108 replies to this topic

[bLight]

Took a little bit longer than planned, but I wanted the update screen-snap feature in place before releasing beta 2.

As you can see, there are quite a few new things and interesting changes. Especially for MPEG2 Transport support.

Changes from 4.10 beta 1:

* Zoom Player now supports playback of segmented MPEG2 Transport files
   (as in multiple files representing one video) as one file using the
   NVIDIA MultiSource DirectShow filter (shipping with ForceWare 4.xx).

   When the filter is specified as a source filter in Customized Media
   Playback (Options / Filter Control / Customized Media Playback),
   Zoom Player will try to automatically match additional file segments
   using the Zoom Player auto segment matching feature
   (Options / Values / Other) which can now use Regular Expressions (see
   below).

   This feature requires Zoom Player Professional.

 * Zoom Player now supports external Matroska Chapter files ("mtxchp"
   extension). The support is optional (Options / Settings / Playback)
   as doing file searches when opening files causes a slight slowdown
   (probably not noticeable, but it accumulates).

 * You can now specify different file names to be used for different
   skinning elements (such as Equalizer, Play List and On Screen Display).

 * DVD External (as-in not part of the DVD itself) subtitles can now be
   loaded automatically by placing a subtitle file with "disc" as the
   base name within either the directory the VIDEO_TS.IFO exists in,
   or in the DVD Bookmark directory for the playing disc (which is
   created once the disc is played once).

   For example:
   C:\Movie Backup\My Movie\disc.sub
     or
   C:\Zoom Player\DVD-Bookmarks\MY_MOVIE.2F751008DCF7124A\disc.srt

   You must also make sure that DirectVobSub is set as an Additional
   DVD Filter.  Any subtitle extension with the base name of "disc" is
   searched when trying to auto-load a subtitle file.

 * Trying to run Zoom Player when it's already running will bring
   the current Zoom Player window to the front.

 + Zoom Player can now use Regular Expressions (www.regexpstudio.com)
   when matching Auto-Segment (Options / Values / Other) file loading
   (this feature is disabled by default).  Regular Expressions allow
   for much greater string matching capabilities but take quite a bit
   more CPU power.  Using the open dialog to open 100's of files may
   mean a massive CPU hit (opening directories doesn't have this issue).

   If you previously set a customized Auto-Segment mask, you will need
   to update your Auto-Load masking values.  The previous method of
   auto-loading segments is still available as it's much easier to
   use than Regular Expressions and takes much less CPU power.

 + Zoom Player's Window Snapping has been improved.  When a window is
   docked to the main user interface, dragging the main user interface
   will now also drag any attached windows.

 + You should now be able to click badly authored DVD Menus and
   Interactive DVD Branching (DVD Menus within actual DVD Footage).

 + The Customized Media Mode Source Filter configuration dialog now allows
   you to specify a filter-chain (previously you could only select one
   filter).

 + With "YUV Mixing Mode" (Advanced Options / Filter Control / Settings)
   enabled, you should now be able to turn off "Fix VMR9 Scaling Bug" and
   have improved aspect ratio compatibility when playing certain WMV titles
   (T2:UE, Taxi3, etc...) in VMR9 mode.

 + When loading a skin that is missing a skinning element (such as
   skin data for the Equalizer, Play List or On Screen Display),
   the default skinning elements will be used instead.

 - When switching between various DVD decoding/rendering filters, a
   DVD bookmark may not get loaded properly (due to how Microsoft handles
   DVD Bookmarks) and cause playback to stop.  Zoom Player will now
   intercept this call and erase the offending bookmark so once Play
   is clicked again, the DVD should play normally.

 - Playing DVDs in VMR9 Windowless mode may not always clear the
   top/bottom sections of the screen when the aspect ratio mode changes.

 - The Context Navigator should now show the correct stream selection
   list each time it is opened.

 - Using the minimalist skin button on the user interface would not
   properly remove some of the interface elements.

 - When exporting the Zoom Player settings, you would get a message
   saying that there was an error.  This was cosmetic as the settings
   were exported correctly.

 - Fixed TimeLine font-size issues on the Brownish skin when using
   large fonts.

Download Zoom Player v4.10 beta 2 here.

[shigaloo]

nice job on the nvidia seemless file playback, workin for me

[gpvillamil]

hmmm, interactive branching is not working for me. do i have to do anything for it to work?

[midiboy]

With "YUV Mixing Mode" (Advanced Options / Filter Control / Settings)
  enabled, you should now be able to turn off "Fix VMR9 Scaling Bug" and
  have improved aspect ratio compatibility when playing certain WMV titles
  (T2:UE, Taxi3, etc...) in VMR9 mode.

Hi Blight,

you mean the Scaling bug does not show anymore in YUV Mixing mode ? So no quality hit anymore ? Thats cool !

Bye,
Alex

[Bartman]

+ You should now be able to click badly authored DVD Menus and
Interactive DVD Branching (DVD Menus within actual DVD Footage).

What about the issue, that "menu" is diplayed in the controlbar although the movie is playing.
There was already a posting about that but I can't find it.

[bLight]

Bartman:
That happens with badly authored DVDs that don't return a duration for the video.

[Bartman]

Bartman:
That happens with badly authored DVDs that don't return a duration for the video.

maybe there is a workaround.
PowerDVD and most standalone Player don't have problems with these discs.

[DCoder]

- The Context Navigator should now show the correct stream selection
  list each time it is opened.

Works fine now.

- Using the minimalist skin button on the user interface would not
  properly remove some of the interface elements.

It´s still not working. Same behavior as before in the Screenshot i´ve send you.

About this new Hint Window that shows the Position on the Seek Bar, is it possible that it only shows up if Zoomplayer has the Focus ? If you show a Filter Property Page and you move the Mouse over the Seekbar, Zoomplayer comes into the Foreground which is pretty annoying.

What about the IStreamBufferMediaSeeking ? Any chance you´re going to add it ?

[DCoder]

Another Request, on the Stream Select Popupmenu i used a Tabulator to split Channelname from the EPG ( Char($9) ). It works fine on a Popupmenu see here:
http://files.dsp-worx.de/ss1.png
but unfortunatly it doesn't work on the Stream Selection Navigator:
http://files.dsp-worx.de/ss2.png
Is it somehow possible to align the Informations like on the Popupmenu ?

[Xophile]

Wasn't Beta 2 suppose to include a fix for the latest PowerDVD 6.0?

Can't find anything about it in the changelog...

(Update! Just noticed it does work. Sorry about my quick post but I couldn't find a way to delete it now...)

Edited by Xophile, 17 November 2004 - 10:18 PM.

[Abstrakt]

Blight, many thanks for your continued work on supporting transport streams.

Using the NVIDIA Multi Source + NVIDIA TS Info Parser + Microsoft Demux, I’ve gotten multiple chunks to load seamlessly and seeking finally works. However this setup introduces a major issue: sound goes out of sync shortly after playback begins, and there are constant audio dropouts. This happens with every audio decoder I’ve tried.

The issue isn’t related to the auto-segment loading and parsing, since it happens with single files as well. I’m pretty sure the culprit is the Microsoft Demultiplexer, which probably wasn’t meant to be used this way. But it seems to be the only one that will even connect to the NVIDIA Multi Source + NVIDIA TS Info Parser combination. I’m using known good transport streams to test this setup; they play flawlessly using the WinDVD 6 player application.

I’d be happy if I could simply get reliable playback of single transport streams. Multi segment loading is nice, but it doesn’t help when TS playback is unreliable to begin with. Not that I blame ZP for this, of course. I just wish I could find a combination of filters that plays back smoothly and allows seeking.

On a related note, the new demultiplexer filter that ships with PowerDVD 6 seems pretty reliable and allows seeking. Getting it to work with ZP is a real pain however... I had to build a manual mediagraph, and ZP still gives me a bunch of red warnings & errors such as:

WARNING: Could not find a suitable Decoder for "[CyberLink Demux (PDVD6)].Section"

and

ERROR: [Source 0].Output ---> [CyberLink Demux (PDVD6)].TS Input
Unable to find source pin "Output".

But if I ignore them playback actually works and the CyberLink Demux filter gets used anyway.

Cheers.

[)p(]

Using the NVIDIA Multi Source + NVIDIA TS Info Parser + Microsoft Demux, I’ve gotten multiple chunks to load seamlessly and seeking finally works. However this setup introduces a major issue: sound goes out of sync shortly after playback begins, and there are constant audio dropouts. This happens with every audio decoder I’ve tried.

I have exactly the same experience. Sync and stutter problems. I experienced it with both the nvidia decoder and powerdvd6 decoder attached to this chain.

Abstrakt can you attach your graph that uses the powerdvd demultiplexer?

peter

[Abstrakt]

Peter,
Here’s the mediagraph that sort of works for me using the CyberLink demultiplexer. It also uses the CyberLink video decoder, but InterVideo’s video decoder works for me as well. While NVIDIA’s video decoder would stutter when combined with the CyberLink demultiplexer…

• ZP mediagraph format
• XML format

[)p(]

Peter,
Here’s the mediagraph that sort of works for me using the CyberLink demultiplexer. It also uses the CyberLink video decoder, but InterVideo’s video decoder works for me as well. While NVIDIA’s video decoder would stutter when combined with the CyberLink demultiplexer…

• ZP mediagraph format
• XML format

Thanks Abstrakt

I will give it a try tonight...

peter

[bLight]

Bartman:
PowerDVD isn't based on DirectShow (microsoft code)... If the problem is in how the microsoft code reacts to these DVDs, there's not much I can do about it.


DCoder:
I can't reproduce the skin issue, try opening the skin dialog and pressing on the default skin button.

The #9 Tab key alignment is done automatically by windows (delphi?), I'll have to write specific code for it to work elsewhere... I'll see if it can be done.

As far as the IStreamBufferMediaSeeking, I will be adding it for sure, but I want to talk and debug this with you in real time, but I can't find you online... I also want to discuss several other important things with you.


Abstrakt:
The whole purpose of the "NVIDIA TS Info Parser" filter is to configure the Demux filter. I managed to get a graph going with it and the cyberlink demux but playback wasn't really stable.

[Vern Dias]

Blight:

Are you looking into incorporating windowless rendering in a future release of ZP?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/archive/default....laybackmode.asp

It looks like it will help those that don't have high end video cards to use VMR9 without seeing the current tearing issues. MS and NVidia are strongly advocating this as the next step in quality DVD playback.

Vern

[midiboy]

Hi Blight,

YUV Mixing mode ....

what did you change from beta 1 to beta 2 regarding YUV MIxing mode. I am asking because with beta 1, reclock would work fine when YUV Mixing mode was on, but with beta 2, reclock will crash frequently or cause ZP to freeze if YUV Mixing mode is turned on.

Took me a while to find out that YUV mixing mode was the cause for those sudden and frequent crashes.

Since it worked fine with beta 1 there must be a difference somewhere ....

I already posted this in Ogo´s Reclock 1.5 thread on the AVS forum but maybe he needs some info on this ...

Bye,
Alex

[midiboy]

Hi again, Blight,

as I said I posted the crash details in Ogo´s thread and he said that the crashes were not caused by reclock. So I uninstalled reclock and now the crash occurs in ZoomPlayer (see picture).

I then installed beta1 over my current Zoomplayer installation of beta 2, left all settings as they were and the crash did not occur.

I reinstalled beta 2 over beta 1, again left all settings as they were and it crashed again!

So there is definitely a problem somewhere between beta 1 and beta 2 related to YUV Mixing mode ...

Anything you need from me to find it ?

Thanks,
Alex

[DCoder]

I can't reproduce the skin issue, try opening the skin dialog and pressing on the default skin button.

Ok, changed the Skin to another one and then back to the default and now it works.

The #9 Tab key alignment is done automatically by windows (delphi?).

I´m not sure if it´s a Delphi feauture. It doesn't work in MPC though, so I´m not sure if i´ll keep the #9 Tab key anyway. I have already added a few Interfaces for Channels, Audiostreams and EPG, so you could use these instead of IAMStreamSelect. As i said, i added IAMStreamSelect only because it was the only way to get the Channel/Audio Switch working in most Players. (I guess i´ll still keep it for compatibility reasons)

As far as the IStreamBufferMediaSeeking, I will be adding it for sure, but I want to talk and debug this with you in real time, but I can't find you online... I also want to discuss several other important things with you.

Sorry, i wasn't that much at home lately. ATM EMail is the only way to reach me.

I noticed another issue. A simple Leftclick on the Seekbar (to seek to another position) results in 2 Seekrequests.

[bLight]

Vern Dias:
I'm looking into it, but as I posted in the other thread, it may not be easy as it sort of goes against how ZP works... I'm still investigating.


midiboy:
I fixed some Aspect Ratio issues with it... I don't know why it would cause instability... Are you using DirectX9c? It's a must for this feature.


dcoder:
I already wrote the Tab code, so you may as well leave it in.

As far as the double seeking... I wrote some debug code that dumped any seek request to a file and only one shows up when I click on the seek bar...