Zoom Player v19 has been released
A refreshed Zoom Player
Over the past year, I have been working hard to ensure Zoom Player maintains its crown as the most versatile Media Player and Home Theater PC software for Windows. I've kept in constant communication with Zoom Player's user base, and software enthusiasts from across the world to better understand which features would take Zoom Player to the next level. What quality of life improvements would help make Zoom Player friendlier and more efficient?
I listened
As an indie developer, I have to make hard choices regarding my time allocation to ensure the resources available to me are best allocated to the most requested features. I believe I succeeded with the releases of v18 and v19. Here are the biggest new features introduced since the release of v17.2.
IPTV and Electronic Program Guide
The most significant feature of v18 is the introduction of IPTV support, which establishes Zoom Player as the most advanced IPTV player available for Windows. IPTV, or Internet Protocol Television, is a digital television service delivered via the Internet. Unlike traditional broadcast and cable TV, IPTV transmits television content, including live TV and video on demand (VOD), over the Internet.
You can access Zoom Player's IPTV window either by clicking the new Custom Action button (see below) or by pressing Ctrl+G. Zoom Player provides free access to publicly available channels over IPTV. Additionally, you have the option to purchase access to commercial channels through an IPTV service provider of your choice. Full EPG (Electronic Program Guide) listings and Archive Program playback are supported, although they are not included with the free channels offered by default.
In version 19, I polished the IPTV interface by adding new features, implementing quality of life improvements and fixing bugs. Click here for more information on Zoom Player and IPTV.
Supporting Multiple Playlist
Another long-requested feature is support for multiple playlists, allowing you to instantly switch between multiple pre-loaded playlists. Multiple playlists are loaded in the background using highly optimized code, so even massive playlists containing thousands of entries should not have much of an impact on Zoom Player's performance. Simply press the new multi-playlist button on the playlist editor (top left corner) to add the current playlist, a playlist from a file, or to manage multiple playlists (remove, rename, reorder).
libVLC integration
Zoom Player has now integrated with libVLC, the media engine used by the VLC media player. This integration means that several new features that were unique to VLC are now available in Zoom Player, leveraging the reliability of VLC with Zoom Player's powerful and versatile user interface.
In theory, Zoom Player's default choice of Microsoft's DirectShow media engine is superior to libVLC in many ways. DirectShow is a lower-level implementation, allowing me to develop unique features that are impossible to do with libVLC. At the same time, due to its complexity, there may be cases where libVLC can be more reliable than DirectShow. By default, only Blu-ray discs use libVLC due to its support for playing Blu-ray discs with menus. However, since this is Zoom Player you are reading about, the ultimate choice of which engine to use is up to you!
You can enable libVLC specifically for Blu-ray discs, IPTV streaming, media playback (by file extension), and open-ended streaming (by URL, for example "youtube") under the new advanced options section (Adv. Options / Playback / libVLC). To use libVLC, you must either install the latest version of the 32-bit VLC player or install libVLC from the Install Center (it does not conflict with existing VLC installations). For more information on libVLC's integration click here.
Screen Casting
You can now use libVLC to cast the playing video to supported Chromecast-compatible devices. All you need to do is open "Adv. Options / Playback / libVLC" and scan for a Chromecast device. Any content played through the libVLC engine will now display on the selected device. Please consider that it can take a few seconds longer to open media files for casting. Alternatively, you can use the new Shift+"/" keyboard shortcut to scan and pick a casting device in real-time for the currently playing media.
The tiny user interface problem
This feature has been among the most frequently requested: Zoom Player's hand-drawn skins can now scale in resolution from 100% to 800% to easily support higher resolution displays. Please note, this feature may not be compatible with older skins, so make sure to use the latest skin version. With this new feature, you can simply open the skin selection dialog (by pressing "N") and select a zoom value that works best with your display.
Media library enhancements
I completely redesigned the media library's category editor. It should be easier to set up, and you can finally reorder the categories using multiple selection. The media library itself sports new sorting, filtering, info, and playback features along with updated YouTube plugins, making the media library friendlier and more powerful than ever.
More help
The right-click menu has been extended with a new "Help" section. The Help section provides quick access to the keyboard shortcut list and quick-use guides for most of Zoom Player's interfaces. Using the "F1" keyboard shortcut now opens the keyboard shortcut list instantly.
New Formats
Zoom Player's latest version supports playback of all the newest audio and video codecs (formats), including AV1 video, H.266/VVC video, and Opus audio.
MPC-VR : A new Video Renderer option
With the help of Chetan Ullal and his work on the MPC Subtitle Helper component, I was able to integrate the MPC-VR video rendering component for media playback. MPC-VR is actively developed, and includes some features MadVR lacks (certain Dolby HDR profiles).
Custom Action Button
The default Zoom Player skin now features a Custom Action button designed to resemble a starburst, located in the top-left corner of the player window. Within Zoom Player's options dialog, you can configure the specific action that triggers when pressing the Custom Action button. By default, clicking the button opens the new IPTV interface.
Wakeup on LAN
Zoom Player can now send Wake-on-LAN packets to your network-attached devices, enabling the automatic activation of remote PCs or network-attached storage devices based on conditions you specify, for example, on an initial run or when accessing the media library.
More Quality of Life changes
I made many more tweaks and fixes, making Zoom Player more intuitive and fun to use, read all about them in the complete change list.
Watch me code
I started documenting some of my coding sessions on YouTube, allowing you to follow me as I develop new features, try to optimize code and fix bugs.
Support my continued work on Zoom Player
Do you love my work on Zoom Player? If you feel I'm doing a good job, please support me on Patreon, you will gain my endless love for your kind heart and generosity.