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Zoom Player 1.40 open beta  

post #1 of 19
5/1/01 at 1:21am
Thread Starter 
Ok, before anything, I request that if people can post mirrors for these files, then do so below, and before downloading, check if there is a mirror below and download from that, I'd rather not put any extra strains on the original 2 mirrors.

Here's what's new since the last official release (v1.32):
Code:
 * Entire back-end switched from the Media Player component to
   DirectShow.  This took hours upon hours of digging through obscure
   microsoft documentation, samples and delphi reference.  Hopefully it
   didn't introduce too many bugs.

 * Due to the new DirectShow interface, there is a spanking new
   right-click menu.

 * Due to the new DirectShow interface, you can now access the
   property dialog of any DirectShow filter used in rendering the
   file (basically useful for accessing the DivX control panel).
   This is accessible through the right-click menu.

 * Due to the new DirectShow interface, you can now set the
   playback aspect ratio.  You can cycle through the four
   aspect ratio modes by pressing the "R" key, or through
   the right-click interface.  The four modes are:
   1. Fit to Window (basically manual aspect ratio).
   2. Source Video
   3. Fullscreen 4:3
   4. Widescreen 16:9

   With these settings you should be able to play anamorphic
   AVI/MPEG files! (not to mention fixing the aspect ratio
   on MPEG-1 files once and for all).

 * On Screen Display support.

 * You can now toggle the space key functionability to be either
   the default toggle for the Control Bar, or to the more traditional
   Play/Pause setting.

 * You can now use Alt+[Space] to toggle the control bar.

 * Volume support using the Home/End keys.

 * Slightly restructured the interface buttons.

 * Added a Play and Stop buttons to the main interface.

 * Added an option to use the "," char in the fast forward and
   slow motion fields.  This should help people with non-english
   versions of windows to enter fractional numbers (maybe).

 * If Play is clicked and you are in fast-forward or slow-motion modes
   playback will continue and the play rate will be returned to a
   normal rate.  If play rate is normal, playback will pause.
   This seems far more logical.

 * Removed the support for the non-floating control bar, frankly,
   it was something that should have never went in.
Ok, and you can download v1.40 beta 5 here:
Mirror 1
Mirror 2


------------------
Webmaster
www.inmatrix.com

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post #2 of 19
5/1/01 at 4:38pm
Thread Starter 
Looks like I'm wasting my time posting a beta here, probably won't happen again.

------------------
Webmaster
www.inmatrix.com
post #3 of 19
5/1/01 at 5:52pm
I've only given the beta a quick run but it looks great so far. My 768x288 files are now watchable and nothing seems to be broken.

I'll be giving it a more thorough run after work but thus far it looks like I can retire my other mediaplayers for TV use.

Thanks!
post #4 of 19
5/1/01 at 6:58pm
The resize, zoom options are the most flexible I have ever worked with. I never would have thought of that system, and it works smoothly...

The picture quality is great. DivX only though? The player crashed when I ran decrypted .vobs and SVCD (both of which play beautifully in WinDVD). I did not try VCD. I am happy to report I did not have to reboot (ctrl-alt-del->end task)...

Please continue to post further builds here. You should get a decent response this evening.


------------------
-macdaddy

visit www.theHarangue.com

[This message has been edited by theREALmacdaddy (edited 05-01-2001).]
post #5 of 19
5/1/01 at 8:08pm
Thread Starter 
This is a DirectShow based player, so to play MPEG2 files you need a reliable filter installed. I think WinDVD filter should work, didn't actually try it.

VCD plays great, tested it quite a bit.

------------------
Webmaster
www.inmatrix.com
post #6 of 19
5/1/01 at 9:09pm
The WinDVD MPEG2 filter does seem to work fine, at least on the few files I tried.
post #7 of 19
5/1/01 at 10:13pm
.mpg files play beautifully...

BUT when playing from a formatted SVCD, the ZOOMplayer would not recognize the movie. All I would get is an "invalid floating point operation. winDVD recognizes, and plays, the same discs without a problem. What am I not doing correctly?

What about .vobs? Would a plug-in like the OpenDVD plug-in for DVD2AVI work to play DVDs?



------------------
-macdaddy

visit www.theHarangue.com
post #8 of 19
5/1/01 at 10:46pm
REAL: re your crashing, the audio and video filters may be crossing wires. The Zoom player probably doesn't manage the choice of filters in most situations, and sometimes DirectShow chooses poorly. Like putting the Elecard MPEG-2 decoder with InterVideo's AC-3 decoder for a HiPix file. Sure to crash a player every time.

Blight: excellent work. More detailed reports will follow, I'm sure.

------------------
Dan
post #9 of 19
5/1/01 at 11:36pm
Thread Starter 
Here's an updated "what's new" list, currently at Beta 8 (still not posted):

Code:
 * Entire back-end switched from the Media Player component to
   DirectShow.  This took hours upon hours of digging through obscure
   microsoft documentation, samples and delphi reference.  Hopefully it
   didn't introduce too many bugs.

 * Due to the new DirectShow interface, there is a spanking new
   right-click menu.

 * Due to the new DirectShow interface, you can now access the
   property dialog of any DirectShow filter used in rendering the
   file (basically useful for accessing the DivX control panel).
   This is accessible through the right-click menu.

 * Due to the new DirectShow interface, you can now set the
   playback aspect ratio.  You can cycle through the four
   aspect ratio modes by pressing the "R" key, or through
   the right-click interface.  The four modes are:
   1. Fit to Window (basically manual aspect ratio).
   2. Source Video
   3. Fullscreen 4:3
   4. Widescreen 16:9

   With these settings you should be able to play anamorphic
   AVI/MPEG files! (not to mention fixing the aspect ratio
   on MPEG-1 files once and for all).

 * On Screen Display support for probably more features than
   I care to list, including all the logical ones and others
   such as visible window size when resizing the window using
   then Alt-Arrow keys.

 * You can now toggle the space key functionability to be either
   the default toggle for the Control Bar, or to the more traditional
   Play/Pause setting.

 * You can now use Alt+[Space] to toggle the control bar.

 * Volume support using the Home/End keys.

 * Slightly restructured the interface buttons.

 * Added a Play and Stop buttons to the main interface.

 * Added an option to use the "," char in the fast forward and
   slow motion fields.  This should help people with non-english
   versions of windows to enter fractional numbers (maybe).

 * If Play is clicked and you are in fast-forward or slow-motion modes
   playback will continue and the play rate will be returned to a
   normal rate.  If play rate is normal, playback will pause.
   This seems far more logical.

 * Pressing Ctrl-S when playing off a play list will stop the video
   to the first track in the play list.

 * You can now use Ctrl+(0..9) to store the current zoom settings in
   any of the 10 presets.

 * Pressing the "D" key with a DivX movie loaded will pop the DivX
   property dialog.

 * Pressing on the Control Bar preset button when not in a Zoom mode
   will now open the normal preset dialog and not the one used in
   Zoom mode.

 * Fixed the slowness in MPEG-1 seeking.  This was in fact some
   sort of bad-design on microsoft's part, it was caused when
   seeking in frame mode (vs. time mode) in DirectX-8, something
   that worked just fine in DirectX-7.  Go figure...  In any case
   I've used some translation code to get over this issue.

 * Removed the support for the non-floating control bar, frankly,
   it was something that should have never went in.
------------------
Webmaster
www.inmatrix.com
post #10 of 19
5/2/01 at 6:00pm
Thread Starter 
Ok, here is beta 8:

Mirror 1
Mirror 2


------------------
Webmaster
www.inmatrix.com
post #11 of 19
5/2/01 at 9:16pm
It's hard to crash this player. http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/wink.gif Four instances at one time playing the same file worked OK. dTV & Zoom coexisted just fine. It even coexisted with WinDVD.

It still crashes on some unrecognized sources, but I can't tell whose fault it is or even if it's something to worry about. For instance, on some hipix files it will load the MPEG-1 decoder (of course, it's an MPEG-2 file). If I check the decoder filter, it shows the correct resolution, however (1920x1088). In the list of filters, it only shows the renderer and decoder, but I know that at least the demultiplexer filter is running also. It might have discarded the sound filters.

On other hipix files, it will just crash. Did you ratchet down the controls on filter selection in this version? WinTV-D ATSC files crash.

Opening a quicktime file shows a floating point operation error box.

I would be quite interested to hear somebody with a dual-monitor system try to hardware accelerate on the secondary display.

Amazing little app. I don't envy you the time spent with the DirectShow documentation. http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/wink.gif

------------------
Dan

[This message has been edited by dschmelzer (edited 05-03-2001).]
post #12 of 19
5/2/01 at 11:54pm
Just tried beta 8. I used it to play back my first Video CD with ZoomPlayer. The new aspect ratio controls works great.

The combination of Girder, a learning remote and Zoom Player actually makes for a better VCD playback option than my Pioneer 515 DVD player which doesn't even manage to display the elapsed time. I haven't tried it with any unusual file formats but for playing back mpg and DivX files it seems rock solid.

One feature I'd love to see in a future version is a hotkey to add a chapter at the current point and then save the chapter file. I'm setting up Zoom Player to be controlled with a remote so the chapter editor isn't really practical for my purposes in it's current form.

Unless you're planning to add any additional new features beta 8 looks pretty much ready for release.
post #13 of 19
5/3/01 at 1:01am
Thread Starter 
Ok, first thing about filters.

Right now i'm using "GraphBuilder.RenderFile", which basically lets DirectShow choose the filters, so if filters are not loaded correctly, I blame microsoft.

As for not all filters showing on the filter list ... only filters with property dialogs are shown on the list, not all the ones loaded ...

With regards to loading unknown file formats, DirectShow thought it would be funny to return an "ALL ok" signal if you try to render a graph with an unknown file format, so I put in a double-check which should prevent this from happening.

Right now I'm at beta 10, added support for sorting in the play list and a few more trinkets.

Adding a keyboard macro to automatically add chapter positions was in my to-do list, I'll do that later today.


------------------
Webmaster
www.inmatrix.com
post #14 of 19
5/3/01 at 6:43am
That chapter feature will be nice since many of us make s/vcd without them...

I still am unable to play a SVCD (that has been formatted and burned on CD-Rproper) using zoom player. These play fine in WinDVD, so I know the filters are installed. What am I doing wrong?



------------------
-macdaddy

visit www.theHarangue.com
post #15 of 19
5/3/01 at 8:38am
Thread Starter 
The fact that WinDVD is installed is no indication that it's filters are installed ... WinDVD doesn't need it's filters to play files, the filters are only used when directshow navigation is enabled.

So make sure the filters are registered.


------------------
Webmaster
www.inmatrix.com
post #16 of 19
5/3/01 at 4:41pm
How do you check to see if the filters are registered? If they are not, what am supposed to do then? I browsed your site-which is excellent-for the answer, but was unsuccessful (great overscan article, though)...

------------------
-macdaddy

visit www.theHarangue.com

[This message has been edited by theREALmacdaddy (edited 05-03-2001).]
post #17 of 19
5/3/01 at 9:25pm
Thread Starter 
You can use DVD Genie to register/unregister the filters for you.


------------------
Webmaster
www.inmatrix.com
post #18 of 19
5/4/01 at 5:46am
In that case, yes, the filters have been registered all along...

Is there a special procedure I should use to play SVCDs that have been burned to a CD-R? I have tried opening the mpg that is in the \\MPEG folder, but I still get the floating point error...

I apologize if these questions are a little green; I appreciate your help.

------------------
-macdaddy

visit www.theHarangue.com
post #19 of 19
5/9/01 at 2:34pm
I'd like to ask a question that will show how little I know about DirectShow filters:

Would someone please post a cookbook procedure to use zoomplayer to display a Hipix file, such as one of the test patterns announced by Glimmie in thread HiPix Test Signals Available .

(As hosted and posted by Kevin Yee, the test patterns can be downloaded via:

ftp server IP: 206.159.116.14
id = hipix
pw = hipix

I strongly recommend downloading the zipped files to save time!)

Thanks in advance for the zoomplayer instruction.

-yogaman

[This message has been edited by yogaman (edited 05-09-2001).]
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