Announcing Zoom Player v8.1.5 final

[Blight]

Hi Everyone,
Version 8.1.5 is finally ready!
The new version includes usability tweaks, cosmetic fixes to the user interface and lots of bug fixes,
Enjoy!

Downloads links:
Zoom Player FREE
Zoom Player PRO
Zoom Player MAX

Here is the full change log since v8.1.1:

 New :

  * New installer option to "Associate with Media Formats", disabled by default.
    When enabled, Zoom Player automatically associates itself with every
    media file extension on the "Options / File Format Association" page.

    Once associated, opening/clicking the file extension (".AVI" for example)
    in explorer and other shell programs prompts Zoom Player to execute and
    play the selected media file.

  * The install center can now list optional items without automatically
    selecting the item for installation.

  * The default Onyx skin's title area has been refined.
    
  * You can now directly configure the LAV Audio, Video and Splitter filters
    through the "Adv. Options / System / Filter Management" dialog.

  * A 'Play in Slowmotion' button has been added to the Control Bar.

  * The Tray icon right-click menu has been added two functions:
    1. Next Chapter/Track.
    2. Previous Chapter/Track.

  * New "ZPEXEIcon" icon library you can apply through the "File Format
    Association" page under "Adv. Options".

    The icon library applies the Zoom Player executable icon to all file
    extensions (replacing the labeled format extensions badges).



 Changes :

  + The player window's video area no longer blanks black when playing
    multiple JPEG images in succession even when the file are not part
    of the playlist (playing the next directory file for example).

  + Smart Play's 'Source Filter' configuration dialog makes it clearer
    that selecting a profile that works as both a source and a splitter,
    overrides smart play's 'Splitter' profile for the media file extension.
    You can only split a media format once ...

  + Smart Play profiles tweaked to increase stability.

  + The custom key file settings (Adv. Options / Interface / Keyboard) now
    accept relative file paths.

  + The play history cache file verification system was overly sensitive,
    causing it to notify you the file may be corrupted even when it wasn't.

  + If "Adv. Option / Interface - 'On Media / DVD Play'" was set to
    'Zoom mode' or 'Fullscreen mode' and the player window was minimized,
    the player window was restored and set to fullscreen each time a new
    media was loaded.  Now this action only takes place if the player window
    is not minimized.



 Fixes :

  - Fixed switching to fullscreen on a secondary monitor with Windows XP,
    which stopped working in version 8.

  - Fixed several small bugs related to how Zoom Player is minimized and
    restored.
    
  - JPEG images with EXIF rotation mode "6" were not rotated correctly.

  - The '"Derived" mode Automatically Adjusts Aspect Ratio for badly encoded
    content' setting did not adjust for dynamically changing aspect ratios.
    This was especially bad with MadVR which throws a Aspect Ratio change
    event every time.

  - ID3 v2.2 tags with embedded images were not parsed correctly, causing
    the embedded image not to display.

  - Using the "zplayer.regpath" file did not apply the new data path.
    More information @ http://inmatrix.com/zplayer/highlights/multicopy.shtml

  - Pop-up OSD messages would not appear if MadVR OSD services was used
    with a fullscreen navigation interface visible.

  - MadVR now show the first frame in the video when pressing stop.
  
  - The Pop-Up OSD (Play/Pause/etc) would stick on-screen when using MadVR
    as the video renderer and tabbing away from Zoom Player.

  - If 'On Playlist Complete' is set to 'Do Nothing' and MadVR is used as
    the video renderer, the fullscreen OSD interface would stop updating when
    the video finished playing.

  - Playing MP3 files with embedded album art created by Samsung Kies
    could crash the player (Kies is creating invalid ID3v2 tags).

  - The default "MPEG2 Program" video decoder Smart Play profile has been
    changed from DScaler to LAV as DScaler did not support dynamic aspect
    ratio changes with the EVR (Enhanced Video Renderer).

  - DirectShow filters with stored filter data bigger than 4096 bytes
    would not appear in the 'Registered Filter Manager' dialog (LAV Video
    for example).

  - When deleting a station from the station manager, the station name
    would not appear in the delete confirmation dialog.
    
  - Due to conflict with Real Player, the RealMedia decoder pack is no
    longer included in the Install Center and the RealMedia Smart Play
    profiles have been modified to use LAV in its place.  
    
  - Fixed a cosmetical glitch in the options dialog search results.

[adam777]

Zoom Player is really nice (and as a nice bonus it's Israeli made).
However, there is one (missing) feature that sent me back to MPC-HC - the inability to define globally preferred filter chain.
That is, "first try this filters ignoring file extension and media subtype".
I had this setup (more or less) by creating smart filter profiles that achieve the above (a source filter profile listing all associated file types and video/audio decoders profiles listing all media subtypes supported by needed decoders), which was not fun at all creating but worked.
However, an unexpected system crash made me format my machine and I had no desire creating the above again, so back to MPC-HC for the time being.
That being said, I still keep an eye open and hoping
Adam

PS.
http://forum.inmatrix.com/index.php?showtopic=13426

[nevcairiel]

I basically had the same problem, configuring it to just use LAV for everything was quite challenging, and i only wanted to test something.

[Blight]

adam:
Explain the scenerio where this is beneficial, other than for quickly tweaking multiple formats at one go.
Keep in mind that I'm trying to target Zoom Player toward the average user while still giving the advanced user the option to tweak.
I may be able to insert a different graph building system if it's simple enough, but you'll have to explain in greater details the benefits of such a system.

nev:
It's not that complex, it's only choosing the LAV profile for the formats/codecs you want it to be used in.
I am trying to make it simple, this version adds a label that clarifies things and I have a few ideas on other improvements I can make.

[nevcairiel]

Originally Posted by Blight

nev:
It's not that complex, it's only choosing the LAV profile for the formats/codecs you want it to be used in.
I am trying to make it simple, this version adds a label that clarifies things and I have a few ideas on other improvements I can make.

Having to go through X video and Y audio codecs and Z file formats isn't intuitive. MPC-HCs system may be more crude, but its like 5 clicks to make it use LAV for everything.
Only improvement i would envision for MPC-HC would be to be able to add "rules" to the priorities, instead of "Use Codec X" make it "Use Codec X for Format: H264", or things like that. JRiver MC17 has a system like that, although its in serious need of documentation.

[adam777]

Blight, as suggested in the inmatrix forums, even the addition of the ability to specify a wildcard should be enough.
Such addition will allow creating, easy enough, a splitter profile that will be used for "*" (e.g. all) extension, a decoder that will be used for "*" mediasubtype etc.
No need for a different graph building system, naively it sounds like adding an extra check for each level when building the graph.

[Blight]

nev:
That system works well for testing, which is suited for you, but for low-level tweaking, it's not suitable :-/
Do you know if it's possible through the 'IAMGraphBuilderCallback' interface to deduce the subtype and then do:
If subtype = [x] then use filter [y] instead of whichever filter the "IAMGraphBuilderCallback::SelectedFilter" interface queries?
If so, I may be able to write something like that fairly quickly.

adam:
I don't see a problem with adding masks (*) for the file extensions, but I'm not sure how it would work for sub-types... You would still need to specify which subtypes to present to the filter, otherwise you'll be wasting a lot of time trying to connect the wrong filter in a lot of situations.

[nevcairiel]

Originally Posted by Blight

Do you know if it's possible through the 'IAMGraphBuilderCallback' interface to deduce the subtype and then do:
If subtype = [x] then use filter [y] instead of whichever filter the "IAMGraphBuilderCallback::SelectedFilter" interface queries?
If so, I may be able to write something like that fairly quickly.

That interface is really useless. I dont know when i would want to use it.

[adam777]

Blight, generally speaking you are correct of course, allowing masks in regards to subtypes might lead to many false attempts.
However, for the vast majority of situations, decoders such as LAV/FFDShow will probably be able to decode what you throw at them.
Considering that there is already an option to display an error message if no connection could be made, this should be fine.
Keep in mind that such option will not appeal to the common user anyway, and the more advanced user should be satisfied (in my eyes) with an error message if the decoders rejects the connection.

[Midzuki]

According to Videohelp, now the current version is 8.1.6 :–/

[Blight]

v8.1.6 is a quick patch for the free version that showed an incorrect error message.