Zoom Player

[Blight]

Hi everyone, I created a specific thread to help make it easier to keep up with Zoom Player development instead of creating an announcement with each final version.
The first post will always be updated with links to the latest beta and final versions along with a useful change list.
I will update this thread with announcement of new version releases, answer any of your questions and even discuss a few technological issues I encounter from time to time.

DOWNLOAD . The full Change history

[Blight]

I have been doing more and more work trying to polish elements of the user interface to make everything work better on tablets. For reference, I am play testing on an Asus Transformer Book T100 10" tablet.

By default, windows enables a few usability features that are very un-tablet like. For example, if you click the screen and hold for 1-2 second, it will perform a right-click event. This may be useful for handling legacy apps, but it's far from perfect when trying to design an app specifically for tablet use, it causes issues when trying to use a scroll bar in Zoom Player's fullscreen navigation interfaces. Luckily, I managed to find a method to prevent windows from enabling this feature on a per-window basis and disabled it for the fullscreen navigation windows.

But then, there's a second issue. I expected that the touch screen would essentially work like clicking with the mouse, however, that's not the case. When you touch a touch based input device (tablet), the running application does not get any mouse event, unlike with the mouse where you get an event that tells you when a mouse button is down. What happens instead is that only when you let go of the screen does it trigger a mouse down event, instantly followed by a moues up event.

For those of you still following me here, what that behavior does is make scrolling far less reactive. Only when you move the finger does the mouse event get sent, this means scrolling is a lot more sluggish and slippery than it should be. I believe I found a solution for this behavior as well, but the fix is complex, requiring a testing period, so it will available in beta builds post v9.5.

It's a shame Microsoft is not making things a bit easier for developers in this regard.

[Blight]

Zoom Player MAX v9.5 release candidate 4 is available for download.

This beta includes bug fixes, new & enhanced icons, improvement to the UI logic and touch-accessibility to multiple fullscreen navigation interfaces.

[Milardo]

Hi, i would like to know if zoom player can support roxio game capture hd pro and record using hardware encoder of the device? Can it be implemented? Does zoom player support nsv files? Can one use 3rd party directshow filters with zoom player? is zoom player portable and can one create custom gui skins?

[Blight]

Milardo:
Zoom Player does not encode video, it's only used for playback.

I haven't tried NSV files in a while, Zoom Player is directshow based and supports easy integration of 3rd party filters, so if there's a filter that can parse NSV (I can't recall off-hand if LAV does it) then Zoom Player can play it.

Zoom Player can be skinned, both in windowed mode and fullscreen navigation mode. There are quite a few existing skins out there (http://www.inmatrix.com/skins.shtml) and using the latest betas, you can use custom background images or patterns for full screen navigation (samples: https://www.facebook.com/zoomplayer/...30936590321649).

You can make Zoom Player portable, but there are a few limitations, for example, not all directshow filters work perfectly well without being registered with the system. ZP can create the filters from the DLL without having to register the filters with the system, but then their property page becomes inaccessible.

[Milardo]

Is there capture card support?

[Blight]

Milardo:
Not officially, you can create a grf file for a capture device and load it, but more standardized support is planned for a future version.

[Milardo]

Would you consider adding support for roxio game capture hd pro and similar devices? Would one be able to capture the video output?

[Blight]

Zoom Player MAX v9.5 release candidate 5 is available for download.

This beta includes more bug fixes, enhanced icons, improvement to the UI logic and touch-accessibility to multiple fullscreen navigation interfaces.

Milardo:
Can you describe the usage scenario you'd like to achieve?

[Milardo]

Well i know that a lot of directshow media players have capture card support, but for this particular capture card, none have it yet, and there are no freeware programs that support the hardware encoder of the card either. I want to watch through a directshow player and record the output with its hardware encoder.

[huhn]

Originally Posted by Milardo

Well i know that a lot of directshow media players have capture card support, but for this particular capture card, none have it yet, and there are no freeware programs that support the hardware encoder of the card either. I want to watch through a directshow player and record the output with its hardware encoder.

the hardware encoder from what?

[Blight]

Milardo:
What you're asking is a bit confusing. Looking at the device, it seems like an external encoder, taking input from an HDMI (or lower quality) source and passing it on to the PC.
I don't think you can just tell it to encode whatever content you want, you have to pass it through the HDMI input on the device.

huhn:
He's referring to this:
http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/ga.../overview.html

[Blight]

Zoom Player v9.5 final has been released:

[ Change Highlights ]
- Many fullscreen navigation interface touch enhancements targeted at tablet users.
- User-selected pattern background image for customizable fullscreen navigation interfaces.
- New control bar optional buttons.
- Integrated text viewer.
- NSV local-playback support.
- Bug fixes.

Complete Change List
http://inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_whatsnew.shtml

Download
http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_download.shtml

[Blight]

Zoom Player v9.6 MAX beta 1 has been released.

Download:
http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_beta.shtml

What's new:
http://inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer...new_beta.shtml

The biggest new feature is support for hot-corner customizable click-action.

[Blight]

We have released the 4K version of the Zoom Player onyx skin:
http://www.zoomplayer.com/skins/gui/Onyx%204K.zps

To install, simply open the "Onyx 4K.zps"file within Zoom Player.
Make sure you are running version 9.5 to ensure it works correctly.

This skin can be used on a regular 1080p TV to help the visually impaired as it uses really big buttons and timeline fonts that are much easier to read.

[Blight]

We are running a Zoom Player PRO giveaway today, if you would like to receive a free copy, read this facebook post:
https://www.facebook.com/zoomplayer/...40661966015778

[Asmodian]

Thanks, I got another copy of MAX!

[Blight]

Zoom Player MAX v9.6 beta 2 has been released.

This beta introduces a pre-configuration wizard for PC/HTPC/Tablet setups.

[Blight]

Zoom Player MAX v9.6 beta 3 has been released.

Major rewrite dealing with how ZP handles mouse/touch input in the fullscreen navigation interfaces.

Hot corners can be used in windowed mode (optional, default off), an ability to lock the UI to prevent accidental clicks and bug fixes.

[Blight]

Zoom Player MAX v9.6 beta 5 has been released.

A few new small features and lots more work on making the touch interface more reliable and logical.