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Introduction to Media Servers

Media Servers such as Plex, Emby or Jellyfin are used to index and stream content from a media library, downloading any meta-data and images associated with the media library's folders and files and providing API access for players to read this information and stream the content.

Zoom Player implements an abstraction layer that allows you to seamlessly connect with one or more Plex, Emby or Jellyfin servers through a dedicated Media Server Browser window (Shift+"Y" keyboard shortcut) or using Zoom Player's Media Library plugin.

Adding a Media Server (advanced options)

  • Start by selecting the server type (Plex, Emby or Jellyfin)
  • Select a unique name for the server to make it memorable
  • Specify the server's URL and port number (e.g. "https://myserver.com:1234")
  • Specify the server's username and password
  • Click "Add Server" button

Accessing the Media Server

After adding a media server, you can access the server's content using either the Media Server Browser window (Shift+"Y" keyboard shortcut) or by using the Media Library category editor (Shift+"M" keyboard shortcut) to add a Media Server's Movie or TV Shows category to the media library.

Media Server settings

Use libVLC Engine to stream Media Server Content

While the DirectShow media engine often provides better image quality and overall performance. Some operations (seeking, switching subtitles) on older hardware are much faster when streaming from a remote Media Server using the libVLC media engine.

Media Server browser window should remain on top when entering fullscreen

Enabling this setting ensures that going fullscreen does not obscure the Media Server browser window from view, forcing it to appear above the video window.

Automatically sort folders by name

This setting controls whether Zoom Player sorts the folder list returned by the server. This setting only sorts folder as not to break the sorting order of TV show episodes.

Playing a media closes the Media Browser window

With this setting enabled, starting to play a stream from the Media Browser window, closes the Media Browser window.

Font Size and Colors

Font sizes are automatically calculated based on the display's resolution. However, if you have a high resolution display with a small viewing area or you suffer from visual impairment, you can easily increase the font size and change the color scheme to match your needs.

Clear Cache

To ensure the Media Server features are fast and responsive, Zoom Player caches a lot of the information (there's a "refresh" button available in both the browser window and the media library plugin to clear the cache for a specific folder). Clicking this button clears Zoom Player's entire Media Server cache.