Blight
28th October 2002, 03:21
Hopefully there will only be one release candidate version and the final could be release sometime next week.
I've snuk in a few extra features which you can read about below. Probably the biggest one is the Media Library feature allowing you a file-navigator interface, but limited to specified directories which are mixed virtually together.
I've fixed any confirmed outstanding bugs I've been notified about, so if you still have crashes (that are not related to external filters), let me know so I can squash them for 2.90 final.
Changes since v2.80:
New :
* You can now access a DVD's Number Pad by pressing Alt+Ctrl+"0..9" on
the keyboard (or through a remote). The only real use of this feature
is for discs with hidden content that require number pad activation
(Such as "Terminator 2:Ultimate Edition").
* New Media Library Navigator (Alt+"M") allowing you to group specified
directories (even from different drives) into one virtual listing.
Similar to the file navigator, this interface can be navigated using
the following keys (or remote-mapped alternates):
Left - Go up one Directory.
Up/Down - Scroll through the List.
Insert - Play all files within the selected directory or
Play all files in a directory when a file is selected.
Enter - Enter Directory or Play File.
PgUp/PgDn - Scroll a page through the List.
Home/End - Go to Beginning/End of the List.
* New Media Library Path Editor (Shift+"M") allowing you to select the
paths used by the Media Library Navigator as a Virtual Drive.
* New Toggle (Options -> Toggles) allowing you to have the Control Bar
aligned to the Tom/Bottom of the Monitor when in windowed mode.
Set to either Top or Bottom, overrides all other Control Bar position
settings.
* New Setting (Options -> Settings -> Interface) allowing you to detach
the Control Bar from the user interface. The position of the Control
Bar in Window and Fullscreen modes are remembered independently.
Can also be accessed by middle clicking the Control Bar.
* New Setting (Options -> Manual Filters -> Extended VMR Mode).
In preparation for DirectX-9, I've implemented support for Extended VMR
modes. The VMR uses 3D hardware to accelerate video graphics.
At present it depends on the Display Driver implementation as to whether
VMR improves or degrades video quality (and yes, it can degrade it).
This mode only works under Windows XP as it's the only OS with VMR
support, but this may change with DirectX-9 (I'm not really sure).
Similar to the overlay mixer, the VMR can fix aspect ratio modes for
WMV9 and MPEG2 content. However, unlike the Overlay Mixer it does so
without lying to the player about the actual video resolution, so
playing back SVCD content will show the actual 480x480 resolution, but
when setting the Aspect Ratio mode to "Derived" in Zoom Player, you
will see the correct aspect ratio.
At this time, there is no Overlay Color Control interface on the VMR,
so you still need to use the Overlay Mixer to access this. I am told
that DirectX-9 may change that, so we'll have to see.
* New DVD Setting (Options -> DVD -> DVD Settings) allowing you to set
the Closed Caption Background to Transparent (otherwise Opaque).
* New Audio Balance (stereo) interface. Using the Alt+Shift+"," and
Alt+Shift+"." keys you can move the Audio Balance Left to Right.
* New Open Drive Function (Shift+"D") allowing you to open every file
on the drive according to the allowed extension list (Options ->
Values -> Other). The code also checks if the drive contains a
VCD, SVCD or DVD disc and only opens the appropriate files accordingly.
* If the Tray icon is visible, hovering the mouse cursor over it will
now show the open File Name or DVD Volume.
* New Command Line Parameter allowing you to set the keyboard file,
Example: "c:\path\to\exe\zplayer.exe" "/key:c:\path\to\key\keyfile.key"
* New Skinning interface (not implemented on default skin) allowing you
to create an Audio Balance Control on the user interface. It works
similar to the Play Rate Control and implemented through the
BlanaceExData skinning function.
* New "TimelineCursor" Skinning Variable allowing you to set the cursor
used for timeline seeking.
* New FillMask skinning helper function for easily filling skin areas
with a mask of another bitmap (useful for backgrounds with transparent
buttons).
* OGG Audio files can be used as external audio tracks.
* New Extended Function (exDVDNumPad) allowing you to activate a DVD's
Number Pad through either the keyboard, remote or context menu command.
Changes:
* VASTLY! Reduced the Windows 95/98/ME system resources used by
Zoom Player, Zoom Player now takes around 6% resources compared to
around 30% v2.80 used. This of course doesn't have any effect
on Windows 2K/XP as they don't have such a limited widget resource
bank to begin with.
* Zoom Player should load a bit faster now (not that it was slow to
load to begin with).
* The Custom Context-Menu interface has been completely revamped, there
are no more fixed items and more functions are accessible. Backward
support for the previous custom menu interface won't be supported,
however, it doesn't take more than 2 minutes to manually convert.
* The default Context-Menu for the Media, DVD and Tray interfaces has
been sorted and expanded.
* The Association dialog now shows you which extensions are associated
and allows you to remove association.
* The File Navigator interface now uses the Open Drive button when using
the Insert key on a drive letter.
* Separated the Custom Audio Device to Media and DVD so you can decide
if it affects one or the other (or neither).
* The Next/Previous Chapter buttons now act as Next/Previous Tracks when
no chapters are defined. When Chapters are defined they will only
change tracks if you are on the last/first chapters. This allows
you to cross-chapter media files.
* New Overlay Color automated verification system that double checks if
DirectShow is returning the correct overlay color used in OSD
transparency. This is required due to bugs in such filters as the
WinDVD v4 Video Decoder which modifies the overlay color code for some
unknown reason.
* The vlLeft and vlTop skin parameters have been moved into the
VolumeExData function and should no longer be used in future skins.
* The rtLeft, rtTop parameters and RateData function has been integrated
into a new "RateExData" function for further skinning simplification.
* The skinning documentation has moved from the plasticblue to the
brownish skin as it is updated to much all the new functions.
* Several of the Red Error messages have been converted to an OSD
message, especially those involving missing a DVD disc or wrong path.
* The red error dialog now has a "Close" button on them, some people
were unaware they could be closed by pressing Escape or Clicking on
the dialog.
* The Previous/Next filter file functions have been removed, if you
plan to use a filter file, you must select it through the options
dialog.
* Screen centering functions should now center on the active monitor
and not on the virtual screen coordinates for better multi-monitor
support.
* When the Extended VMR setting is enabled (see above) under Windows XP,
the frame capture function (Alt+"F") is more accurate and captures
any file format (including MPEG2, ASF and WMV).
* Some speed up to the ASX play list file parsing. On a P3/733 it now
takes around 40 seconds to load a 17000 entry list (verifying that
each file actually exists), down from 233 seconds with the previous
code. An improvement of over 500%.
Fixes:
* Wrote a DirectShow workaround a bug that failed to notify the player
when exiting a Menu mode when playing from a Bookmark.
* The Next Audio Track didn't work with the new OGM DirectShow filter.
* Fixed a problem when the Override VMR setting was enabled and you
simply wouldn't see any video.
* The TransBitmapCopy function was not working properly.
* Fixed a bug that could cause crashes on non-english versions of
windows.
* Fixed a problem that would alter the DVD Background Image aspect
ratio.
* Using the new DrawExText would cause position covered by the
text not to react to mouse clicks.
* Open Filter Property Pages should no longer mess up buttons with
Hover Graphics.
* Fixed possible crashes (multiple divide by zero) with Scene Cut files.
* Clicking the mouse on the Play List Navigator could pop an error dialog.
* Fixed a few possible crashes involving versions of windows that didn't
use "." as a fraction separator.
* Certain DVD Discs (ones without the "AUDIO_TS" directory) would not have
been identified as DVD when Insert Auto-Play was enabled.
Download the Latest Beta (http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_beta.shtml)
I've snuk in a few extra features which you can read about below. Probably the biggest one is the Media Library feature allowing you a file-navigator interface, but limited to specified directories which are mixed virtually together.
I've fixed any confirmed outstanding bugs I've been notified about, so if you still have crashes (that are not related to external filters), let me know so I can squash them for 2.90 final.
Changes since v2.80:
New :
* You can now access a DVD's Number Pad by pressing Alt+Ctrl+"0..9" on
the keyboard (or through a remote). The only real use of this feature
is for discs with hidden content that require number pad activation
(Such as "Terminator 2:Ultimate Edition").
* New Media Library Navigator (Alt+"M") allowing you to group specified
directories (even from different drives) into one virtual listing.
Similar to the file navigator, this interface can be navigated using
the following keys (or remote-mapped alternates):
Left - Go up one Directory.
Up/Down - Scroll through the List.
Insert - Play all files within the selected directory or
Play all files in a directory when a file is selected.
Enter - Enter Directory or Play File.
PgUp/PgDn - Scroll a page through the List.
Home/End - Go to Beginning/End of the List.
* New Media Library Path Editor (Shift+"M") allowing you to select the
paths used by the Media Library Navigator as a Virtual Drive.
* New Toggle (Options -> Toggles) allowing you to have the Control Bar
aligned to the Tom/Bottom of the Monitor when in windowed mode.
Set to either Top or Bottom, overrides all other Control Bar position
settings.
* New Setting (Options -> Settings -> Interface) allowing you to detach
the Control Bar from the user interface. The position of the Control
Bar in Window and Fullscreen modes are remembered independently.
Can also be accessed by middle clicking the Control Bar.
* New Setting (Options -> Manual Filters -> Extended VMR Mode).
In preparation for DirectX-9, I've implemented support for Extended VMR
modes. The VMR uses 3D hardware to accelerate video graphics.
At present it depends on the Display Driver implementation as to whether
VMR improves or degrades video quality (and yes, it can degrade it).
This mode only works under Windows XP as it's the only OS with VMR
support, but this may change with DirectX-9 (I'm not really sure).
Similar to the overlay mixer, the VMR can fix aspect ratio modes for
WMV9 and MPEG2 content. However, unlike the Overlay Mixer it does so
without lying to the player about the actual video resolution, so
playing back SVCD content will show the actual 480x480 resolution, but
when setting the Aspect Ratio mode to "Derived" in Zoom Player, you
will see the correct aspect ratio.
At this time, there is no Overlay Color Control interface on the VMR,
so you still need to use the Overlay Mixer to access this. I am told
that DirectX-9 may change that, so we'll have to see.
* New DVD Setting (Options -> DVD -> DVD Settings) allowing you to set
the Closed Caption Background to Transparent (otherwise Opaque).
* New Audio Balance (stereo) interface. Using the Alt+Shift+"," and
Alt+Shift+"." keys you can move the Audio Balance Left to Right.
* New Open Drive Function (Shift+"D") allowing you to open every file
on the drive according to the allowed extension list (Options ->
Values -> Other). The code also checks if the drive contains a
VCD, SVCD or DVD disc and only opens the appropriate files accordingly.
* If the Tray icon is visible, hovering the mouse cursor over it will
now show the open File Name or DVD Volume.
* New Command Line Parameter allowing you to set the keyboard file,
Example: "c:\path\to\exe\zplayer.exe" "/key:c:\path\to\key\keyfile.key"
* New Skinning interface (not implemented on default skin) allowing you
to create an Audio Balance Control on the user interface. It works
similar to the Play Rate Control and implemented through the
BlanaceExData skinning function.
* New "TimelineCursor" Skinning Variable allowing you to set the cursor
used for timeline seeking.
* New FillMask skinning helper function for easily filling skin areas
with a mask of another bitmap (useful for backgrounds with transparent
buttons).
* OGG Audio files can be used as external audio tracks.
* New Extended Function (exDVDNumPad) allowing you to activate a DVD's
Number Pad through either the keyboard, remote or context menu command.
Changes:
* VASTLY! Reduced the Windows 95/98/ME system resources used by
Zoom Player, Zoom Player now takes around 6% resources compared to
around 30% v2.80 used. This of course doesn't have any effect
on Windows 2K/XP as they don't have such a limited widget resource
bank to begin with.
* Zoom Player should load a bit faster now (not that it was slow to
load to begin with).
* The Custom Context-Menu interface has been completely revamped, there
are no more fixed items and more functions are accessible. Backward
support for the previous custom menu interface won't be supported,
however, it doesn't take more than 2 minutes to manually convert.
* The default Context-Menu for the Media, DVD and Tray interfaces has
been sorted and expanded.
* The Association dialog now shows you which extensions are associated
and allows you to remove association.
* The File Navigator interface now uses the Open Drive button when using
the Insert key on a drive letter.
* Separated the Custom Audio Device to Media and DVD so you can decide
if it affects one or the other (or neither).
* The Next/Previous Chapter buttons now act as Next/Previous Tracks when
no chapters are defined. When Chapters are defined they will only
change tracks if you are on the last/first chapters. This allows
you to cross-chapter media files.
* New Overlay Color automated verification system that double checks if
DirectShow is returning the correct overlay color used in OSD
transparency. This is required due to bugs in such filters as the
WinDVD v4 Video Decoder which modifies the overlay color code for some
unknown reason.
* The vlLeft and vlTop skin parameters have been moved into the
VolumeExData function and should no longer be used in future skins.
* The rtLeft, rtTop parameters and RateData function has been integrated
into a new "RateExData" function for further skinning simplification.
* The skinning documentation has moved from the plasticblue to the
brownish skin as it is updated to much all the new functions.
* Several of the Red Error messages have been converted to an OSD
message, especially those involving missing a DVD disc or wrong path.
* The red error dialog now has a "Close" button on them, some people
were unaware they could be closed by pressing Escape or Clicking on
the dialog.
* The Previous/Next filter file functions have been removed, if you
plan to use a filter file, you must select it through the options
dialog.
* Screen centering functions should now center on the active monitor
and not on the virtual screen coordinates for better multi-monitor
support.
* When the Extended VMR setting is enabled (see above) under Windows XP,
the frame capture function (Alt+"F") is more accurate and captures
any file format (including MPEG2, ASF and WMV).
* Some speed up to the ASX play list file parsing. On a P3/733 it now
takes around 40 seconds to load a 17000 entry list (verifying that
each file actually exists), down from 233 seconds with the previous
code. An improvement of over 500%.
Fixes:
* Wrote a DirectShow workaround a bug that failed to notify the player
when exiting a Menu mode when playing from a Bookmark.
* The Next Audio Track didn't work with the new OGM DirectShow filter.
* Fixed a problem when the Override VMR setting was enabled and you
simply wouldn't see any video.
* The TransBitmapCopy function was not working properly.
* Fixed a bug that could cause crashes on non-english versions of
windows.
* Fixed a problem that would alter the DVD Background Image aspect
ratio.
* Using the new DrawExText would cause position covered by the
text not to react to mouse clicks.
* Open Filter Property Pages should no longer mess up buttons with
Hover Graphics.
* Fixed possible crashes (multiple divide by zero) with Scene Cut files.
* Clicking the mouse on the Play List Navigator could pop an error dialog.
* Fixed a few possible crashes involving versions of windows that didn't
use "." as a fraction separator.
* Certain DVD Discs (ones without the "AUDIO_TS" directory) would not have
been identified as DVD when Insert Auto-Play was enabled.
Download the Latest Beta (http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_beta.shtml)