Blight
18th March 2005, 03:12
A lot of people have been awaiting this beta.
As you can see from the list below, there are A LOT of changes which cover pretty much everything, new features, changes and improvements of current features and of course fixes.
You'll notice that that VMR9 Renderless mode doesn't support Direct3D exclusive mode yet (it works in windowed mode). A test version will be released later on.
Here is the change list since v4.10 beta 2:
* IMPORTANT! All VMR7/9 settings have changed. If you have previously
selected VMR7/9 as your video renderer, make sure to re-select.
* IMPORTANT! Several key Microsoft features that involve the playback
of WMV/WMA files have changed. It is required that you to re-install
Windows Media Player 10. Even if you already have it installed or
are not planning to use it as a player (Windows Media Player contains
component that effect playback of all other players).
You need at least version "10.00.00.3802" installed.
* New "White Wash" Pattern (Shift+"P"). White Wash is a mechanism that
allows you to wash out the burn-in effect of Plasma Televisions.
Prolonged use of Plasma televisions can sometime burn a signal onto
the screen if left on for too long. Popular examples of this is
when watching a lot of the same TV Channel and having the Station's
Logo burned into the screen.
When enabling white-wash, a white bar will move very slowly across
your screen (one pixel every 10 seconds) which over a few hours
should wash away any of the burn-in effects.
* New "Gradients" Pattern (Shift+"P"). Useful for seeing the color
range of your display device.
* New Customized Media Profiles for Nero Digital filters, including
H264 playback (using nero file-reader with FFDShow as the decoder).
* New Customized Media Profile for ".ms-dvr" files. For it to work,
you must download the MS-DVR patch from the Microsoft Windows Update
web site.
* New Setting (Advanced Options / DVD / DVD Setup / Customized)
allowing you to specify the Video ColorSpace that the video
renderer should try to connect at. This should be a relatively
safe option as Zoom Player will try to fall back to the default
ColorSpace connection if the specified mode doesn't connect.
* New Setting (Advanced Options / Aspect Ratio) allowing you to
Enable/Disable support for Anamorphic Matroska files. This is
optional as when DirectVobSub (VSFilter) is enabled with the
option to extend the video to a different aspect ratio, it
will corrupt the aspect ratio on such files.
* New Setting (Advanced Options / Settings / Interface) that controls
whether the options dialog is forced to appear on the active monitor
(default to on). When disabled, the Options Dialog position is
remembered across multiple monitors.
* Zoom Player now supports CUE Chapter files (".cue" extension).
The support is optional (Advanced Options / Settings / Playback)
as doing file searches when opening files causes a slight slowdown
(probably not noticeable, but it accumulates).
* New Value (Advanced Options / DVD / DVD Tools) allowing you to
automatically execute an external application/script when a
PAL disc is identified.
* New Value (Advanced Options / DVD / DVD Tools) allowing you to
automatically execute an external application/script when an
NTSC disc is identified.
* New Value (Advanced Options / DVD / DVD Tools) allowing you to
automatically execute an external application/script when a
DVD is stopped.
* New Value (Advanced Options / Values / Play List) allowing the
Title extracted from Media Tags (ID3v1/ID3v2/APE Tag/WMA Tag/Etc...)
to be used instead of the file name. Media Tags are only extracted
when a file is opened, Scanned by the "Get Media Duration" function
on the Play List Right-Click context menu or Automatically scanned
by specifying the file extension under:
"Advanced Options / Values / Extensions -> Auto-Get Duration/Title".
* New Value (Advanced Options / Values / Other) allowing you to
specify a default file to open in the web navigator if no
specific file exists for the currently opened Media/DVD.
* New Functions (Alt+Shift+"+" and Alt+Shift+"-") allowing you to
reposition the Subtitle vertical position in media files (when
the DirectVobSub filter is used to display subtitles).
* New Functions (Alt+Ctrl+"+" and Alt+Ctrl+"-") allowing you to
resync Subtitles in media files (when the DirectVobSub filter
is used to display subtitles).
* New Function (Alt+Ctrl+"D") that pops an OSD with the current
date and time.
* New Function allowing you to open the directory of the currently
highlighted file in the play list within Explorer. This function
is now accessible on the right-click Play List context menu.
* New Extended Function "exEjectDrive" allowing you to Eject/Insert
a specified removable drive.
* New Extended Function "exEnableTCP" allowing you to enable the
TCP/IP interface on a specific port.
* New File Definition function allowing you to set the Audio
Synchronization offset value.
* New "zplayer.zdf" Definition function allowing you to automatically
save the Audio Synchronization offset value.
* Zoom Player now supports internet based playlists. This should help
some MMS streams which are linked to by an ASX file.
* New "NoTintSource" Skin script command enabling you to exclude
sections of the skin bitmap from being tinted by the skin selection
dialog's tinting controls.
* New "ToggleInterface" Skin script command that can be used to show
or hide some of the Zoom Player user interfaces as the skin loads.
* Extended the "PlayListData" Skinning script command to enable
specifying the font used by the play list. You can still override
the font through the Advanced Options dialog.
Furthermore, the "PlayListData" command now included extended
documentation for additional functionality.
* Extended the "DrawExText" Skinning script command to support all
function modes previously only supported by "CreateExButton".
* New "/CPR" command line parameter allowing you to set a color
present. For example:
"c:\program files\zoom player\zplayer.exe" /CPR:2
* New "/TCP:[port]" command line parameter which enables the
Zoom Player TCP/IP interface. Using just the "/TCP" parameter
will enable the interface on the current port, using "/TCP:4096"
will enable the interface on port 4096.
+ Using the Next/Previous Track function while in Fast Forward or
Rewind will do a Time Seek (default 2 minutes).
+ Using the Next/Previous Chapter function while in Fast Forward or
Rewind will do a Time Jump (default 20 seconds).
+ The Pattern Images (Shift+"P") now respect the current Aspect Ratio
and the Pixel Aspect Ratio (Source Relative Stretch) which makes
them better suited for manually aligning the Aspect Ratio.
+ The Windows Media settings have been moved under the Filter Control
section of the Advanced Options Dialog.
+ When deleting items using the Navigator interfaces, the deleted
item name will now appear as part of the confirmation dialog.
+ The Media Library navigator will now open to the location of the
currently open file if the file resides anywhere within the media
library paths (previously it would only open the root locations).
+ Expanded Communication Interface
(Messages 1501/1601/1602/1701/1702/1750/1751/1850/2400/2500/5010/
5020/5030).
+ Communication messages 1600 and 1700 have changed. They now
give an audio/subtitle track index instead of the name (which
is now delivered for all available streams in a new message).
+ Context Navigator now supports the Tab (Ascii #9) Character for use in
right-alignment of text as used in the regular Context Menu.
+ Shoutcasted currently playing audio track will now be listed in the
tray icon tool tip and on the application task bar (if the setting
to show the currently playing file in the task bar is enabled).
+ You can now specify a Down Active bitmap using the CreateExButton
Skin script function.
+ Any RGB value entered as part of the skin script can now contain
an "NT" suffix to specify that the color shouldn't be tinted.
For example:
FillRect(4,4,<VidWidth>,<VidHeight>,000000NT)
+ The FillRectNT skin function has become obsolete as you can now
specify which RGB values should not be tinted.
+ The "AddBarButton" skinning function has become obsolete. It is now
replaced with the CreateExButton with a target value of "CBar". This
allows access for a few more settings for the buttons. There are some
limitations, read the function documentation (within brownish.skn) for
more information regarding the limitations.
+ The "DrawExText" skinning function can now show a hint label.
+ Using Next/Previous frame while playing will now pause the video
(instead of doing nothing).
+ The Filter selector interface is now resizable.
+ The "Dock Play list to Main user interface" setting has been dropped
as it has been replaced by the screen snapping feature.
- Zoom Player "may" function again on Windows NT4, not fully tested.
- Fixed a "Divide by Zero" problem with some decoders that returned
invalid aspect ratio information.
- While in Audio Mode, the Audio Bar will not be resized when a new
file is loaded and Auto Set user interface to Source Resolution
is enabled.
- Fixed "List Index out of Bounds" error when trying to play Shoutcast
streams that contained no actual audio streams.
- Fixed a cosmetic navigator display issue where the width of unicode
strings was not calculated properly.
- Fixed a problem with the TimeLine seek position OSD could remain
visible on screen.
- Fixed a small memory leak when playing Shoutcasted streams.
- Fixed a problem with WMA/APE tags containing unicode characters.
- Fixed a problem with Zoom Player's Next/Previous Chapter commands
not working properly with certain media files.
- Fix for error "10054" in the TCP/IP communication interface.
- Skinning for the Play List, Equalizer and OSD was broken in the
previous beta.
- Switching Audio Mode skins (or skin modes) would wrongly
accept a skin width below the minimal skin width specified
by the skin author.
- The mouse wheel video positioning functions should now work regardless
of what the keyboard arrow functions are set to.
- When Remember Last Media Position and Stop closes media files are
enabled, the last media position will be remembered properly.
- Enabling/Disabling Button Hints on the Basic Options dialog wouldn't
have had an effect until you restarted.
- Couldn't toggle Button Hints for the Equalizer dialog.
- Comm Message #1930 wasn't updating the play list properly.
Download v4.10 beta 3 here (http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_beta.shtml)
As you can see from the list below, there are A LOT of changes which cover pretty much everything, new features, changes and improvements of current features and of course fixes.
You'll notice that that VMR9 Renderless mode doesn't support Direct3D exclusive mode yet (it works in windowed mode). A test version will be released later on.
Here is the change list since v4.10 beta 2:
* IMPORTANT! All VMR7/9 settings have changed. If you have previously
selected VMR7/9 as your video renderer, make sure to re-select.
* IMPORTANT! Several key Microsoft features that involve the playback
of WMV/WMA files have changed. It is required that you to re-install
Windows Media Player 10. Even if you already have it installed or
are not planning to use it as a player (Windows Media Player contains
component that effect playback of all other players).
You need at least version "10.00.00.3802" installed.
* New "White Wash" Pattern (Shift+"P"). White Wash is a mechanism that
allows you to wash out the burn-in effect of Plasma Televisions.
Prolonged use of Plasma televisions can sometime burn a signal onto
the screen if left on for too long. Popular examples of this is
when watching a lot of the same TV Channel and having the Station's
Logo burned into the screen.
When enabling white-wash, a white bar will move very slowly across
your screen (one pixel every 10 seconds) which over a few hours
should wash away any of the burn-in effects.
* New "Gradients" Pattern (Shift+"P"). Useful for seeing the color
range of your display device.
* New Customized Media Profiles for Nero Digital filters, including
H264 playback (using nero file-reader with FFDShow as the decoder).
* New Customized Media Profile for ".ms-dvr" files. For it to work,
you must download the MS-DVR patch from the Microsoft Windows Update
web site.
* New Setting (Advanced Options / DVD / DVD Setup / Customized)
allowing you to specify the Video ColorSpace that the video
renderer should try to connect at. This should be a relatively
safe option as Zoom Player will try to fall back to the default
ColorSpace connection if the specified mode doesn't connect.
* New Setting (Advanced Options / Aspect Ratio) allowing you to
Enable/Disable support for Anamorphic Matroska files. This is
optional as when DirectVobSub (VSFilter) is enabled with the
option to extend the video to a different aspect ratio, it
will corrupt the aspect ratio on such files.
* New Setting (Advanced Options / Settings / Interface) that controls
whether the options dialog is forced to appear on the active monitor
(default to on). When disabled, the Options Dialog position is
remembered across multiple monitors.
* Zoom Player now supports CUE Chapter files (".cue" extension).
The support is optional (Advanced Options / Settings / Playback)
as doing file searches when opening files causes a slight slowdown
(probably not noticeable, but it accumulates).
* New Value (Advanced Options / DVD / DVD Tools) allowing you to
automatically execute an external application/script when a
PAL disc is identified.
* New Value (Advanced Options / DVD / DVD Tools) allowing you to
automatically execute an external application/script when an
NTSC disc is identified.
* New Value (Advanced Options / DVD / DVD Tools) allowing you to
automatically execute an external application/script when a
DVD is stopped.
* New Value (Advanced Options / Values / Play List) allowing the
Title extracted from Media Tags (ID3v1/ID3v2/APE Tag/WMA Tag/Etc...)
to be used instead of the file name. Media Tags are only extracted
when a file is opened, Scanned by the "Get Media Duration" function
on the Play List Right-Click context menu or Automatically scanned
by specifying the file extension under:
"Advanced Options / Values / Extensions -> Auto-Get Duration/Title".
* New Value (Advanced Options / Values / Other) allowing you to
specify a default file to open in the web navigator if no
specific file exists for the currently opened Media/DVD.
* New Functions (Alt+Shift+"+" and Alt+Shift+"-") allowing you to
reposition the Subtitle vertical position in media files (when
the DirectVobSub filter is used to display subtitles).
* New Functions (Alt+Ctrl+"+" and Alt+Ctrl+"-") allowing you to
resync Subtitles in media files (when the DirectVobSub filter
is used to display subtitles).
* New Function (Alt+Ctrl+"D") that pops an OSD with the current
date and time.
* New Function allowing you to open the directory of the currently
highlighted file in the play list within Explorer. This function
is now accessible on the right-click Play List context menu.
* New Extended Function "exEjectDrive" allowing you to Eject/Insert
a specified removable drive.
* New Extended Function "exEnableTCP" allowing you to enable the
TCP/IP interface on a specific port.
* New File Definition function allowing you to set the Audio
Synchronization offset value.
* New "zplayer.zdf" Definition function allowing you to automatically
save the Audio Synchronization offset value.
* Zoom Player now supports internet based playlists. This should help
some MMS streams which are linked to by an ASX file.
* New "NoTintSource" Skin script command enabling you to exclude
sections of the skin bitmap from being tinted by the skin selection
dialog's tinting controls.
* New "ToggleInterface" Skin script command that can be used to show
or hide some of the Zoom Player user interfaces as the skin loads.
* Extended the "PlayListData" Skinning script command to enable
specifying the font used by the play list. You can still override
the font through the Advanced Options dialog.
Furthermore, the "PlayListData" command now included extended
documentation for additional functionality.
* Extended the "DrawExText" Skinning script command to support all
function modes previously only supported by "CreateExButton".
* New "/CPR" command line parameter allowing you to set a color
present. For example:
"c:\program files\zoom player\zplayer.exe" /CPR:2
* New "/TCP:[port]" command line parameter which enables the
Zoom Player TCP/IP interface. Using just the "/TCP" parameter
will enable the interface on the current port, using "/TCP:4096"
will enable the interface on port 4096.
+ Using the Next/Previous Track function while in Fast Forward or
Rewind will do a Time Seek (default 2 minutes).
+ Using the Next/Previous Chapter function while in Fast Forward or
Rewind will do a Time Jump (default 20 seconds).
+ The Pattern Images (Shift+"P") now respect the current Aspect Ratio
and the Pixel Aspect Ratio (Source Relative Stretch) which makes
them better suited for manually aligning the Aspect Ratio.
+ The Windows Media settings have been moved under the Filter Control
section of the Advanced Options Dialog.
+ When deleting items using the Navigator interfaces, the deleted
item name will now appear as part of the confirmation dialog.
+ The Media Library navigator will now open to the location of the
currently open file if the file resides anywhere within the media
library paths (previously it would only open the root locations).
+ Expanded Communication Interface
(Messages 1501/1601/1602/1701/1702/1750/1751/1850/2400/2500/5010/
5020/5030).
+ Communication messages 1600 and 1700 have changed. They now
give an audio/subtitle track index instead of the name (which
is now delivered for all available streams in a new message).
+ Context Navigator now supports the Tab (Ascii #9) Character for use in
right-alignment of text as used in the regular Context Menu.
+ Shoutcasted currently playing audio track will now be listed in the
tray icon tool tip and on the application task bar (if the setting
to show the currently playing file in the task bar is enabled).
+ You can now specify a Down Active bitmap using the CreateExButton
Skin script function.
+ Any RGB value entered as part of the skin script can now contain
an "NT" suffix to specify that the color shouldn't be tinted.
For example:
FillRect(4,4,<VidWidth>,<VidHeight>,000000NT)
+ The FillRectNT skin function has become obsolete as you can now
specify which RGB values should not be tinted.
+ The "AddBarButton" skinning function has become obsolete. It is now
replaced with the CreateExButton with a target value of "CBar". This
allows access for a few more settings for the buttons. There are some
limitations, read the function documentation (within brownish.skn) for
more information regarding the limitations.
+ The "DrawExText" skinning function can now show a hint label.
+ Using Next/Previous frame while playing will now pause the video
(instead of doing nothing).
+ The Filter selector interface is now resizable.
+ The "Dock Play list to Main user interface" setting has been dropped
as it has been replaced by the screen snapping feature.
- Zoom Player "may" function again on Windows NT4, not fully tested.
- Fixed a "Divide by Zero" problem with some decoders that returned
invalid aspect ratio information.
- While in Audio Mode, the Audio Bar will not be resized when a new
file is loaded and Auto Set user interface to Source Resolution
is enabled.
- Fixed "List Index out of Bounds" error when trying to play Shoutcast
streams that contained no actual audio streams.
- Fixed a cosmetic navigator display issue where the width of unicode
strings was not calculated properly.
- Fixed a problem with the TimeLine seek position OSD could remain
visible on screen.
- Fixed a small memory leak when playing Shoutcasted streams.
- Fixed a problem with WMA/APE tags containing unicode characters.
- Fixed a problem with Zoom Player's Next/Previous Chapter commands
not working properly with certain media files.
- Fix for error "10054" in the TCP/IP communication interface.
- Skinning for the Play List, Equalizer and OSD was broken in the
previous beta.
- Switching Audio Mode skins (or skin modes) would wrongly
accept a skin width below the minimal skin width specified
by the skin author.
- The mouse wheel video positioning functions should now work regardless
of what the keyboard arrow functions are set to.
- When Remember Last Media Position and Stop closes media files are
enabled, the last media position will be remembered properly.
- Enabling/Disabling Button Hints on the Basic Options dialog wouldn't
have had an effect until you restarted.
- Couldn't toggle Button Hints for the Equalizer dialog.
- Comm Message #1930 wasn't updating the play list properly.
Download v4.10 beta 3 here (http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_beta.shtml)