Announcing Zoom Player v7 Release Candidate 1, Ready for testing Options

[RegWizard]

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 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:

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 "<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.

[ehathgepiurhe]

Hm, lots of thread views, but no feedback as yet. So, I'll go first

Two initial things first I suppose.

1. Reading through the changelog, I was a little disappointed. For my usage of Zoom Player, there are no real compelling updates in this new version of v6 Max. For the development time, I was expecting a number of new features, to me it really seems to be mainly a few bug fixes combined with moving some options to other parts of the menu.

2. Anyway, I did install it over the top of my v6 install (ZP Max, XP Pro, SP3), and v7 seems now not to like Haali's on my PC. I had Haali set as the default renderer under v6, and apart from QuickTime files (which I've never been really able to make work correctly under any version of ZP), ZP worked ok. Without changing anything, v7 now stutters majorly on every single video file type. Changing the renderer to EVR has removed the stutter from wmv files, but no idea why Haali's now does not work correctly. And QuickTime files still don't work correctly either (the sound now lags behind the video).

Sigh. Back to lurking I suppose.

CM

[RegWizard]

1. There were many features that were polished/made more intuitive.
2. There was nothing done to that should affect haali, make sure some other setting didn't affect this (such as the selected audio device).

With regards to quicktime. There are two ways to play quicktime in ZP, either through the QuickTime ActiveX control or through DirectShow.

Usually when the audio lags behind the video it means one of several things:
1. Your CPU is too weak.
2. The media file wasn't authored correctly.
3. Your audio device is not set correctly (using a WaveOut device on some hardware can cause delays).

[pin]

With the video renderer set to MadVR I get decreased CPU and memory use on mkv files, yet when I try to play xvid/divx files I get a grey screen and only audio.

[Ted]

(sorry, bad english)

Thank you for the new Zoom Player 7.

Wish 1:
"Save Playing file as ..." Function with Alt+Shift+"S":
Please, can this function remember the last selected folder, where I store a file ?
It is a little bit hard, to select the destination folder again and again, if I work with much files.

Wish 2:
In all version of zoomplayer is a error:
I load a movie in to zoomplayer.
Then I load the next movie from the folder with Control+PageDown (in zoomplayer).
Sometime I delete a movie with the Delete-Key (in zoomplayer).
But now, Control+PageDown (or Control+PageUp) don't work anymore (in zoomplayer).

Wish 3:
I want a function, that makes it more easy, to process many movie files.
For example, I have a folder with 1000 files.
Then I load the first movie into zoomplayer.
I watch the movie and then I want to decide, if I want to keep or to delete the movie.
Or better, to move the current movie in specific folders (good movie, bad movie ...)

Thank you for your attention.

Ted

[ZOOM fan]

Hello
Thank you for V7.
However, as for V7, sharpness becomes invalid in FFDshow RAW.
I become effective in V6.
Is this a bug?
Thank you

OS:Vista SP1
VGA:RadeonHD4870 Cat9,6

[danei]

It seems ffdshow sub filter won't load when sub is inside a mkv container, while vsfilter is ok.
mkv spliter:haali, auto-load vsfilter:no
ffdshow version:3018

To use a dedicate sub filter, my way is to choose one from video/subtitle, then anto config smartplay. Do I do something wrong?

[RegWizard]

pin:
MadVR is still very experimental, it doesn't even work well on our systems in most cases. It also requires a high end video card (PixelShader3). We're hoping this tech will improve with time.

danei:
We will investigate the sub issue, are you using ffdshow as the video decoder (ZP tries not to load ffdshow twice if it is already used as the video decoder). There is no need to use a dedicated subtitle filter. You can choose your preferred filter (adv. options / playback / video / subtitles). To load a sub for that video, just drop a subtitle file on the playing video or open a subtitle file as you would any other media file. To have the subtitle file load automatically, you can use this naming scheme:
myvideo.avi
myvideo.sub1.srt
myvideo.sub2.srt

If the movie has internal subs, ZP tries to display them automatically. Using FFDShow for this is new, so there may be glitches, so make sure to write the exact conditions (especially which video decoder was used) and possibly post a link to a sample file which doesn't work.

zoom fan:
your description is a bit unclear, please expand and possibly include screenshots of what you mean.

ted:
1. The path will be remembered in the next release candidate
2. If you accidentally delete files with the del key, know that it can be disabled in the options (so that the del key doesn't erase files). With regards to ctrl+pgup/pgdn, they never played the next/prev file in the directory. You need to use it without the Ctrl key. Press F1 for the most up to date keyboard shortcut list. Or create your own keyboard mapping.
3. You really may want to use a file manager for this. Personally, I would use Total Commander.

[ehathgepiurhe]

1. There were many features that were polished/made more intuitive.
2. There was nothing done to that should affect haali, make sure some other setting didn't affect this (such as the selected audio device).

With regards to quicktime. There are two ways to play quicktime in ZP, either through the QuickTime ActiveX control or through DirectShow.

Usually when the audio lags behind the video it means one of several things:
1. Your CPU is too weak.
2. The media file wasn't authored correctly.
3. Your audio device is not set correctly (using a WaveOut device on some hardware can cause delays).

Hi,

The video's play fine in GOM Player and KMPlayer on the same PC, so 1 & 2 aren't the problem. 3 isn't the problem either - audio is set to default directsound device. No idea what the problem is. The only codecs I have installed are the ones through ZP's install centre (though I do have QuickTime installed separately), and I haven't touched the configuration of any of them.

The one thing that has always frustrated me about ZP is this: every single time I install it, no matter what PC (I have a few PC's here, various configs, various ages), no matter the version of ZP (4, 5, 6 and now 7 as well), it has some sort of problem with some type of video file. It never works 100% out of the box. If I then uninstall ZP and reinstall it, the problem it had before will most likely be fixed, but a totally new problem will occur (in other words, the problem will be different and the video file type it occurs on will be different). I've had a lot of software experience (even was a software tester at one point in time), and I've never seen any program behave so differently each time you install it quite like ZP does. At least with every other program on my PC, when I install them I can predict how they will behave. Occasionally when reinstalling, you may find one program has a problem you have never seen it have before on your PC, but that is rare when your PC is properly configured. Not so with ZP. Anyhow, I've mentioned this particular problem to Blight before, but sadly ZP has not really improved any in this respect as the version numbers have increased. Having been a software tester though, I do realise the key to fixing a problem is reproduceability. If the dev can't reproduce the problem, and no-one else is complaining about it, it won't get fixed, and that is probably the case here. For whatever reason, my use of ZP is cursed, and most other people have no problem with it. C'est la vie as the French say.

I do wonder though if the main problem is that unlike the other players I have installed on my PC (due to ZP not working with one file type or another I need to have multiple players), ZP does not have built-in codecs. It relies on you installing external codecs (GOM, KMPlayer, MPC etc all rely on internal codecs by default). Maybe the reliance on external codecs is the problem.

Anyway, rant over - now for a compliment for ZP. ZP still is the only player that has one particular feature (afaik anyway), and that is scrolling through a folder of videos without having to add any of them to the playlist first. This one single feature has kept ZP installed on my various PC's over the years, despite the high number of problems I have with ZP generally. I just can't live without this particular feature

[Gleb Egorych]

Using Vista x64 SP2, EVR, GF8800GT, 60Hz LCD.

60fps (actually 59.94fps) videos still massively stutter in ZP7 (ZP6 the same). Need to disable desktop composition in compatibility options for zplayer.exe.

[Gleb Egorych]

File format association:

1) AVI file is assigned to MPC-HC, none of formats is assigned to ZP.
2) Start ZP, go File Format association, check AVI, press Save. Now AVI files are played by ZP. Close ZP.
3) Start MPC-HC, re-associate AVI with it, close MPC-HC. Now AVI files are played by MPC-HC.
4) Start ZP: AVI file checkbox is checked, clear it, press Save. It's again checked. Uncheck, press OK. It is again checked.

So it's unclear how keep the checkbox clear.

[Gleb Egorych]

External audiotrack is still out of sync.

Files:

test.mkv (H.264 + single AC3 track)
test.eng.ac3
test.eng.srt.

Subtitles are synced, while external english audio is played from the beginning when I switch to it. No matter of actual position in file. After rewind there is no sound if external audio track is selected.

Tested using latest Haali for MKV, AC3File 0.6b as AC3 source filter, ffdshow as AC3 decoder, VSFilter and ffdshow as subtitle renderer.

[danei]

danei:
We will investigate the sub issue, are you using ffdshow as the video decoder (ZP tries not to load ffdshow twice if it is already used as the video decoder). There is no need to use a dedicated subtitle filter. You can choose your preferred filter (adv. options / playback / video / subtitles). To load a sub for that video, just drop a subtitle file on the playing video or open a subtitle file as you would any other media file. To have the subtitle file load automatically, you can use this naming scheme:
myvideo.avi
myvideo.sub1.srt
myvideo.sub2.srt

If the movie has internal subs, ZP tries to display them automatically. Using FFDShow for this is new, so there may be glitches, so make sure to write the exact conditions (especially which video decoder was used) and possibly post a link to a sample file which doesn't work.

Fine. The mkvs file I tried contains internal sub and video codec is wmv, x264, and h264. The video decoders are wmp's wmv decoder and coreavc.
Surely, if the video is decoded by ffdshow, the sub shows up ok. So, if the decoder is ffdshow, then the internal sub can be taken to ffdshow sub render, otherwise if decoder is not ffdshow, the sub won't show.
All these are done under smartplay.
I don't have splite tool on hand to cut the big file to small one, so when I find one I will post a sample.
The spliter and video render are haali.

[ZOOM fan]

zoom fan:
your description is a bit unclear, please expand and possibly include screenshots of what you mean.

I'm sorry.
I put the details.I want you to watch a photograph.
I play DVD.
unsharp masuk does not become effective in V7 even if I do the same setting!
V6 becomes effective in DVD playback.
Thank you.

Attached File(s)

 v7bag.gif ( 35.8K ) Number of downloads: 22

 

[Ted]

1. The path will be remembered in the next release candidate
2. If you accidentally delete files with the del key, know that it can be disabled in the options (so that the del key doesn't erase files). With regards to ctrl+pgup/pgdn, they never played the next/prev file in the directory. You need to use it without the Ctrl key. Press F1 for the most up to date keyboard shortcut list. Or create your own keyboard mapping.
3. You really may want to use a file manager for this. Personally, I would use Total Commander.

(sory, bad english)

Thank you much for your help.

2.
No, it is not accidentally, I WANT to delete a file. And "Ctrl" was a mistake in writing.
Again:
Error in all versions from zoomplayer (also in v7):
I load a movie into zoomplayer and play it.
Then I load next/prev file in the directory with pgdn/pgup.
Then I decide to delete the current loaded movie and press the del key.
But afterwards the keys pgdn/pgup don't work. Nothing happens.

Ted

[Gleb Egorych]

In zplayer.exe properties Zoom Player is called "Dish Player". So in "Open with" explorer menu it is called "Dish Player" too.

[RuudG]

Hi,

Thanks a lot for v7, I was afraid the days of zoomplayer were over.

However the problems concerning flac audio tracks in movies are not adressed. This is tested with latest Haali splitter, AC3 and Madflac decoders, EVR and Haali video renderers and Soundmax and default directsound device audio renderers.

1) I have lots of titles with two audiotracks. One lossy (DTS or AC3) and one lossless flac. If I try to select the second (is lossless) track I get an "acces violation error" error (which was reported a few months ago). I have to uncheck the "Internal Equalizer/etc" to stop this error. But this stops a necessary feature from working as well.

2) If I choose the second (lossless) track, the graph is changed, but not the list in "right click -> filter properties".

3) The lossless track is then activated in a limited way. I have included ffdshow audio processor after the Madflac decoder in the FLAC decoder configuration, however ffdshow is not included in the graph selecting the lossless track.

4) Returning to the first track, selecting the AC3 filter in filter properties doesn't work anymore.

And as noted by Greb Egorych, external audio tracks still loose their sync after seeking.

[wdekler]

When I configure ZP RC1 to use the MPC video DS filter to decode a H264 MKV file with subs, the framrate the slows down to a crawl. This is both with vobsub and ffdshow for subtitling.

edit: this only happens at one of my two PC's... , both use the EVR renderer.

[Pino64]

Thanks for the update. It seems very stable, but still some bugs left which I mentioned before:

1. I want to use a network path in: "Default media open path (file open / file navigator path)" but this doesn't work.
2. If I add a network path to "Additional File Nav "Network / Disk" paths" I cannot open DVD and ISO files e.g.
MKV and DivX files works OK, but when I open an ISO for mounting the ISO will be executed, but after that nothing happens. If I select "play all files" on a VIDEO_TS folder I'll get an error message, viz. "Access violation at address 006338A9 in module "zplayer.exe". Read of address FFFFFFFF."
All of this works 100% from network drives or other disks, but not from network paths.


(For now I'll start zoomplayer within a bat-file after create network drives and when closing, the network files will be deleted btw. I need to do this because the computer won't sleep with network drives active.)


Other issues:
1. Browsing folders in file navigator is sometimes slow. Sometimes a folder has a delay of 3 seconds when opening. This will happen randomly, but only at folders with a lot of loose items instead of subfolders. Maybe this is a Vista issue..........
2. Quicktime Active X works great now, didn't work with ZP6. With Directshow sound and video on quicktime files doesn't play synchronic, so this is a big improvement!

(Btw I like the new option to hide pictures when opening a folder! Now I can use pictures with the screensaver, because I removed all picture extentions in the settings before.)

[Pino64]

I do wonder though if the main problem is that unlike the other players I have installed on my PC (due to ZP not working with one file type or another I need to have multiple players), ZP does not have built-in codecs. It relies on you installing external codecs (GOM, KMPlayer, MPC etc all rely on internal codecs by default). Maybe the reliance on external codecs is the problem.

You're right, your problems are caused by using buggy codecs / decoders I think. I'm glad Zoomplayer doesn't have built-in codecs because you cannot switch anymore then. I can play all files without installing other software, except of the divx/xvid/ac3 filter codec and the nvidia purevideo decoder. Never problems or crashes (since zp 4). Never install codec packs and free decoders etc!
The only problem I had before was quicktime audio-video sync but that's solved for me now.