Video Renderers (DirectShow)

When using the default DirectShow media engine, Zoom Player supports quite a few Video Rendering technologies (technologies which scale and draw video frames on your screen).

The Standard Overlay Renderer:

This is the oldest Video Rendering technology. It uses a Video Overlay when it is available and can fall back to Pure-CPU handling of the video when the Video Overlay is unavailable. Pure-CPU handling of video means that the CPU will be used instead of GPU hardware with a massive hit on playback performance (CPU works much harder).

The downside to this renderer is that it doesn't support proper Aspect Ratio controls, Hardware Color Controls (Hue/Saturation/Brightness/Contrast) are inaccessible and screen captures are flaky.

The Overlay Mixer Renderer:

Still using the Video Overlay technology, this renderer provides access to Hardware Color Controls (Hue/Saturation/Brightness/Contrast) with cards that support it. Some cards may support only a subset of the color control features (only Brightness for example). This renderer also support proper Aspect Ratio controls for formats that require it (VCD/SVCD/DVD/etc).

The downside to this renderer is that it can't fall back to Pure-CPU. If the Video Overlay is inaccessible, it just won't work. In Media Mode Zoom Player will fall back to the Standard Overlay Renderer if this is the case. In DVD Mode, you'll get an error saying that the Video Decoder is unable to connect to the Overlay Mixer.

Lastly, this rendering technology is not very good at screen captures.

The Video Mixing Renderer 7 (VMR7)

This renderer is a hybrid of the Video Overlay technology and the Direct3D technology. It became available in Windows XP and has since been superseded by the VMR9. This is the rendering technology used by the Microsoft Media Player versions 7-10.

By default this rendering technology uses the Video Overlay. However, if it is inaccessible, it can use Direct3D to some degree.

The downside to this renderer is that it doesn't give access to Color Controls and it's not very good at screen captures.

The Video Mixing Renderer 9 (VMR9)

This video renderer is completely based on Direct3D, requires DirectX-9 and recent hardware to operate. It can potentially give better image quality (depends on the rendering mode and the display card hardware) compared to the previous options. VMR9 gives access to hardware color controls (if the card supports it). VMR9 supports full Aspect Ratio controls.

VMR9 supports three distinct rendering modes:

VMR9: Windowed

This is the most basic mode. It is available for backward compatibility. It does not give you access to Frame Capturing. One thing about this mode is that there was a bug in Windows XP-SP1 and DirectX-9b which made this mode the only mode in which DVD Menu navigation works. With Windows XP-SP2 and DirectX-9c the DVD Menu navigation bug was fixed.

VMR9: Windowless

This mode is slightly more advanced than the Windowed mode and is the best VRM9 mode to take screen captures.

VMR9: Renderless

This is the most complex VMR9 rendering mode. It can work in Direct3D exclusive mode which means the entire machine is set to fullscreen and no background application are allowed access to the video hardware. Under Direct3D Exclusive Mode, less CPU is required to play videos and depending on the resolution of the video, playback may be smoother. The downside is that in Direct3D Exclusive mode, your computer is completely dedicated to video playback and you won't be able to perform any other tasks.

This rendering mode is experimental and not recommended for day to day usage.

The Enhanced Renderer (EVR)

The enhanced video renderer is the last video renderer released by Microsoft. It supports pretty much every Zoom Player feature and is the default renderer when not enabling high performance mode on a fresh installation.

MadVR

MadVR is an enthusiast's high-end video renderer supporting GPU based scaling algorithms, inter-frame generation (smooth video), HDR playback and many other unique features. MadVR is used as hthe default high performance mode video renderer on Windows 10 due to its higher image quality and smoothness. MadVR may have some issues on Windows 11 (stuttering, slow to close down) and does not support Dolby Vision HDR video.

MPC-VR

MPC-VR is an enthusiast's open-source high-end video renderer. It supports most of MadVR's high-end features and includes support for Dolby Vision HDR with no known issues on Windows 11. MPC-VR is used as the default high performance mode video renderer on Windows 11.