Unlike version 8.0 that took 18 month to complete, Version 8.1 final is ready in under two months.
If you have been following Zoom Player development on Facebook, Twitter you would have noticed that over 20 public preview builds were released.
The new release schedule ensures faster bug fixes, polished features and new customization options in a shorter time span.
Highlights from v8.1 :
. The default Onyx skin has been refreshed with new widgets and power features.
. A much more powerful audio track and subtitle stream selection interface.
. LIRC Remote Control support.
. Enhanced TCP/IP remote control.
. More powerful skinning engine logistics.
Download :
Click here for the Zoom Player v8.1 download mirror list.
Zoom Player Premium users :
Owners of 'Zoom Player Premium' can download v8.1
here (md5: FBAC2AF0657A062826FA3B7EBC9EB08B).
Here's what's new in v8.1 :
Code:
New :
* The default Onyx skin has been enhanced:
1. Contrast, Brightness and Saturation are now adjustable through the
expandable toolbar.
2. The expandable toolbar is now accessible through a button
on the user interface instead of pressing F5 or F9 using the keyboard.
3. The volume, balance, play rate and equalizer bars have been redesigned.
4. Less framing around buttons.
* The F4-F9 skin modes used by the Default Onyx skin have changed,
the new modes are:
F4 : Default mode.
F5 : Smaller user interface.
F6 : Minimal user interface.
F7 : No user interface.
F8 : Show/Hide Top Bar.
F9 : Show/Hide Bottom Bar.
* The Audio and Subtitle stream selection interface has been rewritten.
The new 'Stream Selection' right-click sub-menu groups all streams into
clearly labeled 'Audio' and 'Subtitle' groups.
* The back-end for the Audio track cycle function (Ctrl+"A") used to
switch between multiple audio tracks has been rewritten. Audio tracks
from internal and external sources are now switched seamlessly.
* The back-end for the Subtitle stream cycle function (Ctrl+"B") used to
switch between multiple subtitle steams has been rewritten. Subtitle
streams from embedded and external sources are now switched seamlessly.
* Zoom Player now has integrated LIRC support. LIRC transmits and receives
remote control signals. This allows computer control using almost any
remote control.
See:
http://winlirc.sf.net for the Windows port by Jim Paris & Ian Curtis.
http://www.lirc.org for the original project.
Using the LIRC section of the options dialog, you can directly assign
remote control buttons to Zoom Player Standard, Extended and Navigation
functions.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface), that controls how to display the
right-click "Stream Selection" sub-menu. With "Show all filters in Stream
Selection sub-menu" enabled, all filters exposing a stream select interface
are displayed in a sub-menu, cleaning up the dialog. With this setting
disabled, only detected Subtitle, Audio and Video streams from known
sources are listed.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Control Bar), that prevents the
Control Bar and Timeline context menu from opening. Useful if you have
kids and you don't want a control bar setting changed by accident.
* Two new "On Playlist Complete" modes (Adv. Options / Playback) :
1. Random play a media file from the playing directory.
2. Random play a file with the same extension from the playing directory.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video / Subtitles), that resets
the Subtitle Renderer's filter subtitle synchronization value, ensuring
that the default value is restored when opening a new media after manually
adjusting subtitle synchronization. Enabled by default.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video / Subtitles), that forces
automatic stream selection to work only with external subtitle files.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video / Subtitles), that specifies
whether to enable the first embedded or external subtitle stream if
no automatic stream selection match is found (or if the auto stream
selection is disabled).
* New "/CONNECTTCP:[address or IP]:[port]" command line parameter.
By default, The TCP/IP interface works as a server by waiting for 3rd party
applications to connect to Zoom Player.
With the "/CONNECTTCP" parameter, Zoom Player initiates the connection
itself with a local or remote server right as it launches. A server must be
listening on the specified address and port for a connection from Zoom Player.
Example:
"c:\program files\zplayer\zplayer.exe" /CONNECTTCP:127.0.0.1:4770
* New extended function "exSkinMode", which activates the F4-F9 skin modes.
* Five new functions "fnResetBright", "fnResetContrast", "fnResetGamma",
"fnResetHue" and "fnResetSatur" that reset the Brightness, Contrast, Gamma
Hue and Saturation to their default values.
* The skin script code has been extended with "StartAndGroup" and "EndAndGroup"
blocks that allow skin script authors to limit sections of the script to
specific combination of active groups.
* When connecting to the TCP/IP control interface, Zoom Player automatically
issues a "3000" notification message if an error dialog was visible prior
to establishing the TCP/IP connection.
* Zoom Player now notifies you of known buggy filters when running a new
version of Zoom Player for the first time.
* New Smart Play profile for embedded Apple Lossless Audio (ALAC).
* New Comm API message #1090, used to get the current timeline text,
including the current position and any other value specified in
the options dialog under "Adv. Options / Interface / Control Bar /
Timeline Area".
Changes :
+ The F4-F9 keys no longer modify skin groups, but rather activate Skin
modes which are programmable directly from the skin script, providing
greater flexibility and control to skin designers.
+ When using the default onyx skin in F6 or F7 mode, a smaller control bar
is now used.
+ The Zoom Player Install Center now notifies to close any active media
playback software.
Fixes :
- Dynamic aspect ratio changes are now supported when using EVR as the
video renderer.
- Running on Windows 7 with the windows shell set to an application other
than "explorer.exe" would cause Zoom Player to crash.
- With "Aggressively Hide Mouse Cursor" (Adv. Options / Interface / Mouse /
Settings) enabled, the mouse cursor no longer re-appears when opening
a fullscreen navigation interface.
- The "/SKINDVD" command line parameter used to set the DVD skin actually
set the audio mode skin by accident.
- The Video icon was being shown for Blu-Ray movie index files instead of
the Blu-Ray icon.
- ID3v2 unicode tags are now supported automatically without specifying
a country code.
- Fixed ID3v2 URL tags that are marked as Unicode but in actuality are ASCII.
- Auto-Save media chapters (".ZPCHP" files) was automatically creating
chapter files when playing media files with embedded chapters (such as
matroska ".MKV" files). Now, the chapter files are created only if
you edit the chapters.
- The option to disable natural language sorting is fixed.
- Maintaining fast-play between playlist items is fixed.
- Fixed a few small cosmetic glitches.
- Pop-up OSD messages are now truncated to fit the video display area.
- Pressing F11 to reset color control values while the color control
fullscreen navigation interface was visible, did not update the
color control navigation interface.
- Selecting the Microsoft image source no longer notifies you that the
filter is unregistered. Note that the microsoft image source filter
is limited to 2000x2000 resolution, so it's not recommended for anything
other than animated GIF files.