What's New in Zoom Player Beta
What's New, Changed and Fixed in Zoom Player v23 release candidate 2:
Changed :
+ The media library has been optimized, scrolling should feel smoother and more responsive and the highlight frame now animates.Fixed :
- External engine compatibility fixes.
What's New, Changed and Fixed in Zoom Player v23 release candidate 1:
New :
* New setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Audio), enabled by default automatically pitch-corrects audio when using the fast play or slow motion features with the DirectShow media engine. Previously you had to use the MPC Audio Renderer to achieve this, now it's default across all renderers. * New setting (Adv. Options / System), enabled conditional on the TCP/IP Remote Control API being enabled. Allows Zoom Player to announce it's available on the local network. This allows ZP Remote Neo, Zoom Player's official remote control app for Android to automatically locate and control Zoom Player with minimal setup. Please note that this feature only works if your Windows network is configured as "Private". If the network is configured as a public network, then for security reasons, the discovery feature is automatically disabled. Download ZP Remote Neo: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=inmatrix.zpremote.neo * Added support for Pixel shaders when using MPC-VR as the video renderer. MPC-VR in DirectX-11 mode use DirectX-11 script, so there is now a new "DX9/DX11" tab on the pixel shader page (Adv. Options / Playback / Video / Pixel Shaders) where you can choose or add new scripts. * You can now apply/save video blanking presets using the Video Blanking home theater interface. * New "Reset" option added to the Video Blanking home theater interface. * New "Save screenshot" option on the right-click context menu under the "Download / Save" sub-menu.Changed :
+ The "Download" sub-menu on the right-click context menu has been renamed to "Download / Save". + When exporting a channel in the Windowed Video Streaming interface to a Windows Shortcut file, the exported file name now replaces invalid file name characters with their unicode look-a-like instead of using HTML encoding. So "|" will look similar instead of showing as "&pipe".Fixed :
- Using yt-dlp to parse URLs on streaming sites could timeout and fail if the PCs has an app installed that replaces Windows `cmd.exe` as the command line shell. For example `Take Command Console`. - A routing error could have caused libVLC to get used for YouTube playback instead of the default IFRAME javascript player. - Fixed a few issues related to playing media files from a really long path. - Fixed a case where installing Zoom Player into a single folder when a previous version was installed into the standard two folder structure, Zoom Player's configuration was not saved/loaded correctly. - When using the video-blanking feature, multimedia keys/events were not relayed and processed properly. - External engine compatibility fixes.
What's New, Changed and Fixed in Zoom Player v23 beta 3:
New :
* The external media engine now supports 64-bit, providing access to AI up-scaling when using supported hardware and components. You can switch between the 32-bit and 64-bit external media engines under "Adv. Options / Playback / Smart Play - External Engine". * You can now drag & drop images and text into the media library's cached meta-data editor directly from a browser.Changed :
+ I performed a few tests of how Zoom Player runs under Linux with the proton compatibility layer for Windows applications. I managed to work-around some issues and discovered/reported a few bugs in proton along the way. As it stands, Zoom Player now works decently under linux, but may require using the OpenGL route if you're using an older GPU (e.g. "Intel HD 4000") that has no Vulkan API support. + YouTube's Closed Captions are now disabled by default when using the default Edge Chromium WebView2 as the playback engine. You can now toggle closed captions (when available) on/off using the Zoom Player's standard subtitle functions (Ctrl+"B" for example) or right-click context menu under 'Stream Selection'. + Removed the "Performance mode" query on new installations. If MPC-VR or MadVR are installed, they will be used automatically. + The trial version's "Days remaining" dialog is clearer/friendlier now.Fixed :
- Quickly seeking multiple times when playing YouTube content using the default media engine could have resulted in a seek-in-place condition. - External engine compatibility fixes.
What's New, Changed and Fixed in Zoom Player v23 beta 2:
New :
* The cached metadata editor now features previous/next buttons that open the media library items in the order visible within the media library prior to opening the editor.Changed :
+ After some changes to the window z-order logic, I'm restoring the Stay on Top feature for Modern-UI, let me know if it's not working perfectly. + The "Auto-Size User Interface to maintain Video Aspect Ratio" setting is now enabled by default for new installations, you can disable it under "Adv. Options / Interface / Position & Size". + The original playback conditions that decide which media engine to use (External, libVLC, etc) are now stored in both the playlist and play history, ensuring that a replay from the playlist or play history interfaces respects the previously used conditions instead of defaulting to the internal media engine. + The advanced options dialog should open slightly faster.Fixed :
- When the "Auto-Size User Interface to maintain Video Aspect Ratio" was enabled, resizing from the sides did not resize the window. - With "Auto-Size User Interface to maintain Video Aspect Ratio" enabled, switching aspect ratios did not automatically resize the player's window to match the new aspect ratio. - Removing all buttons from one of the control overlay's button zones (system, pre-title, fixed and dynamic) would not be applied correctly under some circumstances, showing the previous button selection. - Manually updating a video streaming subscription could update other streaming subscriptions and not only the one selected. - Many compatibility fixes for the external engine.
What's New, Changed and Fixed in Zoom Player v23 beta 1:
New :
* Introducing Zoom Player's external media engine! Zoom Player's external media engine provides a few key advantages: 1. Allows you instantly play a new media even as the old media is still in the process of loading, making it ideal for Video Streaming where a network connection may be down and the time out takes too long when using the internal media engine. 2. You're playing a corrupted or partially downloaded media file that freezes or crashes one of the parsing or decoding components. In this case Zoom Player's using the external media engine ensures Zoom Player's user interface remains functional (will not freeze), allowing you to play something else without having to restart. Zoom Player's external media engine is currently disabled by default, but is fully customizable under "Adv. Options / Playback / Smart Play / Settings", allowing you to decide whether it will be used based on the media's file extension, a partial URL or when playing from Zoom Player's video streaming interfaces. In an upcoming release, I plan on converting the external engine to a 64bit process, enabling AI based image up-scaling. * The Video Streaming Home Theater interface has been optimized to use the newer Microsoft DirectWrite font rendering technology resulting in sharper fonts, support for color Emoji and a faster, more responsive user interface. * The media scanner home theater interface has been redesigned with feature identical capabilities to the Media Library category interface but with full support for keyboard/mouse/remote only operations, making it ideal for setting up in a Home Theater environment. * The video streaming group manager now has a home theater version designed to work with either a mouse, keyboard or remote control, making it ideal for setting up in a Home Theater environment. * New setting that controls whether Zoom Player's Smart Play DirectShow graph building code falls back to letting Windows pick the correct DirectShow filter for URLs (streams). The existing fallback feature covered both local file where this setting was beneficial and URLs where it wasn't, I decided to split it into two settings and disable it for streams by default (Adv. Options / Playback / Smart Play). * New setting that disable Zoom Player's exit-warning when a video streaming subscription or EPG database is mid-download (Adv. Options / Playback / Video Streaming).Changed :
+ The skinned right-click context menu is now procedurally skinned rather than using PixelArt, allowing the menu to scale dynamically based on the Windows DPI (scale) setting. I tried maintaining the same look. Old, skins that don't support the new system will cleanly fallback to the PixelArt menus. + With the introduction of the Home Theater Video Streaming group manager, I have reset the Home Theater Video Streaming's top-bar buttons to their default value. You can use the customize button to edit as-needed. + The control overlay's code positioning code has been rewritten to prevent the control overlay from remaining on-screen when switching to another application, appearing in between Zoom Player's window and another application and eliminating flickering. + YouTube's Closed Captions are now disabled by default.Fixed :
- The "Prevent mouse actions from moving or resizing the main window" setting did not work in some cases when used with the control overlay. - Setting the OSD Lock feature to a width of height of "0" would cause Zoom Player to crash. Now these values are ignored. - Adding the Video Streaming Group Manager wasn't possible through the control overlay setup or Home Theater Video Streaming interfaces. - Using a custom OSD Lock-Area with really low numbers could cause Zoom Player to crash.