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 use this forum thread to report any bugs.
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:
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 "<PlayListPos>" dynamic script variable that is used to display the current position in a playlist. * New "<FilePath>" 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.