editor ignored the setting that
controlled whether image files are loaded and always included images.

- The Scene Cut 'Mute Audio' feature is now more accurate, especially when
seeking into an area marked as muted.

- Fixed a skin color-tinting bug in skins that did not contain fully
skinned dialogs (Playlist, Equalizer, etc).

- Fixed several crashes that occurred when playing an audio file while in
fullscreen and then resizing the folder image down to a postage stamp size.

- Fixed a crash in the Chapter editor when playing a media file with
embedded chapters containing a negative time frame.

- The Play History databases will no longer corrupt if you see a message
saying 'Zoom Player has failed integrity check'.

- When the "Pause playback when minimizing the player window while playing
video content" was enabled, playback didn't pause if the Zoom Player
task-bar button was hidden.

- Certain ripped DVDs with a modified VIDEO_TS.IFO file would play and
stop in an infinite loop.

- Fixed a small crash that caused a 'ding' sound to be heard just as Zoom
Player was closing when 'On Playlist Complete' was set to 'Close Player'.

- The user interface maximized window state was lost when minimizing with
Zoom Player only showing in the System Tray.

- Pressing Alt+Enter after clicking an item in the playlist editor caused
that item to play instead of going fullscreen.

- The Smart Play profile for the 'VP7' video format accidentally included
an ffdshow entry (ffdshow doesn't decode VP7 video).

- When a text formatting error occurs due to a translation error in
a language pack, it is now caught instead of displaying an unclear
message and a possible crash.

- Trying to use the '/config', '/datapath', '/multinst' and '/winname'
command line parameters in Zoom Player FREE or PRO would crash the
player instead of showing a notification screen that these command
lines require Zoom Player MAX.

- When opening a media file from a network path, hovering with the mouse
cursor over the task bar button or system tray icon would show the file
name with full network path when only the file name should have displayed.

- A few text elements in the Open Directory and Open Drive dialogs were
not translatable.

- Setting a custom mouse/keyboard function that opened the Volume Bar
would crash with an 'out of system resources' error.

- The 'Disabled' subtitle track was not initially selected when no
subtitles were visible by default.

- When maximizing the player window and then minimizing the player window
to the taskbar, the maximized window state and the previous window
size were lost.

- The "Fix window movement glitches" setting that was used to work-around
a window glitch that caused the player window to jump when trying to
move the player window by clicking on the video area is now disabled
by default (even for users who previously had this feature enabled).

An alternative fix is now in place that should hopefully resolve the
jumping window issue without having to enable this setting.

- The Options dialog search function results prevented certain buttons
from being accessible while the search results were visible.

- The Options dialog search function now supports unicode text.

- The options dialog's Help button's context menu now supports
unicode text.

- A Zoom Player tab would briefly appear on the desktop when running
Zoom Player with a windows shell other than 'explorer.exe'.

- The #1601 API message returning the number of audio tracks for the
playing media returned the wrong number at times.

- Under certain conditions, the 'filter properties' sub-menu would
list filters with a '#2' suffix even though there was only one
instance of the filter in the graph.

[Sylt]

I've tested this Player. Apparently large parts of the code under the hood were taken from the MPC-HC project. If you see the renderer selection of Zoom Player, then it is quite obvious. Furthermore, many open source projects are used for this player (ffmpeg, Gabest Filters, ect.). I would be interested if the developer of the ZoomPlayer contributes code to the open source community, anyhow he earned many money with the ZoomPlayer, but the Player can't exist without the work of the open source community.

[dukey]

Apparently large parts of the code under the hood were taken from the MPC-HC project.

Not that I'm the author, but I am pretty sure Zoomplayer is written in a totally different language to MPC ..
Also the guy has actually contributed to my open source remote control project. So ..

[Superb]

I've tested this Player. Apparently large parts of the code under the hood were taken from the MPC-HC project. If you see the renderer selection of Zoom Player, then it is quite obvious. Furthermore, many open source projects are used for this player (ffmpeg, Gabest Filters, ect.). I would be interested if the developer of the ZoomPlayer contributes code to the open source community, anyhow he earned many money with the ZoomPlayer, but the Player can't exist without the work of the open source community.Wow, do you always write false statements and slander someone's hard work based on your 2 seconds impression?

[pirlouy]

Ouch ! You're wrong and the main developer is a nice guy.
Let's hope you confuse 2 projects (KM player ? PotPlayer ?). But it would just be provocation anyway.

[jmonier]

I've tested this Player. Apparently large parts of the code under the hood were taken from the MPC-HC project. If you see the renderer selection of Zoom Player, then it is quite obvious. Furthermore, many open source projects are used for this player (ffmpeg, Gabest Filters, ect.). I would be interested if the developer of the ZoomPlayer contributes code to the open source community, anyhow he earned many money with the ZoomPlayer, but the Player can't exist without the work of the open source community.

I think that you are confusing the DirectShow filters with the player code. Many players (including MPC-HC and Zoomplayer) use DirectShow filters (since these are a Microsoft standard). Most of the renderers shown in ZP (including EVR) are from Microsoft and are installed with Windows. The exceptions are Haali and madVR, neither of which originated with MPC-HC. I believe that MPC-HC has it's own EVR variant, but that specific version is not available in ZP.

So, before you mount an attack like this, you need to research the subject thoroughly and not depend on a superficial analysis.

[Asmodian]

I have been using Zoom Player for at least eight years! Zoom Player was up to version 2 before Media Player Classic even existed (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=19743), let alone MPC-HC.

It is an amazing player and has only been getting better and better over the years.

[Sylt]

I hope I was not misunderstood. It was just a matter, no accusation! I only was focused on the visual similarities, not the history, that the Zoom Player longer exists.

[jmonier]

I hope I was not misunderstood. It was just a matter, no accusation! I only was focused on the visual similarities, not the history, that the Zoom Player longer exists.

Perhaps you're a non-English speaker and thus wrote things that, in English, mean something totally different than what you intended.

What I (and probably others) read from your post was that ZoomPlayer is not an original work and instead makes use of code originally developed for MPC and MPC-HC. Your statement: "Apparently large parts of the code under the hood were taken from the MPC-HC project." seems to say just this. To an English speaker, there doesn't seem to be anything to be misunderstood in that.

What I (and others) have been saying is that this is not true. The "history" that you refer to proves this, since ZoomPlayer existed BEFORE MPC.

[Blight]

Thanks for the support everyone.

Just for clarification:
Zoom Player is written in Delphi, Not C++ like MPC.
Zoom Player does not contain GPL code.

[bsw11]

I bought this player a number of years ago and at the time I requested that he add in the ability to play in slow mo without pitch change. Something PotPlayer and SM have had all along.

Well it is still not in there so I will continue to not use it. Too bad because it has a lot a great features like the selectable scrollwheel that I really like.

So one more time PLEASE ADD speed control without pitch change. PLEASE!

[Blight]

bsw11:
I think you can achieve slow motion without pitch change by using ReClock as the audio renderer.

[bsw11]

That is not a good solution - you need to integrate the ability into the interface completely - especially the keyboard and mouse wheel. And you should know if it works or not, that was what I was told last time and I never got it working.

And if your going to do it, make sure the audio stays in-sync. That is the one thing Pot-Player does not do a good job at.

You have a great product and this is one key feature that is lacking.

[Blight]

bsw11:
It may be possible to do something more integrated, but I lack the resources for it right now.
Perhaps in v9, but I'm not sure.

[Asmodian]

That is not a good solution - you need to integrate the ability into the interface completely - especially the keyboard and mouse wheel. And you should know if it works or not, that was what I was told last time and I never got it working.

And if your going to do it, make sure the audio stays in-sync. That is the one thing Pot-Player does not do a good job at.

You have a great product and this is one key feature that is lacking.

What are you trying to do with slow playback? Reclock w/ Zoom Player works quite well for me doing 25 -> 24 fps slow down without pitch change.

@Blight
8.5 is running very well, I like the new skin too. Great readability of the right-click menus. :)

[bsw11]

The way PP does it is very simple and usable - with a simple keystroke it changes the speed UP or DOWN in 10% increments down to 50% and up 3 or 4x.

There are many videos that can use this feature-
On the slow down side:
Sports vids, personal vids, training vids, and yes adult vids.

On the speed up side - boring vids you have to watch for work or school.

It would be even more useful controlled by the scroll wheel. It is too bad he does not have the time to do it as I can't imaging it taking more than a few days time if there is already the audio code available.

[Asmodian]

I wouldn't expect it to be so easy. Remember Zoom Player is not open source so Blight cannot just use others' GPL'ed code. I don't think he would be happy with PP's solution anyway, if it cannot keep sync.

Unless you are quite familiar with the code base I wouldn't make assumptions about how much work a feature would take.

[Blight]

bsw11:
Zoom Player has a +/- 10% play rate adjustment functions, they are "Alt Ctrl ," and "Alt Ctrl ."
If ReClock maintains the correct pitch, then you have the same functionality as in PP.

Asmodian:
Thank you! we worked really hard on polishing the GUI in v8.5, check out the screenshot we're working on for the release (the Onyx skin image is still under construction):
http://zoomplayer.com/pix/zpinterfaces_1920x1080_2.png

[bsw11]

OK so looks like we are closing in on this. I remember now one of the issues and I need some help on the reclock deal.

The problem is in the mouse wheel - the play rate does not actually do what the ALT-CTL ,. keys do - can you just make that work or add another option for the wheel that actually changes the real play rate?

On the reclock - I have no clue how to implement that function -a simple step by step including where to get the function if its not included would do the trick!

Thanks!

[cyberbeing]

Install ReClock from http://forum.slysoft.com/showpost.php?p=338573&postcount=1, set it as the default ZoomPlayer audio renderer, and make sure you have ReClock's TimeStreching enabled for speed-up & slow-down as desired.

[bsw11]

OK thanks got it. But how do I make sure it works with the player?? I tired to slow it down but the sound is not staying on pitch. Also if I click to pause and then play again the rate returns to 1. That is not acceptable.

I did click both the slow and fast ck bxs in the configuration. Is there something in the player that needs to be set?

[SamKook]

Is there any plans to add a wasapi audio renderer in the near future?

I'm searching for a player that support this natively instead of having to go through reclock and having to live with it not playing the audio every time it needs to fill the buffer.

[bsw11]

Using a video player to play audio is like using a truck in Nascar.

Use Foobar2000.org - best audio player and has a great wasapi.

[SamKook]

Using a video player to play audio is like using a truck in Nascar.

Use Foobar2000.org - best audio player and has a great wasapi.

It's not for playing audio only files, I'm already using foobar for that.

The audio from videos sound a lot better with it, which is why I tolerate reclock to be able to use it.

[bsw11]

Got it. For Multi-channel videos I usually put up with VLC as they have done the best job of implementing direct HDMI out ability.

So can you tell me how you get Zoom to work with ReClock?

[SamKook]

Got it. For Multi-channel videos I usually put up with VLC as they have done the best job of implementing direct HDMI out ability.

So can you tell me how you get Zoom to work with ReClock?

You just need to either add zoom in the applications reclock is allowed to replace the default renderer in the advanced tab or select reclock as the default renderer in zoom's option under playback, audio.

When you see a red/yellow/green clock icon appear in the task bar, you know it's working. If it's red it means it couldn't detect the video and won't change anything though.

[bsw11]

OK! Got it to work and it syncs very nicely as well.

That is the good news. The bad news is unless Blight will tweak it to stop resetting it EVER, then it is not usable. This means:

Do not reset when:
Pausing, repositioning or even playing the next video. Make that change or add an option and its good to go!

And the icing would be to add it to the mouse wheel functionality.

Thanks for all the help on this.

[Blight]

bsw11:
You can set the mouse wheel to a custom function and set that to the increase/decrease the rate by 10% functions.
ZP has settings that control whether the playrate resets on pause or even when playing the next media track.
Just click on the "search" button on the advanced options dialog and then type in 'rate' to find the related settings.

SamKook:
There is a wsaspi audio renderer based on the BASS-Audio components.
It used to be here: http://surodev.com/
But that website has been hacked (I notified the dev).
You can also use LAV Audio to do bitstreaming over HDMI.

[aressiont27]

I love this player. Works so fine and has a very good user interface. pretty decent that you members have listed some of the glitches and technical know-how of this product.


---------------------
audio codecs (http://www.broadcastdepot.com/SubCategories.aspx?cat=1&sub=50)

[pirlouy]

The audio from videos sound a lot better with it, which is why I tolerate reclock to be able to use it.
Placebo.
It's impossible to hear a difference between WASAPI and Directsound (if you use the good good settings in Directsound output), except if there's sound from another software coming in the same time...

[SamKook]

SamKook:
There is a wsaspi audio renderer based on the BASS-Audio components.
It used to be here: http://surodev.com/
But that website has been hacked (I notified the dev).
You can also use LAV Audio to do bitstreaming over HDMI.

That sounds really interesting, do you know what it's called? I tried googling it but only found the bass wasapi library or reclock.

Bitstreaming isn't an option because I don't have a decoder anymore, I'm outputting directly to my headphones.

Placebo.
It's impossible to hear a difference between WASAPI and Directsound (if you use the good good settings in Directsound output), except if there's sound from another software coming in the same time...

Then I guess I'm not using the good good settings(whatever they are) because there's a clear difference for me. And it can't be the placebo effect because I didn't expect wasapi to sound any different until I stopped using reclock and went back to standard directsound.

[bsw11]

OK. Getting closer.. It turns out you also have an option to force the frame rate choice in the wheel to only do rate so I was able to use the custom setting to zoom the video in and out which is just WONDERFUL for those vids with a large black border!

The issue is the wheel seems to only select 50% or 1.84 going the other way - the steps of 10% don't seem to be working. I have a fast wheel (MX rev) and when I slowed it down I got a couple extra steps but still not 10% and it does not stick at the minimum at the edges but recycles - so a little tweaking may be in order - unless there is another option :-).

And I have just one more issue that would stop me from switching from PP (and probably a lot of others) - multiple playlists - please tell me you have multiple playlists and how to use and select them.
Edit - I see you can save and load playlists, however in PP multiple lists are built into the interface so loading and changing and saving is automatic. Is there a similar function in ZP?

[bsw11]

One more issue - I was attempting to cut and paste from the PP playlist into ZP. When I hit ^V to paste it brought up the Media Viewer interface. I am still messing around to see if that will replace the multiple playlists of PP, but then somehow it did do a paste into the current list - I am not sure how, but I tried it a few more times and it seem phase of the moon dependent. I cannot get it to paste anymore.

What is the procedure to paste into a playlist? And why is ^V used for anything but a paste?

[Blight]

samkook:
The website is back up, this is the renderer:
http://surodev.com/?page_id=233
It's a DirectShow wrapper for BASS ASIO, I never tried it myself.

bsw11:
No, there is no specific multi-playlist feature at this time.
There are several ways of quickly building playlists from directory structures and of course the media library.
With regards to the play rate, you are right, in the next build, it will go up/down in 10% increments.
Ctrl+V isn't used in ZP to paste a playlist, you can either load it through the button, or drag & drop a bunch of files.
ZP does support loading quite a few playlist formats, I'm not sure what PP is using, but it it can export into an M3U format, ZP will support that.
ZP supports WMP, WinAmp, M3U and it's own "ZPL" playlist formats.

[SamKook]

samkook:
The website is back up, this is the renderer:
http://surodev.com/?page_id=233
It's a DirectShow wrapper for BASS ASIO, I never tried it myself.

Ah, that explains why I couldn't find anything about it since ASIO and WASAPI aren't the same thing(equally good though from what I've heard).

Sadly it doesn't play well with my Xonar D1 soundcard. Everything plays extremely slow and I can't seem to find a fix. I guess I'll have to go on their forum and hope for a fix or continue with reclock until I find a player that supports it natively.

Edit: And since it plays perfectly well with foobar's ASIO, it doesn't look good.

[bsw11]

Blight,

Your media library reminds me of a Windows 95 app. It has some cool features but it is a bit overdone. If you wanted to completely put PP out to lunch, all you would need to do is integrate a playlist with your history data and keep track also of the number of plays as well as the last play date. If that showed up on all playlists it would be game over.

One other issue is your screen saver - All I want it to do is use the windows screen saver and screen off function whenever the player IS NOT ACTUALLY PLAYING a video. So when a video is playing, then the Windows screen saver should be disabled and re-enabled on a pause. Right now anytime your app is running, it wipes out the Windows screen saver function (screen never turns off). If there is a setting please let me know. I already tried a bunch.

[Blight]

bsw11:
The reason ZP disables the screen saver (and it's optional) is that the windows screen saver can interfere with the playing media (causing Direct3D devices to be lost unexpectedly, beyond my control).
Simply use the options search button for screen saver and you'll find it ('disable windows screensaver').
As far as the media library, it's designed to work more for keyboard/remotes, mouse input is improving, but not quite there yet.
Multiple playlists will probably be in v9, there are many factors at play.

samkook:
The author answers his email, so you can try that.
He is wrapping the BASS library, which is supposed to support both ASIO and WASAPI.

[cyberbeing]

Zoom Player doesn't remove the following registry keys on uninstall:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AutoplayHandlers\Handlers\ZPPlayDriveOnArrival
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ZP.OpenDrive

[Blight]

cyberbeing:
Thanks, I'll take care of it in the next installer.