Announcing Zoom Player v5.50 beta 1, Yes, it's here! Options

[Blight]

The new Zoom Player navigation UI (screenshot below) took a little bit longer than expected. We hope the end-result is well worth the wait (check out the attached screenshot).

Additional Navigation Styles:
Blue Chill (Previous default) :: Blue Chill for Tablet devices :: Charcoal (previously named "Black") :: Charcoal for Widescreen displays (16x9) :: Drapes HD :: Drapes HD for Widescreen displays (16x9) :: Drapes HD for Tablet devices :: Ivory (previously named "White") :: Ivory for Widescreen displays (16x9) :: LCARS (Star Trek theme) :: Mercury.

Note that there are HD versions of the new Drapes style (the new default navigation style). These HD versions are for Widescreen (16x9), Fullscreen and Tablet devices. The HD versions contain higher resolution background images which should make the navigation interface look sharper at higher resolutions (720p/1080p).

The tablet versions are for tablet devices which rely on touch-screens. They have bigger navigation arrows, so navigation is easier with finger-clicks.

Download Zoom Player v5.50 beta 1.

Changes from Zoom Player v5.50 alpha:

CODE

  * Zoom Player can now communicate with uTorrent's Web UI interface
    in order to display download progress within the Media Library
    and File Browsing fullscreen navigation interfaces.  This feature
    is accessible under "Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display /
    Fullscreen Navigation / File Tracker".  Press the "?" button on
    this page for additional information.

  * Zoom Player can now keep track with eMule's temporary files directory
    in order to display download progress within the Media Library
    and File Browsing fullscreen navigation interfaces.  This feature
    is accessible under "Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display /
    Fullscreen Navigation / File Tracker".  Press the "?" button on
    this page for additional information.

  * New "Download Manager" navigation interface (Ctrl+"J"), allowing you
    to get an overview of your currently downloading files (compatible with
    eMule and uTorrent).

  * The Scene Cut editor has been simplified and enhanced.  The Scene cut
    editor no longer requires you to click on the save button, saving is
    done automatically now. A new edit button allows you to edit entries
    without having to remove an old entry first.  Lastly, the scene cut
    interface layout has been updated to make it simpler to use.

  * New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Video / Aspect Ratio)
    instructing Zoom Player "Derived" Aspect Ratio mode to Automatically
    Adjust (fix) the Aspect Ratio for badly encoded content.
    This would convert 4:3 content encoded as 720x480 to display as 720x540,
    720x576 to 768x576, 352x240 to 352x264, 352x288 to 384x288, etc...
    Badly encoded 16:9 content is also adjusted in a similar fashion.

    This setting also fixes small aspect ratio inaccuracies caused by a
    requirement made by video encoders for the video pixel width or height
    to be dividable by 16 (or 8 or 4).

  * New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display /
    Fullscreen Navigation) allowing you to skip the "Library Filter Mode"
    page.  With this setting enabled, navigating left on the media library
    category list will go straight to the Main navigation menu.

  * New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface) allowing you to disable the
    delete key from erasing the currently playing file.

  * New Setting (Adv. Options / System / Paths) allowing you to select
    the Frame Capture (screenshot) format.  BMP, PNG and JPEG are
    supported.

  * The Zoom Player function selection dialog is now split into three
    categories: Content, Interface and Control.  The function list is
    also sorted, making functions easier to find.

  * New "IconScale" parmeter for the "ListData" navigation
    skin-script command, allowing you to set the size of
    list line icons relative to the size of the line height.

  * New "ProgressColor" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation
    Skin-script command, allowing you to select which color will be
    used when displaying download progress within the Media Library,
    File Browsing and Download Manager fullscreen navigation interfaces.

  * New "PathColor" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation
    skin-script command, allowing you to select which color will be
    used for the path text within the Media Library, File Browsing
    and Download Manager fullscreen navigation interfaces.

  * New "PathOutline" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation
    skin-script command, allowing you to select which outline color will
    be used for the path text within the Media Library, File Browsing
    and Download Manager fullscreen navigation interfaces.

  * New "PathExtraColor" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation
    skin-script command, allowing you to select which outline color will
    be used for the extra path text within the Media Library, File Browsing
    and Download Manager fullscreen navigation interfaces.

  * New "PathExtraOutline" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation
    skin-script command, allowing you to select which outline color will
    be used for the path extra text within the Media Library, File Browsing
    and Download Manager fullscreen navigation interfaces.

  * New "ConfirmColor" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation
    skin-script command, allowing you to select which color will be
    used for the confirmation fullscreen navigation interface.

  * New "ConfirmOutline" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation
    skin-script command, allowing you to select which outline color will
    be used for the confirmation fullscreen navigation interface.

  * New Vista specific feature allowing you to make the entire
    Zoom Player window semi-transparent.  This also requires that
    you use a video renderer that would work (Haali's/VMR9/EVR)
    and that VISTA Aero is enabled.  To use:
    Alt+Ctrl+F4 = Fully visible window.
    Alt+Ctrl+F5 = 80% visiblity.
    Alt+Ctrl+F6 = 60% visiblity.
    Alt+Ctrl+F7 = 40% visiblity.

    You can also specify exact transparency values using the new
    "exTransWin" extended function.

  * New "exTransWin" extended function, allowing you to specify
    a transparency value (1-255) for the Zoom Player window.
    This function requires Windows VISTA with Aero enabled.

  + The default Audio mode skin now has a wider volume bar and
    includes a new button that opens the statio manager.

  + The Control Bar and OSD Pop-ups are now accessible even when the
    player window is set to "Stay on Top".

  + Pressing stop twice was set to resume playback from the position
    prior to the stop function being called.  This wasn't too clear so
    now a "Resume" OSD message pops up.

  + Newly supported file extensions: M4B, HDMOV.

  + The Navigation interfaces should work slightly faster, especially
    in situations where more complex navigation skins are used (skins
    with large transparency effects).

  + The skin selection interface behavior has been changed slightly.
    In order to apply a custom tint, you must now click the Apply Tint
    button.

  + The skin selection interface is now sorted alphabetically.

  + The Frame Capture Alt+"F" (screenshot) function should now work
    in all video renderers except Overlay Mixer, VMR9 Renderless
    (VMR9 Windowed and Windowles should work) and EVR.

  + Function descriptions have changed to make them easier to Read,
    Understand and Search.

  + The Girder Exported commands are now sorted and split into
    categories, making it easier to program remote devices
    and home automation systems.

  + Mouse left click while holding the Alt key now zooms in 10%
    instead of 50% (which wasn't as useful).

  + Ctrl+"C" now enables/disables closed captioning when used by
    media files (it was previously limited to DVDs).

  - With some file formats, the playlist would not update the
    total playlist duration properly.

  - Enabling the "Show Time Seek Position Over Timeline" feature
    would cause the Zoom Player window to become the top-most
    window if the mouse cursor hovered over the timeline.

  - Trying to open the Options dialog with the main window set
    to "Stay on Top" and Zoom Player set to only show an icon on
    the tray area would cause the options dialog to appear behind
    the main window.

  - Monitor Powerdown will no longer be disabled when playing
    in windowed mode (Powerdown will only be disabled when
    fullscreen).

  - Detaching the control bar would not snap its position to
    the previously saved detached position under some conditions.

  - Trying to play streaming content while in DVD Mode would not
    switch to media mode automatically and then fail to play.

  - The Context Navigator did not use the scripting parameters
    assigned to it correctly.

  - The Contact Sheet creation form didn't allow you to select
    the contact sheet color values.

  - Some navigation interface titles could not be translated
    into other languages.

  - The "exSetMode" function would not switch modes properly
    under some conditions.

  - Switching between Media/DVD/Audio mode could result in
    an Audio mode skin loaded in DVD mode.

  - The "Scrollbar Highlight" color for forced Playlist colors
    was not being saved properly.

  - If the internal screen saver got activated with the open
    file dialog already open, it could cause Zoom Player to
    become non-responsive.

Screenshot of the new fullscreen navigation style:

[Mrkazador]

Good Job Blight.
I dont know what you did but EVR is working under Windows Xp. Lots of weird bugs though.

[Blight]

Mrkazador:
It didn't work in the 5.5 alpha? or just compared to 5.00 ?

[Mrkazador]

Didnt work at all for me with the 5.5 alpha. I tried selecting a custom renderer or the predefined renderer EVR(Requires Windows Vista), didnt work for me in the Alpha version. With this new beta its working somewhat with the predefined renderer. I get a picture but if I right click the window the video slows to a crawl(99% cpu usage). Once I deselect the right click the video speeds up for a second and goes back to normal speed.

When I put it on fullscreen I get half of the image on the top, like in the screenshot below.


I get a black screen with DXVA enabled(I get no dxva anyways) with mpeg2 material but if I skip a second the picture comes up.

[Fabool]

Great work on the new beta!

The windows transparency seems to work beautifully after quick testing. The only shortcoming is that I can't use a custom key file for the Alt+Ctrl+'Function keys' to work, even though I haven't got anything set to them in my custom key file - they work properly if I use default key settings. This is probably easily solved by letting the user set the desired keys for the transparency controls.

[butlerat]

The installer still defaults to C:\Program Files (x86)\Zoom Player rather than C:\Program Files\Zoom Player. In the Alpha this problem came up when on Windows XP Pro 32-Bit - since then I have installed Vista Business 32-Bit and it still does the same thing. I know this is an installer problem rather than ZP itself but thought I'd remind you!

Also - the window transparency is great but can it be set that just the interface goes semi-transparent - not the video itself?

[fate]

just tried to install the new beta...
install went fine but zp didn't start i got several access violations and then a small black window remains... tried zp 5.5a again, works fine

using winxp

[Gnerma]

Thanks for all the hard work Blight. I'm testing the new build as we speak.

[OV2]

Nice work Blight.

Some thoughts:
1. It would be nice if the installer asked if it should use the %AppData% folder or the ZP folder. I was wondering where my skins had gone until I remembered to delete the %AppData% folder.

2. After each installation, the visible control bar buttons are reset to the default - could that be changed to keep them in new versions?

3. File Associations: Could you implement an option to use the Winxp-style registrations in Vista? I'm running Vista with UAC turned off and would like to use ZP to do the registrations and icon associations, but ZP currently only sets the FileExts\EXT\UserChoice entries.

[Aokromes]

I get a strange bug with open dialog, when i try to open a video file from lan i don't see the machines on it nor the shared resources, with media player classic i see all fine.

[SundaY]

Hi!

I saw your answer in the 5.5 alpha thread about EVR being a microsoft bug and not a zp bug, lets hope they will fix this soon then.
About the other thing i mentioned, the haali problem i have where i get horizontal and vertical lines in the picture, here is a screenshot comparison with vmr9 haali_problem.zip.
As you can see the print scrn shows the lines (as i see it on my monitor) but the frame capture through zp(alt-f) doesnt show the problem. vmr9 doesnt have this problem.

My setup is:
Clean install of vista x64 ultimate
Only codecs installed are from zp install center
ffdshow used for output (default settings)
ATI 2600XT (7.7 drivers)

Is this a haali problem or a zp problem?

PS, you do a great job with this player... the best around

[Bilar Crais]

I can see you've been hard at work...nicely done.

I've noticed that since the 5.5 alpha, that to apply a custom icon pack in file associations no longer works properly under Vista. When you are in the file associations section of the configuration panel, it appears that the respective icons have been associated with their format counterparts. But when you look in the windows explorer, the only type of icon showing on any video format is the .zpl icon. I know for a fact that this works correctly under XP. Has anyone else noticed this problem, or am I doing something wrong? THX.

[Gnerma]

...when you look in the windows explorer, the only type of icon showing on any video format is the .zpl icon.

I can confirm this one. Although for me its the *.zps extension. Perhaps it always does it for the last one listed.

[ecb]

The new release arrives!

Some minor notes, as always:
1) Looking to Aokromes' post, I say it is the same for me, that LAN drives can't be opened through these interfaces.
2) When I cycled through aspect ratios, I found it difficult to read which I was on because the words were right-justified (Like: "Aspect Ratio: Widescreen", "Aspect Ratio: Derived (Recommended)", etc.). How possible would it be to left-justify this for the sake of readability--or something equivalent (such as using two lines of information)?
3) Thanks for the tip about the System Tray icon title option. I presume that there is no way to, perhaps, keep the title displaying in the Task Bar, yet removing it from the Tray icon--however, if there is, consider this a request to do so. It would find it nice to display the title everywhere other than the system tray, because of the auto-hiding issue.
4) I noticed that the stretched media/DVD background image (1024x768; Godwin's that I stretched myself to that resolution for proper aspect display) I use for ZP no longer seem to display properly. They are crammed into a pillar-boxed 4:3-like box now, where they used to display properly with the alpha build, filling the whole window. What is going on with that?

As always, your improvements are much appreciated around here, so thanks for the new build. It's looking pretty good, as usual, though I am particularly thrilled to test out the new captioning support.

[Aokromes]

Workarround for my bug: Change Objects of type from Media Files to All Files.

[Mark_W]

Closed Captioning ARRGG!!!!! They're driving me nuts!!!!!

Well, it's not that bad, but it is annoying


Crtl + C will turn Closed Captioning off, good...but only for that file. And only the one time.


How do I turn CC off for media files FOREVER????

[RuudG]

Great to see the continuous development.

I miss however the blanking presets in the navigation UI. I can find the video position presets in the context menu, but I cannot find the blanking presets. Am I missing something or is this a not (yet ) implemented feature?

And it would be nice if I could tell ZP which of the context menu possibilities to show in the displayed context menu UI, just as I can for the Main menu.

[Blight]

Fabool:
I'm not sure what you're referring to, the keyboard editor should allow you to do use this keyboard sequence. You can even assign the translucency functionality to a different keyboard macro using the keyboard editor.


butlerat:
I just checked it and you're wrong. However, the installer keeps a record in the registry as to the last location it was installed, so if you are upgrading, it will show you that location.

making only the interface semi transparent is not really an option, but you can press F4-F7 to switch the skin mode to one that contains less data.


fate:
I need to know what the errors are (provide screenshots). Which operating system you are installing on (XP32/XP64). What directory you are installing to?. Are you using a limited windows user account? When exactly does the crash occur?


OV2:
1. I agree, I don't really have enough experience with NSIS to do something like that quite yet, but it's under consideration. If anyone wants to help here, I have no problems posting the install script.
2. This has always been the case, it's a safety measure when the number of ZP function changes. It only occurs when a new version is installed, reinstalling doesn't cause that (as long as you're reinstalling the same version).
3. It's a possibility, but I would rather not confuse people too much, i'll see what can be done.


Aokromes:
Is this something that worked in v5? Can you specify your network setup so I can try reproducing this issue? From what I can tell by your workaround, it's a filtering issue and I need to know what not to filter in this particular case.


SundaY:
The lines look like an error in the scaler. You wouldn't see them in the screenshot as the image is not resized there. Did you play around with the sharpness setting in the haali video renderer's property page? That may cause it. Another reason might be some glitch in the graphic drivers. Upgrading/downgrading the drivers may fix it. If nothing helps, then it's possible it's some sort of glitch with the haali renderer and certain ATI cards. Letting haali know might be your best bet. I think he has a video renderer thread over at the doom9.org forums, posting the screenshots and your system specs should help him debug this if my suggestions dont help you get around this glitch.


Bilar Crais/Gnerma:
This is a limitation due to how Vista changed file association. Like I answered OV2, I may add an option to return functionality to same level it was on XP, but it will only work in vista if you disable UAC.


ecb:
1. see Aokromes answer.
2. You can choose the position of the OSD messages. I looked into breaking the aspect ratio messages into two lines but I feel it isn't clearer.
3. I think it's a bit too much do a separate setting for this.
4. Can you post a screenshot, perhaps in a separate thread to illuminate this issue. Also provide a link to exactly which background image you were using.


Mark W:
I added a to-do list entry to add a setting that will auto-hide closed captions in media files. It should make it into the next beta, if it doesn't remind me again.


Ruudg:
What appears in the context navigation interface is actually scriptable. You can see an example in the english.menu file under the Language ZP directory. And you're right, there is no preset selection quite yet, i'll add it to the to-do list, but it's a lower priority.

[Blight]

BTW:
I would appriciate some feedback on the new navigation style.

[Bilar Crais]

BTW:
I would appreciate some feedback on the new navigation style.

The new navigation style is simply beautiful! However, for sheer readability, I prefer a duo-tone style such as the charcoal interface. Also, I have noticed that the UI is decidedly more responsive now. As well, it seems to me that EVR rendering is more fluid; I had a bit of stuttering in the alpha build.

Regarding custom icons, I run without UAC as a matter of course, as I'm sure a good number of users do.