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Hi Everyone,
It's been a long development cycle, most of which has been in private beta.
We're finally ready for public testing and we're very excited to present you with Zoom Player v7 release candidate 1.
Version 7 bring with it a lot of new features, bug fixes, optimizations, customizations and much much more.
Please report any bugs here.
Download Zoom Player Release Candidate 1
P.S.
The (non-default) navigation interfaces will be updated closer to the final release.
Here's whats new in v7 RC1:
Hi Everyone,
It's been a long development cycle, most of which has been in private beta.
We're finally ready for public testing and we're very excited to present you with Zoom Player v7 release candidate 1.
Version 7 bring with it a lot of new features, bug fixes, optimizations, customizations and much much more.
Please report any bugs here.
Download Zoom Player Release Candidate 1
P.S.
The (non-default) navigation interfaces will be updated closer to the final release.
Here's whats new in v7 RC1:
Code:
New :
* Zoom Player now notifies you of new versions automatically
(can be disabled under "Adv. Options / System").
* The Audio TAG display system has been rewritten and includes the
following new features:
1. Enhanced scripting of displayed data.
2. Text Background with customizable translucency levels.
3. Additional text color for additional clarity.
4. Selectable background color.
* New Mini-WebServer support (Adv. Options / System), allowing you to
control Zoom Player through any web browser. The Mini-WebServer is
fully HTML scriptable.
* Zoom Player can now control FFDShow's DeInterlacing setting, allowing
you to Enable/Disable deinterlacing support from the keyboard
(ctrl+shift+"D"), right-click context menu and the fullscreen navigation
interface (through the Adjust Image interface).
Make sure to use the latest version of ffdshow (at least beta 6)
for this to function.
* Zoom Player can now control FFDShow's Sharpen setting, allowing
you to Enable/Disable sharpen support from the keyboard
(ctrl+shift+"S") and fullscreen navigation interface (through the
Adjust Image interface).
* Support for MadVR Video Rendering technology.
* Support for FLAC Vorbis Audio TAGs, including display of embedded
image (as folder image, PNG/JPEG formats supported).
* Support for ID3v2 embedded image display (mostly in MP3 files)
(displayed as folder image, PNG/JPEG formats supported).
* New Fullscreen Information Navigation interface, showing you information
on the currently playing media (Name, Resolution, TAGs, Folder Image
etc...). This interface uses the new TAG display script system to display
more advanced information.
* New position value for the TAG display allowing you to set it
to "Animate".
* Support for the new QuickTime v7 ActiveX control.
The new QuickTime control seems better and has better stability.
QuickTime v6 (and older) ActiveX control is no longer supported.
By default, the ActiveX control is not used for playback, but rather
DirectShow is used (as it's more responsive and supports more features),
ActiveX mode is for compatibility with QuickTime content that may not
play properly through DirectShow.
You can enable ActiveX support for QuickTime under:
Adv. Options / Playback
* You can now use the Microsoft Windows Media Player ActiveX control
to stream Windows Media content (mms://, rtsp:// and
http://www.website/stream.asx type links). Using the ActiveX control
means you'll be losing any advanced DirectShow based features (such as
color-controls and video renderer selection) but bypassing any
microsoft bugs in their DirectShow bridge to Windows Media Streaming
(such as streams suddenly stopping of their own).
This feature is enabled by default, you can disable it under :
Adv. Options / Playback / Windows Media
* The resize fullscreen navigation interface now allows you to directly
set the current Aspect Ratio as well as see the aspect ratio values for
all Aspect Ratio modes.
* The equalizer fullscreen navigation interface now allows you to set
the volume level.
* Pressing Left on the Main Navigation interface now brings you into a
system function menu allowing you to close the navigation interface,
start the screen saver, blank secondary screens or close the player
entirely. This menu is not accessible if you are using Safe Mode
navigation.
* You can now select if the Internal Screen Saver covers the entire
monitor or only the active video area.
* You can now specify the slideshow value for the internal screen saver.
The Default value is 15 seconds (previously it was once per minute).
* You can now select a transition effect for the internal screen saver.
* The play history fullscreen navigation interface now allows you to
play back web addresses (mms streams for example) and such links
are now identified by the URL icon.
* You can now Right-Click the volume bar to the left/right of the current
volume level to increase/decrease the volume in small steps instead of
directly setting the volume level with the mouse cursor position (which
is done with the left mouse click).
* New "Save Playing file as ..." Function accessible through the Playlist
right-click context menu or by using the Alt+Shift+"S" keyboard macro.
When used, a save dialog will pop-up allowing you to save the currently
playing media file to a new location on your computer.
* All Subtitle settings have moved to "Adv. Options / Playback / Video /
Subtitles".
* Opening a subtitle file with a media playing will try to display the
subtitles within the playing media.
* The file-open dialog now has a "Subtitles" filtering category.
* You can now select the preferred subtitle renderer filter. Options are
1. DirectVobSub, also known as "VSFilter" (default).
2. FFDShow.
When selecting FFDShow, Zoom Player will try to use the FFDShow video
decoder filter to render the subtitles. If the FFDShow video decoder
is not used, the FFDShow subtitle renderer filter will be used instead.
Please note that this feature requires FFDShow build 2998 or newer to
function and wont work on versions of Windows older than Windows 2000.
Previous FFDShow builds had a bug that limited subtitle functionality.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface) allowing you to select the
active player mode (Previous/Media/DVD/Audio) that Zoom Player should
start in.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Tags)
allowing you to choose whether the Folder (Background) image is drawn.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display /
Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) controlling whether subtitle files are
listed in the Media Libary and File Browsing fullscreen navigation
interfaces.
* New Settings (Adv. Options / Interface / Mouse) allowing you to change
the functionality of the mouse right-click button. You can choose
between Disabled, Context Menu (default) and a Custom function.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback) allowing you to control
whether loading entire directories also loads image files
(Used by Open Directory function, Play all files in this directory
navigation function and when opening archives).
Does not have an affect on Media Library image categories.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback) allowing you to choose whether
to interact with QuickTime content or treat it as a media file.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Smart Play) which determines
if Zoom Player falls back to DirectShow graph creation mode if
Smart Play fails to create a media file graphic.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video / Color Control) allowing
you to instruct Zoom Player to try use FFDShow as the preferred
color control interface (overriding any hardware supported controls).
Please note that this feature requires FFDShow to be used as either
the Video Decoder or as a Post Processing filter.
* New Settings (Adv. Options / System / Events) allowing you to execute
an external program when Zoom Player is starting and closing
(with an option to wait for the starting program to close).
Usage Example:
Set a custom monitor resolution using an external command line tool and
then set the resolution back when Zoom Player closes.
* New Settings (Adv. Options / Playback / Paths & Files) allowing you to
hide the archive extraction window (the external program executed to
extract the archive).
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen
Navigation / Settings) allowing you to display file sizes.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen
Navigation / Settings) allowing you to pause the video when opening a
navigation interface while a video file is playing (audio playback is
unaffected by this setting).
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen
Navigation / Settings) controlling whether right-clicking the navigation
interface closes it. This was the previous default behavior, but the new
default action is to display the context menu. Enable this setting to
restore the previous default behavior.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen
Navigation / Settings) controlling whether the new Fullscreen Information
navigation control routes keyboard input to the player (using the
keyboard arrow keys to control the player rather than the fullscreen
interface).
* New "/DATAPATH:[PATH]" command line parameter which can be used to
specify an alternative path to any user-changeable configuration
files used by Zoom Player, including:
1. "MediaAutoGraph" directory (Controls which decoders are used)
2. "DVD-Bookmarks" directory (DVD Bookmarks and Last Position data)
3. "zplayer.playcache" (Play History and Last Media Position)
4. "zplayer.library" (Media Library paths)
5. "zplayer.radio" (Streaming Station list)
6. "zplayer.eq" (The Audio Equalizer values)
7. "default.zpl" (The last active Playlist)
Usage:
/DATAPATH:Z:\\ZP_DATA\\
When using this parameter, it's vitally important that at the very
least, the "MediaAutoGraph" directory exists in the Data Path,
otherwise, playback may fail.
* New "/DEINT:[0/1]" command line parameter to enable/disable
DeInterlacing.
Usage:
/DEINT:0 - DeInterlacing disabled.
/DEINT:1 - DeInterlacing enabled.
DeInterlacing requires the use of FFDShow as either the Video
Decoder or as a Post-Processing filter.
* New "/CLOCK:[n]" command line parameter that allows you to set the
media synchronization timer for DirectShow playback.
Usage:
/CLOCK:0 - Default (same as not using the parameter at all)
/CLOCK:1 - Disables Synchronization entirely
/CLOCK:2 - Sets Synchronization to the System Timer
* The Playlist Fullscreen navigation interface now allow you to
enable/disable the Random Play state.
* Playback support for the AMR audio format and file association of the
".AMR" extension.
* Playback support for the VP7 video format and file association of the
".VP7" extension.
* Playback support for the Theora video format and file association of
the ".OGV" extension.
* Playback support for the AIFF audio format and file association of the
".AIFF" extension.
* Playback support for the MPEG2 Transport Stream media format and file
association of the ".M2TS" extension.
* Playback support for LPCM audio in M2TS files.
* Support for the Gabest MPEG2 Splitter audio stream switching using
the keyboard macro Ctrl+"A".
* New Open Web Page function (Ctrl+"W") accessible from the right-click
context menu, allowing you to open web pages in Zoom Player.
* New "Prune History" button (Adv. Options / Playback) which erases any
play history entries that are no longer pointing to an existing file.
* New "" dynamic script variable that is used to display
the current position in a playlist.
* New "" dynamic script variable that stores the currently
playing media file path.
* Some of the fullscreen navigation interfaces have a new right-arrow
on the active line indicating additional functionality when clicking
right.
* Zoom Player now uses uTorrent's WebUI Token authentication for
an additional security layer.
* The Station fullscreen navigation interface now indicates if a station
is a TV or Radio station.
* The Station fullscreen navigation interface now remembers the last
selected station when exiting the player.
* The Station Editor incorporated a new "Update Station" button allowing
you to update a station's details without having to delete and add.
* The Media Library and File Browsing Fullscreen Navigation interfaces
now support sorting by file size.
* Support for UTF8 encoded skin files (which can include UTF8 encoded
text for button hints and other skin text elements).
* The Folder image base name (Adv. Options / System & Files /
Paths, Folders & Files) can now accept multiple values for the
base name separated by the "|" character. For example, setting
the Folder image base name to "folder|album" would cover image
files starting with "folder" and "album", such as:
Folder.jpg
Album.png
* New Menu script command allowing you to execute external programs
through the right-click context menu. See "English.Menu" in the
"Language" Zoom Player directory for more information.
* New "1100" CommAPI command which enables/disables timeline updates.
Changes :
+ The Color Control interface (Adv. Options / Playback / Video /
Color Control) has been rewritten and now supports FFDShow as a mode
of color control.
Zoom Player will first try to use Hardware Color Control (Overlay Mixer,
VMR9 and EVR). But if a certain function isn't supported, it will try
using FFDShow to supplement the functionality.
For example, neither EVR or VMR9 support Gamma controls, when these
video renderers are in-use, Zoom Player will try using FFDShow to control
the Gamma while the other color control remain hardware based.
Please note that FFDShow must be used as a decoder or post-processor for
this modified feature to work.
+ Using Windows XP SP3 or Windows Vista SP1 should improve the open file
dialog responsiveness.
+ The Media Library path editor has been further streamlined for simplicity.
+ All browsing for directory dialogs now allow you to specify a path
through an edit box, making it easier to specify direct IP network paths.
+ When detaching the Control Bar, it now snaps to other interfaces such
as the Video Window, Equalizer and Playlist Editor.
+ Opening the Main Navigation interface should now be faster, especially
on multi-core CPUs.
+ The internal screen saver is now capped at 50fps.
+ Previously, when enabling text display for the internal screen saver,
you had both the time and playing information displayed. You can now
choose to display each individually.
+ The Station Editor interface has been redesigned for simplicity.
+ Random Play now remembers the random order of play so that you can
go to a previous random track in the same order as it was played.
+ Support for more Flash Video and VP6 sub-types.
+ The Media Last Position database (used in play history and restoring
the last position of a played media file) is now automatically saved
every 30 minutes and a backup file is kept in case something goes
wrong (previously it would only save when exiting the player, which
could cause position data to be lost in cases where the computer or
player crashed).
+ The Play History interface has been restructured to make it a bit
easier to use.
+ The Search function within the play history dialog now filters
the item list and only shows items that match the search value.
+ The "Adv. Options / System & Files / Paths, Folders & Files" page has
been divided into more logical areas:
1. Adv. Options / Playback / Path & Files.
2. Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display /
Fullscreen Navigation / Paths.
3. Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display /
Audio Tags / Paths & Script.
+ The Frame Capture (screenshot) feature has been moved to:
Adv. Options / System & Files / Screen Saver & Capture
+ Drives with no volume name no longer display empty brackets in the
fullscreen file browsing navigation interface.
+ Playing a single file with random play enabled no longer plays that
file in a loop if the "On Playlist Complete" setting is set to do
something else.
+ The Volume Up/Down keyboard macros have been changed from Shift+"Home"
and Shift+"End" to "+","=" (volume up) and "-" (volume down).
The Previously associated Video Zoom-In/Zoom-Out functions are still
accessible through the keypad "+" and "-" keys.
This should make it easier to control volume, especially on
netbook/laptop type devices which don't have access to the keypad
without using a special function button.
+ The active playlist is now automatically saved every 15 minutes
(to prevent data lose in case windows crashes).
+ The "5000" CommAPI command used for seeking in time can now accept
a fractional value indicating MS. For example, "122.500" will seek
to 2 minutes,2 seconds and 500 ms.
+ The "Image Resize" fullscreen navigation interface has been renamed
to "Adjust Image".
+ The "/Sort" command line parameter now works even if Zoom Player is
already running.
+ The "File Extensions" Adv. Options Menu has been moved under the "File
Format Association" menu (was previously under the system menu).
Fixes :
- Fixed a memory leak when playing web (HTML) files.
- Fixed a few rare occurrences of Floating Point errors.
- The "Export Settings" function would not properly save some unicode paths.
- The Skin Tint profiles did not support unicode names.
- Fixed a division by zero error in the Download Navigator when downloading
0bytes sized files from uTorrent or eMule.
- Fixed a memory leak in the Download Navigator.
- The Zoom Player Install Center application could show a newer version
of an installed component as requiring an update.
- Having track information (Duration/TAGs/etc...) loaded in the background
would not properly read non-english character sets.
- Sorting randomly didn't maintain the playing index which could cause
the wrong TAG information to be displayed.
- When playing a media file from the fullscreen navigation interfaces,
Zoom Player will now hide the default background image beforehand
so there's a smoother transition into the video.
- Associating a file extension (".avi" for example) through the open-with
Windows Explorer dialog under vista would disable Zoom Player's ability
to associate the file extension.
- Doing a Standard (non-legacy) Zoom Player install with UAC disabled
would sometimes break file association (usually due to a bad install).
- M3U playlists with directory-relative file paths would not always load.
- Trying to register Zoom Player automatically by double-clicking the
registration file would fail if the evaluation period has ended.
- Loading or Dropping a subtitle file no longer reloads the file to
display the subtitles if the subtitle rendering filter is already
in the graph.
- Cycling through Subtitle tracks in ".MKV" files containing no internal
subtitles with one external subtitle file, didn't work.
- You can now associate shortcut files (".lnk") with Zoom Player DVD
external program execute events (On PAL/NTSC DVD detected and
On DVD Stop events).
- An access violation crash could occur if you have the stop function
set to closing the playing media (instead of seek to start),
move the previously played file to a different directory,
try playing it again (and fail since the file is no longer there)
and then try playing a DVD.
- If you had the "Hide extension for known file types" enabled in
Explorer's folder view options dialog, Zoom Player's open dialog
would not list the correct files.
- The "/Sort" command line parameter did not function if no files were
specified as part of the command line.
- The Open Dialog did not list CD Audio files when the media type was set
to CD-Audio.
- The Open Dialog did not list the DVD file (VIDEO_TS.IFO) when setting
the media type to "Video".
- The file browser fullscreen navigation interface did not list download
percentage for eMule/uTorrent downloads under some conditions even when
correctly configured.
- When enabling "Continue to the next item on the playlist when an invalid
file is played", the next playing file could display an incorrect aspect
ratio and may even not load if the next file was the last in the playlist.
- When drag & dropping files to the playlist editor, the currently playing
file would not highlight correctly and going to the next/previous
track (file) may load the wrong one.
- When drag & dropping files to a specific spot in the playlist editor,
the files would appear in reverse order.
- The file association options dialog page would show incorrect icons
if you were using Windows Vista with UAC enabled.
- Newer version of the Flash ActiveX component are now detected. Previously
flash playback would work, but the player would list it as missing.
- The "Open Directory" function should now work properly with network paths.
- The ".3G2" extension was missing from the default video extension list.
- Having the control bar auto-hide when the mouse cursor is moved away didn't
work properly on secondary monitors.
- If the internal screen saver was active in combination with the Guard Dog
feature (Adv. Options / System), the Guard Dog would misidentify the
player as unresponsive and close it.
- The internal screen saver would not activate if the secondary monitors
were blanked out.
- The internal screen saver no longer shows or moves the mouse cursor.
- The internal screen saver did not respect the aspect ratio of images
displayed when the Source Relative Stretch (Pixel Aspect Ratio)
feature was enabled.
- With the internal screen saver's streamer function disabled, the
transition effects got broken.
- The internal screen saver would take CPU power even if the streamers
were disabled. It now takes a lot less CPU power (only during
transitions).
- The "1950" CommAPI command used for removing items from the playlist did
not properly adjust the currently playing item index when an item was
removed. In addition, it would not close the currently playing file if
it was removed.
- You can now paste (Ctrl+V) into the Chapter editor's "Go To time" and
"Go To Frame" dialogs.
