Zoom Player 4.00 RC1


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Lots of changes, fixes and new features introduced in this release candidate. This is also the first release to introduce Zoom Player WMV Professional which is a new separate version of Zoom Player allowing for DRM encoded Windows Media file playback.

An upgrade path between Zoom Player Professional and the new Zoom Player WMV Professional versions is available.

* New Stream Selection Interface (Only for the Professional Version)

  allowing you to automatically select Audio and Subtitle streams

  according to Language Codes, Stream Name text matching and specific

  stream numbers.

* Zoom Player will now try to load JPEG image files outside of

  DirectShow.  It seems that DirectShow is very resolution-limited

  and even the best display hardware doesn't support a video-surface

  with the resolution captured by recent Digital Cameras.

  The new JPEG Module uses a software bilinear scaler to resize the

  images, so quality should be better than standard image viewers,

  although a bit slower.

  You can disable the JPEG Module and let DirectShow try to load

  these images under "Advanced Options / Filter Control / Settings".

* New TCP/IP external control interface.  This interface is still

  experimental. The interface is similar to the SendMessage code

  currently in use, but allows you to send control information to

  Zoom Player and can be accessed accross a network.

  By default, it is set to off and can be enabled at

  "Advanced Options / Values / Interface" where a connection port

  can also be selected.

* Customized Media Playback Splitter, Audio and Video profiles can

  now blacklist themselves according to the file extension being

  played (previously you could only whitelist extensions).

* New Toggle (Advanced Options / Settings / Toggles) allowing you

  to choose how text is truncated to fit the desired space.  This

  effect a lot of text elements within Zoom Player such as the

  Navigator display and ID3 display.

  The default setting is to "Vowel Decimation" which tries to remove

  vowels so that more text remains readable.  The alternative is

  to cut the end of the text.

* The DVD AutoAR feature can now execute an external program when

  a DVD Aspect Ratio mode changes.

* New "/LOCKFS" command line parameter which locks Zoom Player in

  fullscreen mode (useful for Kiosk-Type operation).

* New Setting (Options / DVD Setup) allowing you to hide the

  Audio/Video decoder profiles that are not currently registered

  on your computer.

* New Settings (Advanced Options / Settings / Windows Media) allowing

  you to use AC3 Filter as an Audio Post-Processor for Windows Media

  DRM content.  Make sure you have PCM input enabled in the AC3 Filter

  property page, otherwise it won't work.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / OSD / Navigators) allowing you to

  select whether the Left Pane on the File and Media Library navigators

  is visible.  When the Pane is invisible, the top-directory box

  will show additional details about the media category and drives.

* New Color Selection for Navigators Internal, External and Select

  Framing Colors (Advanced Options / OSD / Navigators).

* New Button (Advanced Options / Filter Control / Management /

  Registered Filter Manager) on the Registered Filter Manager allowing

  you to Re-Register the DirectShow filters that come as default with

  windows.  This should help in such cases where a 3rd party program can

  destabilize the default system or in case you want to unregister all

  filter and restore your system to a default state.

* The LCD interface has been extended and can now be used to call

  Zoom Player standard and extended functions.

* Two new ID3 display tags "<Length>" returning the length of the

  currently playing file and "<PlayListTotal>" returning the total

  duration for the entire play list.

* The ScanCode button (Options / Keys) now shows you when

  a multi-media key is pressed so you can now identify such

  keys and add support for them in the keyboard file using

  the "mcAddKey" function.

* New Keyboard Macro (Shift+"V") to enable/disable the Internal

  Screen Saver.  This macro uses the new "fnSSaverToggle" function.

+ Zoom Player can now acquire WMV DRM Auto-Licenses as long as WMP has

  individualized the system (usually happens when originally playing

  DRM content).

+ Zoom Player now supports VMR7 Windowed playback in Customized Media

  mode.  If you previously used a customized renderer, make sure to

  update your setting.

+ You can now use VMR7 and Overlay Mixer when playing WMV DRM content.

+ Subtitles can now be viewed with WMV DRM content using DirectVobSub.

+ The External Audio Track support has been greatly expanded.  You

  can now specify an alternative search path for External Audio Tracks

  (Advanced Options / Values / Other), audio track naming is now more

  flexible, for example:

  MyVideo.avi

  MyVideo.english.mp3

  MyVideo.spanish.wav

  MyVideo.japanese.mpc

  All are valid names now.  You can use any file format specified

  as an audio extension under "Advanced Options / Values / Extensions".

+ The Customized Media Playback configuration dialogs should now be

  a little easier to understand.

+ The System Overview now lists the filter version numbers when the

  filter files contain them.

+ The Alt+"A" macro will now also open the AC3Filter property dialog.

- Playing multiple VIDEO_TS.IFO file through a play list should now

  work again (as long as the IFO files are not looped in a DVD Menu).

- Clicking on a missing format link on the Basic Options dialog would

  throw a protection fault error.

- The /OpenDrive parameter would open a dialog asking you to insert

  a disc if a CD drive has been ejected and the drive then opened.

- The "/TRAILER", "/KEY" and "/KEYDVD" command line parameters were

  broken.

- The gradient skin functions were giving bad results.

- Custom Media Playback should now work with WMV file that use internal

  scripting code.

- With Random Play enabled, items would play that were previously

  removed from the play list.

Go here for the download.

Zoom Player comes in three flavors,

Zoom Player Standard, a flexible feature rich Media Player that for all its features and goodness remains bloat-free, Zoom Player Professional, which on top of being a great Media Player, incorporates the most powerful DVD Front-End you could imagine (and is even a few features you didn't think of imagining) and Zoom Player WMV Professional, adding Windows Media DRM playback support.

Zoom Player Standard remains Free for Non-Commercial use, While Zoom Player Professional and Zoom Player WMV Professional come in a Fully Functional (uncrippled) trial versions and requires registration ($19.95 and $29.95 respectively).

Upgrading over previous installations:

Zoom Player is very upgrade friendly, you can install over previous installation without any issues. The only concern you may have is if you modified a Zoom Player configuration files manually ("default.key", "default.zdf", "default.menu", etc...). If you have not used a text editor to modify a Zoom Player file, you should have no issues with upgrading into the same directory. You do not need to uninstall.

Source: ZP Forums and the ZP homepage

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I dont understand the wmv version. I guess it does support a movie encoding version I'm not familiar with!

thanks for the heads up (Y)

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DRM is Digital Rights Management. It's a way for copyrighted material to be tracked. Among other things. Most people hate it with a passion.

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DRM is Digital Rights Management. It's a way for copyrighted material to be tracked. Among other things. Most people hate it with a passion.

It's got nothing at all to do with tracking. nothing.

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Well it's personal opinion whether DRM tagged media can be tracked or not, I think it can be, you do not. No biggie.

DRM in general is a pos, which I would hope we'd all agree on.

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Blight must pay a licensing fee to include the support. Purchase it and you will be happy, trust me. :)

WMV DRM is royalty-free.

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:blink: it is.. then who pays licencing fees to whom?

If I were to implement support for WMV DRM files in my player I would need to :

1. Obtain an electronic certificate ($100)

2. Send some papers to Microsoft (depends on, should be no more than $50)

No other fees are involved :whistle:

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