Blight
9th March 2002, 00:37
It looks like the Pisho mirror is down. I didn't get any eMail from the owner, so I'm using the hoyty mirror for now, but unless someone steps forward with a mirror I can use (around 5mb FTP accessible web space), ZP 2.50 final will be on hold as I don't think hoyty can take the load and the inmatrix servers surely won't take it.
In better news, I spent 4 hours today restructuring the on-line help to take into account the new options dialog and all the new 2.50 features. Combine that with the new ZP FAQ (http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/faq/) and I think Zoom Player is ready for final release once this release candidate checks through.
Here's the change list:
* 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 Options dialog so that it is a easier to navigate
and the various settings are more logically ordered.
* Revised the DVD Menu detection code. It should be more reliable
and you should be able to see the position of video where seeking
is disabled (such as DVD Trailers).
* 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 DVD/MediaGraph function, The "SetFilterSync" allows you to
choose the filter which will be used for Audio/Video Synchronization.
This "MAY" help with some Audio/Video lip-sync issues, but probably
not. I'm including it here for "completeness" and for the Power
Users to experiment with.
* 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 Feature. Right-Clicking a Play List editor item will pop-up
an information dialog containing the full file name and path.
* 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 specify a
default folder image if one is not found in the current playback
folder (for audio media files).
* 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 (Alt+"]") to cycle through the Video Presets.
* New Function (Ctrl+"]") to cycle through the Blanking Presets.
* New Function (Shift+"B") to disable DVD Subtitle (if active).
* 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.
* Restructured how files are being loaded. By default, opening
a file through the main user interface or command line/externally
will clear the play list. You can set it so that the files will
be appended instead (Options -> Settings -> Playback). In earlier
versions, the newly loaded files would be automatically played,
from this version, the files will be queued instead and playback
won't be disturbed. Unless! you select the "Appending to Playback
plays new track" setting, in which case the new tracks will be
played as-in the previous version.
* The Override VMR buttons on the toggles tab didn't have the desired
effect. It seems that DirectShow would restore the VMR after a
while, and as such the button wasn't really doing anything.
As a solution to this issue, I replaced the button with a check box
on the Manual Filters dialog that finds the VMR filter during the
initial file playback and instantly replaces it programmatically
with the standard Video Renderer (if the check box is enabled).
* 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.
* The double click mouse toggle can now be used to Maximize the
user interface.
* Completely rewrote the Multi Track AVI Audio code. It should now
compatible with more Multi Track AVI files and have less "issues".
* The Timeline will now show all the text it can and crop it on the
right when there's no room (instead of hiding the fields).
* 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.
* Updated the version of the NSIS installer. Installing to non-english
versions of Windows should now create the shortcuts in the proper
"programs" sub-menu. The installer is a bit smaller too.
zoomplayer250rc2.zip (http://inmatrix.hoyty.com/mirror/zoomplayer250rc2.zip)
In better news, I spent 4 hours today restructuring the on-line help to take into account the new options dialog and all the new 2.50 features. Combine that with the new ZP FAQ (http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/faq/) and I think Zoom Player is ready for final release once this release candidate checks through.
Here's the change list:
* 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 Options dialog so that it is a easier to navigate
and the various settings are more logically ordered.
* Revised the DVD Menu detection code. It should be more reliable
and you should be able to see the position of video where seeking
is disabled (such as DVD Trailers).
* 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 DVD/MediaGraph function, The "SetFilterSync" allows you to
choose the filter which will be used for Audio/Video Synchronization.
This "MAY" help with some Audio/Video lip-sync issues, but probably
not. I'm including it here for "completeness" and for the Power
Users to experiment with.
* 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 Feature. Right-Clicking a Play List editor item will pop-up
an information dialog containing the full file name and path.
* 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 specify a
default folder image if one is not found in the current playback
folder (for audio media files).
* 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 (Alt+"]") to cycle through the Video Presets.
* New Function (Ctrl+"]") to cycle through the Blanking Presets.
* New Function (Shift+"B") to disable DVD Subtitle (if active).
* 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.
* Restructured how files are being loaded. By default, opening
a file through the main user interface or command line/externally
will clear the play list. You can set it so that the files will
be appended instead (Options -> Settings -> Playback). In earlier
versions, the newly loaded files would be automatically played,
from this version, the files will be queued instead and playback
won't be disturbed. Unless! you select the "Appending to Playback
plays new track" setting, in which case the new tracks will be
played as-in the previous version.
* The Override VMR buttons on the toggles tab didn't have the desired
effect. It seems that DirectShow would restore the VMR after a
while, and as such the button wasn't really doing anything.
As a solution to this issue, I replaced the button with a check box
on the Manual Filters dialog that finds the VMR filter during the
initial file playback and instantly replaces it programmatically
with the standard Video Renderer (if the check box is enabled).
* 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.
* The double click mouse toggle can now be used to Maximize the
user interface.
* Completely rewrote the Multi Track AVI Audio code. It should now
compatible with more Multi Track AVI files and have less "issues".
* The Timeline will now show all the text it can and crop it on the
right when there's no room (instead of hiding the fields).
* 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.
* Updated the version of the NSIS installer. Installing to non-english
versions of Windows should now create the shortcuts in the proper
"programs" sub-menu. The installer is a bit smaller too.
zoomplayer250rc2.zip (http://inmatrix.hoyty.com/mirror/zoomplayer250rc2.zip)