Zoom Player 8.1.6

v8.1.6 is out, it fixes an erroneous 'your trial period is over' message in the free version


--- What's new in v8.1.5:

Legend :

"*" = New
"+" = Change
"-" = Fix


New :

* New installer option to "Associate with Media Formats", disabled by default. When enabled, Zoom Player automatically associates itself with every media file extension on the "Options / File Format Association" page. Once associated, opening/clicking the file extension (".AVI" for example) in explorer and other shell programs prompts Zoom Player to execute and play the selected media file.

* The install center can now list optional items without automatically selecting the item for installation.

* The default Onyx skin's title area has been refined.
* You can now directly configure the LAV Audio, Video and Splitter filters through the "Adv. Options / System / Filter Management" dialog.

* The Tray icon right-click menu has been added two functions: 1. Next Chapter/Track. 2. Previous Chapter/Track.

* New "ZPEXEIcon" icon library you can apply through the "File Format Association" page under "Adv. Options". The icon library applies the Zoom Player executable icon to all file extensions (replacing the labeled format extensions badges).



Changes :

+ The player window's video area no longer blanks black when playing multiple JPEG images in succession even when the file are not part of the playlist (playing the next directory file for example).

+ Smart Play's 'Source Filter' configuration dialog makes it clearer that selecting a profile that works as both a source and a splitter, overrides smart play's 'Splitter' profile for the media file extension. You can only split a media format once ...

+ Smart Play profiles tweaked to increase stability.

+ The custom key file settings (Adv. Options / Interface / Keyboard) now accept relative file paths.

+ The play history cache file verification system was overly sensitive, causing it to notify you the file may be corrupted even when it wasn't.

+ If "Adv. Option / Interface - 'On Media / DVD Play'" was set to 'Zoom mode' or 'Fullscreen mode' and the player window was minimized, the player window was restored and set to fullscreen each time a new media was loaded. Now this action only takes place if the player window is not minimized.



Fixes :

- Fixed switching to fullscreen on a secondary monitor with Windows XP, which stopped working in version 8.

- Fixed several small bugs related to how Zoom Player is minimized and restored.
- JPEG images with EXIF rotation mode "6" were not rotated correctly.

- The '"Derived" mode Automatically Adjusts Aspect Ratio for badly encoded content' setting did not adjust for dynamically changing aspect ratios. This was especially bad with MadVR which throws a Aspect Ratio change event every time.

- ID3 v2.2 tags with embedded images were not parsed correctly, causing the embedded image not to display.

- Using the "zplayer.regpath" file did not apply the new data path. More information @ http://inmatrix.com/zplayer/highlights/multicopy.shtml

- Pop-up OSD messages would not appear if MadVR OSD services was used with a fullscreen navigation interface visible.

- MadVR now show the first frame in the video when pressing stop.

- The Pop-Up OSD (Play/Pause/etc) would stick on-screen when using MadVR as the video renderer and tabbing away from Zoom Player.

- If 'On Playlist Complete' is set to 'Do Nothing' and MadVR is used as the video renderer, the fullscreen OSD interface would stop updating when the video finished playing.

- Playing MP3 files with embedded album art created by Samsung Kies could crash the player (Kies is creating invalid ID3v2 tags).

- The default "MPEG2 Program" video decoder Smart Play profile has been changed from DScaler to LAV as DScaler did not support dynamic aspect ratio changes with the EVR (Enhanced Video Renderer).

- DirectShow filters with stored filter data bigger than 4096 bytes would not appear in the 'Registered Filter Manager' dialog (LAV Video for example).

- When deleting a station from the station manager, the station name would not appear in the delete confirmation dialog.
- Due to conflict with Real Player, the RealMedia decoder pack is no longer included in the Install Center and the RealMedia Smart Play profiles have been modified to use LAV in its place.
- Fixed a cosmetical glitch in the options dialog search results.


--- What's new in v8.1.1:

Legend :

"*" = New
"+" = Change
"-" = Fix


New :

* The Equalizer fullscreen navigation interface usage framework has changed. The new design is simpler and easier than ever: Simply scroll up/down to reach a setting you would like to modify. Notice the Plus/Minus icons on the right hand side. The active icon is opaque and the inactive icon is transparent. Moving right/left switches the active state between addition and subtraction whilst Enter performs the action.
New reset and enabled/disabled icons are displayed next to their corresponding action for additional clarity.

* The fusion skin's control bar now supports brightness, contrast and saturation adjustments.

* New Setting "Adv. Options / Interface" that controls whether the player's user interface is restored when loading new content while the player is minimized.

* New Setting "Adv. Options / Interface" that controls whether the player interface is brought on top of all other windows when switching to fullscreen. In previous versions, this feature was always enabled, but since it can cause conflicts with MadVR and there's no real benefit keeping this feature enabled for everyone. It is now disabled by default.

* New Setting "Adv. Options / Playback / Smart Play" that when enabled, all graph creation error messages are saved to a log file.

* New Setting "Adv. Options / Playback / Control" that specifies that the Frame Advance code uses an alternative method of seeking. The default method is using DirectShow's "IVideoFrameStep" interface, The alternative method is by guesstimating the frame and performing a direct seek (the same method always used by the previous frame function).

* New Setting "Adv. Options / Playback / Video" that controls whether The Enhanced Video Renderer (EVR) should permit dyanmic aspect ratio changes (usually triggered by clips captures from live TV where the content can switch from 4:3 to 16:9 dynamically). In v8.0, the default value was disabled (Dynmaic AR changes disabled). In v8.1, the default value was enabled (Dynmaic AR changes enabled).

* The last play position is now saved automatically when the internal screen saver becomes active.


Changes :

+ The navigation icons are now scaled "on-demand" and the result is cached to improve performance. Some of the fullscreen navigation interfaces may open a bit faster thanks to this enhancement.

+ The right-click "Stream Selection sub-menu now lists audio tracks even if there is only one track available.

+ The information dialog's ("I" keyboard macro) format section now clearly labels the source, splitter, audio and video decoders used.

+ Scene-cut files saved for read-only media now use both the file name and date in order to distinguish between two media files of the same name, an increasing issue when playing blu-ray disc images.


Fixes :

- The update message notifying you of a new Zoom Player version or new updates on the install center could appear behind the user interface if the user interface was set to 'Stay On Top'.

- Saving scene-cut files for read-only media other than DVDs was broken.

- External subtitle files with unicode file names were not listed with their proper name (either an empty line would be listed or '????' would appear instead of the actual subtitle file name.

- When using FFDShow as the subtitle renderer and playing a media file with external audio track, the external audio tracks would get listed as subtitle track by ffdshow, breaking the 'cycle subtitle track' feature.

- Closing the navigation interfaces automatically after a specified number of seconds would cause the navigation interfaces to close even if remote control commands were received.

- When the "Playing new content moves the player window to the top" setting was enabled with MadVR as the video renderer, pressing play/pause caused MadVR to lose exclusive mode for a split second.

- Switching to Audio Mode now hides the clock display.

- Changing the volume level through the Equalizer fullscreen navigation interface did not always update the skin volume widget.

- Changing the volume level through the player user interface while the Equalizer fullscreen navigation interface was visible did not update the equalizer navigation volume values.
- Drag & Scroll was broken in the Equalizer preset list.

- Fixed a crash when trying to close Zoom Player if the clock display and screen saver were active at the same time.

- The information dialog's ("I" keyboard macro) format section did not include the splitter used for the playing media.
- Running the Install Center with no internet connection would show three error messages instead of one.
- Message dialogs could appear with the mouse cursor hidden, making it more difficult to dismiss them.
- When using a language file, the default LIRC function type wasn't selected.
- Cosmetical glitches in the options dialog search function.


Here are the fixes, enhancements and new features introduced since version 8.1 :

* The Equalizer fullscreen navigation interface usage framework has changed. The new design is simpler and easier than ever: Simply scroll up/down to reach a setting you would like to modify. Notice the Plus/Minus icons on the right hand side. The active icon is opaque and the inactive icon is transparent. Moving right/left switches the active state between addition and subtraction whilst Enter performs the action.
New reset and enabled/disabled icons are displayed next to their corresponding action for additional clarity.

* The fusion skin's control bar now supports brightness, contrast and saturation adjustments.

* New Setting "Adv. Options / Interface" that controls whether the player's user interface is restored when loading new content while the player is minimized.

* New Setting "Adv. Options / Interface" that controls whether the player interface is brought on top of all other windows when switching to fullscreen. In previous versions, this feature was always enabled, but since it can cause conflicts with MadVR and there's no real benefit keeping this feature enabled for everyone. It is now disabled by default.

* New Setting "Adv. Options / Playback / Smart Play" that when enabled, all graph creation error messages are saved to a log file.

* New Setting "Adv. Options / Playback / Control" that specifies that the Frame Advance code uses an alternative method of seeking. The default method is using DirectShow's "IVideoFrameStep" interface, The alternative method is by guesstimating the frame and performing a direct seek (the same method always used by the previous frame function).

* New Setting "Adv. Options / Playback / Video" that controls whether The Enhanced Video Renderer (EVR) should permit dyanmic aspect ratio changes (usually triggered by clips captures from live TV where the content can switch from 4:3 to 16:9 dynamically). In v8.0, the default value was disabled (Dynmaic AR changes disabled). In v8.1, the default value was enabled (Dynmaic AR changes enabled).

* The last play position is now saved automatically when the internal screen saver becomes active.

+ The navigation icons are now scaled "on-demand" and the result is cached to improve performance. Some of the fullscreen navigation interfaces may open a bit faster thanks to this enhancement.

+ The right-click "Stream Selection sub-menu now lists audio tracks even if there is only one track available.

+ The information dialog's ("I" keyboard macro) format section now clearly labels the source, splitter, audio and video decoders used.

+ Scene-cut files saved for read-only media now use both the file name and date in order to distinguish between two media files of the same name, an increasing issue when playing blu-ray disc images.

- The update message notifying you of a new Zoom Player version or new updates on the install center could appear behind the user interface if the user interface was set to 'Stay On Top'.

- Saving scene-cut files for read-only media other than DVDs was broken.

- External subtitle files with unicode file names were not listed with their proper name (either an empty line would be listed or '????' would appear instead of the actual subtitle file name.

- When using FFDShow as the subtitle renderer and playing a media file with external audio track, the external audio tracks would get listed as subtitle track by ffdshow, breaking the 'cycle subtitle track' feature.

- Closing the navigation interfaces automatically after a specified number of seconds would cause the navigation interfaces to close even if remote control commands were received.

- When the "Playing new content moves the player window to the top" setting was enabled with MadVR as the video renderer, pressing play/pause caused MadVR to lose exclusive mode for a split second.

- Switching to Audio Mode now hides the clock display.

- Changing the volume level through the Equalizer fullscreen navigation interface did not always update the skin volume widget.

- Changing the volume level through the player user interface while the Equalizer fullscreen navigation interface was visible did not update the equalizer navigation volume values.
- Drag & Scroll was broken in the Equalizer preset list.

- Fixed a crash when trying to close Zoom Player if the clock display and screen saver were active at the same time.

- The information dialog's ("I" keyboard macro) format section did not include the splitter used for the playing media.
- Running the Install Center with no internet connection would show three error messages instead of one.
- Message dialogs could appear with the mouse cursor hidden, making it more difficult to dismiss them.
- When using a language file, the default LIRC function type wasn't selected.
- Cosmetical glitches in the options dialog search function.


Highlights from v8.1:

The default Onyx skin has been refreshed with new widgets and power features.
A much more powerful audio track and subtitle stream selection interface.
LIRC Remote Control support.
Enhanced TCP/IP remote control.
More powerful skinning engine logistics.

Here's what's new in v8.1 :

New :

* The default Onyx skin has been enhanced: 1. Contrast, Brightness and Saturation are now adjustable through the expandable toolbar. 2. The expandable toolbar is now accessible through a button on the user interface instead of pressing F5 or F9 using the keyboard. 3. The volume, balance, play rate and equalizer bars have been redesigned. 4. Less framing around buttons.

* The F4-F9 skin modes used by the Default Onyx skin have changed, the new modes are: F4 : Default mode. F5 : Smaller user interface. F6 : Minimal user interface. F7 : No user interface. F8 : Show/Hide Top Bar. F9 : Show/Hide Bottom Bar.

* The Audio and Subtitle stream selection interface has been rewritten. The new 'Stream Selection' right-click sub-menu groups all streams into clearly labeled 'Audio' and 'Subtitle' groups.

* The back-end for the Audio track cycle function (Ctrl+"A") used to switch between multiple audio tracks has been rewritten. Audio tracks from internal and external sources are now switched seamlessly.

* The back-end for the Subtitle stream cycle function (Ctrl+"B") used to switch between multiple subtitle steams has been rewritten. Subtitle streams from embedded and external sources are now switched seamlessly.

* Zoom Player now has integrated LIRC support. LIRC transmits and receives remote control signals. This allows computer control using almost any remote control.
See: http://winlirc.sf.net for the Windows port by Jim Paris & Ian Curtis. http://www.lirc.org for the original project.
Using the LIRC section of the options dialog, you can directly assign remote control buttons to Zoom Player Standard, Extended and Navigation functions.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface), that controls how to display the right-click "Stream Selection" sub-menu. With "Show all filters in Stream Selection sub-menu" enabled, all filters exposing a stream select interface are displayed in a sub-menu, cleaning up the dialog. With this setting disabled, only detected Subtitle, Audio and Video streams from known sources are listed.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Control Bar), that prevents the Control Bar and Timeline context menu from opening. Useful if you have kids and you don't want a control bar setting changed by accident.

* Two new "On Playlist Complete" modes (Adv. Options / Playback) : 1. Random play a media file from the playing directory. 2. Random play a file with the same extension from the playing directory.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video / Subtitles), that resets the Subtitle Renderer's filter subtitle synchronization value, ensuring that the default value is restored when opening a new media after manually adjusting subtitle synchronization. Enabled by default.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video / Subtitles), that forces automatic stream selection to work only with external subtitle files.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video / Subtitles), that specifies whether to enable the first embedded or external subtitle stream if no automatic stream selection match is found (or if the auto stream selection is disabled).

* New "/CONNECTTCP:[address or IP]:[port]" command line parameter.
By default, The TCP/IP interface works as a server by waiting for 3rd party applications to connect to Zoom Player.
With the "/CONNECTTCP" parameter, Zoom Player initiates the connection itself with a local or remote server right as it launches. A server must be listening on the specified address and port for a connection from Zoom Player.
Example: "c:program fileszplayerzplayer.exe" /CONNECTTCP:127.0.0.1:4770

* New extended function "exSkinMode", which activates the F4-F9 skin modes.

* Five new functions "fnResetBright", "fnResetContrast", "fnResetGamma", "fnResetHue" and "fnResetSatur" that reset the Brightness, Contrast, Gamma Hue and Saturation to their default values.

* The skin script code has been extended with "StartAndGroup" and "EndAndGroup" blocks that allow skin script authors to limit sections of the script to specific combination of active groups.

* When connecting to the TCP/IP control interface, Zoom Player automatically issues a "3000" notification message if an error dialog was visible prior to establishing the TCP/IP connection.

* Zoom Player now notifies you of known buggy filters when running a new version of Zoom Player for the first time.

* New Smart Play profile for embedded Apple Lossless Audio (ALAC).

* New Comm API message #1090, used to get the current timeline text, including the current position and any other value specified in the options dialog under "Adv. Options / Interface / Control Bar / Timeline Area".



Changes :

+ The F4-F9 keys no longer modify skin groups, but rather activate Skin modes which are programmable directly from the skin script, providing greater flexibility and control to skin designers.

+ When using the default onyx skin in F6 or F7 mode, a smaller control bar is now used.

+ The Zoom Player Install Center now notifies to close any active media playback software.



Fixes :

- Dynamic aspect ratio changes are now supported when using EVR as the video renderer.

- Running on Windows 7 with the windows shell set to an application other than "explorer.exe" would cause Zoom Player to crash.

- With "Aggressively Hide Mouse Cursor" (Adv. Options / Interface / Mouse / Settings) enabled, the mouse cursor no longer re-appears when opening a fullscreen navigation interface.

- The "/SKINDVD" command line parameter used to set the DVD skin actually set the audio mode skin by accident.

- The Video icon was being shown for Blu-Ray movie index files instead of the Blu-Ray icon.

- ID3v2 unicode tags are now supported automatically without specifying a country code.

- Fixed ID3v2 URL tags that are marked as Unicode but in actuality are ASCII.

- Auto-Save media chapters (".ZPCHP" files) was automatically creating chapter files when playing media files with embedded chapters (such as matroska ".MKV" files). Now, the chapter files are created only if you edit the chapters.

- The option to disable natural language sorting is fixed.

- Maintaining fast-play between playlist items is fixed.

- Fixed a few small cosmetic glitches.

- Pop-up OSD messages are now truncated to fit the video display area.

- Pressing F11 to reset color control values while the color control fullscreen navigation interface was visible, did not update the color control navigation interface.

- Selecting the Microsoft image source no longer notifies you that the filter is unregistered. Note that the microsoft image source filter is limited to 2000x2000 resolution, so it's not recommended for anything other than animated GIF files.


What's new in v8.00:

With version 8, we worked diligently to:
Build further upon Zoom Player's extensive customization features
Support playback of more media formats with Smart Play profiles (WebM/WebA/VP8/TrueHD/more)
Support the most powerful and flexible media engine with LAV Filters and FFDShow
Support the highest video quality with EVR and MadVR video rendering technology
Enhance many user interface elements while simplifying the overall workflow

Legend :

"*"= New
"+"= Change
"-"= Fix

New :

* Support for Windows 7 (or newer) task bar progress button.Using the new Taskbar settings interface (Adv. Options / Interface / Task Bar), you can enable a progress bar that shows either the current media play position or your position within the playlist.

* Support for Windows 7 (or newer) Task lists.Using the new Taskbar tasks interface (Adv. Options / Interface / Task Bar), you can assign any standard Zoom Player function to the Task Bar button.

* Support for Windows Vista (or newer) mouse wheel left/right Tilt (Adv. Options / Interface / Mouse / Mouse Wheel).You can choose between using the mouse wheel tilt for left/right navigation in menus or assign a Zoom Player function to the right and left tilt motions.

* Support for Windows Vista (or newer) AutoPlay handlers, allowing you to select Zoom Player from the Windows Control Panel AutoPlay configuration dialog. Supported auto play handlers include CD, VCD, SVCD, DVD and Blu-Ray discs.

* The default media center navigation skin has been refreshed with a more eye-pleasing colorset.You can download the old skin here: http://skins.inmatrix.com

* New virtual-keyboard navigation interface.Used for renaming files through the media library and file browsing navigation interfaces.The virtual-keyboard layout is fully scripted and supports native (unicode) language input.

* New Out of Process Automation interface API that allows you to control Zoom Player through the COM inter-process interface. A sample application will be posted on the web site and forum.

* You can now search the Options dialog to quickly bring up settings you need changed.

* The fullscreen Station navigation interface has been redesigned. All previous stations have been moved into a "Favorites" category. Beyond your favorites, you can now browse through radio genres and play stations directly.

* The Station List Media Center interface now has a "Go To top of list" function.

* You can now search the Station Browser dialog.

* Zoom Player can now load ".xspf" IceCast streaming radio playlists. You can now tune-in directly by clicking on an icecast station entry.IceCast Station Directory: http://dir.xiph.org/index.php

* You can now associate the ".xspf" IceCast streaming radio file extension.

* The ".BDMV" BluRay Movie extension can now be associated with Zoom Player.

* The BINK media format used by many games is now supported by Smart Play and the ".BIK" extension can be associated with Zoom Player.

* Updated Smart Play profiles and file association option for the"3gp2, 3gpp, m2t, mp2v, mp4v, mpe, mpv2 and tts" video file extensions.

* Updated Smart Play profiles and file association option for the"adt, adts, aif, aifc, aiff, au, midi, mid, rmi, mp2 and snd" audio file extensions.

* The "Filter List" section of the Media Library and File Browsingfullscreen navigation interface now includes an option to show "All Files".

* The Media Library and File Browsing fullscreen navigation interface's sort function now displays a checkbox to clearly indicate the active sorting mode.

* The Fullscreen Playlist navigation interface now draws the media duration when available.

* The Media Library Category editor has been redesigned for greater simplicity and clarity and is now fully keyboard accessible, no longer requiring mouse access.

* The Skin selection dialog has been redesigned for greater simplicity and clarity and is now fully keyboard accessible, no longer requiring mouse access.
* The GoTo time/Chapter editor dialog is now fully keyboard accessible, no longer requiring mouse access.

* The play history dialog is now fully keyboard accessible, no longer requiring mouse access.

* The play history dialog has been slightly tweaked for clarity.
* The Chapter editor dialog has been redesigned for clarity and ease of use.

* The Scene-Cut Editor dialog has been redesigned for clarity and ease of use.

* The Scene-Cut Editor dialog is now fully keyboard accessible.

* The Station Editor dialog is now fully keyboard accessible.

* The Station Browser dialog is now fully keyboard accessible.

* The Smart Play configuration dialogs were redesigned for clarity and are now fully keyboard accessible.

* The Playing Information dialog (Keyboard Macro "I") has been cleaned up and the formats section text can now be copied to the clipboard.
* With uTorrent v3 installed, you can now track download progress in the media library and file browsing navigation interfaces for torrents downloaded into a non-default directory.

* The LAV Splitter is now supported for AVI, MOV, MP4, FLV, OGG, OGM and MPEG2 Transport Streams.Please take note that if the LAV Splitter is installed.

* EXTINF (Duration/Title) data in M3U playlists is now supported.

* Zoom Player can now extract chapter information when using LAV Splitter. While mainly used by Matroska (MKV) files, all format is supported as long as LAV Splitter exposes the chapter interface.

* You can now use the Ctrl+"A" macro to cycle through the available audio channels when using the LAV Splitter.

* PowerDVD 10 profile and DVD Navigator added to "Adv. Options / Playback / DVD".

* New "VP8" profile added to the Smart Play options dialog. VP8 is used by the WebM format and can be decoded using FFDShow and the MPC Video Decoder (FFDShow may need configuration to enable VP8 support).

* New "TSFileSource" MPEG2 Transport Stream Smart Play profile. Please note that the "TSFileSource" filter is not compatible with Zoom Player's default MPEG2 Transport splitter.To ensure compatibility, switch the MPEG2 Transport splitter to the microsoft profile.

* New "TWOS Audio" profile added to the Smart Play options dialog. Requires LAV Audio Decoder.

* New "Dolby TrueHD" profile Smart Play profile.

* New ADPCM audio decoder Smart Play profile.

* New Nellymoser audio decoder Smart Play profile.

* New "E-AC3" Smart Play profile.
* FRAPS (FPS1) videos can now be played.You may need to enable FRAPS/FPS1 support in FFDShow's codec configuration dialog to enable decoding.

* New MadVR H.264, VC1 and MPEG2 decoding smart play profiles. Requires MadVR 0.69 or newer with the decoding options enabled.
* You can now select FFDShow DXVA (hardware assisted) decoding for H.264 and VC1.
There are a lot of restrictions when using DXVA.Not all video renderers are supported, subtitles wont display, etc...The minimum hardware requirement is NVIDIA 8xxx series cards or ATI 4xxx series cards. For more information, visit the ffdshow development thread over at the doom9 forums : http://forum.doom9.org

* MediaPortal's TS File Reader filter is now supported by Smart Play.

* A new sub-type used by the AAC format is now supported by Smart Play.

* The installer now includes an icon library for the most popular file formats supported by Zoom Player.On initial install, the new icons are applied automatically.

* The RingTone creation dialog has been improved: 1. You can manually modify the Start/Stop positions. 2. You can seek to the start/stop positions. 3. You can seek in the player and use the current media positionas the start/stop positions.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface) that controls whether Zoom Player uses Natural or Alphabetical sorting.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface) allowing you to password protect the options dialog.For additional security, the password is kept in an encrypted form.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface) that prevents the Zoom Player user interface from opening on a disabled (turned-off) monitor.Enabled by default, the main user interface is moved to the primary monitor when running Zoom Player on a disabled monitor.
* New settings (Adv. Options / Interface / Keyboard) allowing you to set a keyboard/remote anti-repeat rate separately for navigation functions (up/down/left/right/etc) and general functions (play/pause/etc).
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Mouse / Settings) forcing a more aggressive Mouse Cursor hiding code. The mouse cursor should no longer pop-up even when background applications steal focus from the player.This setting is enabled by default. If it causes problems with your mouse cursor hiding too much, it can be disabled.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display) controlling how the clock function displays the time & date.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Actions) that extends the visibility of OSD Action Pop-ups (Play/Pause/etc) by 38ms per character.This allows the OSD to remain visible when longer text is displayed (e.g. when renaming files).
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Tags / Paths & Script) allowing you to enable/disable the aspect ratio for the default folder image.This is useful when the default folder image is an abstract picture (as the included default image is).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation) allowing you to override a navigation skin's font outline setting. Disabling the navigation interfaces font-outline can speed up interactivity on lower end systems.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) that controls whether the system 'Pictures, Music and Video' library folders are listed in the media library navigation interface (enabled by default).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) controlling whether the line background for empty text lines is drawn. This setting is enabled by default.If you would like to return to the previous look, you can uncheck this setting.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) allowing you to prevent access to the main navigation interface from all other navigation interfaces.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) allowing you to completely prevent access to the navigation interfaces function sub-menus.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Playlist) that controls whether the playlist editor displays item numbers next to each entry in the playlist.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Playlist) that controls whether the playlist editor displays the media duration (length).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Position & Size) allowing to prevent exiting Fullscreen / Zoom mode.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Position & Size) that determines whether the 'Keyboard Video Window Move' function works by percentage of the screen size or in pixels.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback) that Auto-Rotate JPEG images according to embedded EXIF data when using the internal image decoder.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Smart Play / Settings) that determines whether Zoom Player auto-configures the Smart Play profiles when it first detects a new version of Zoom Player is installed.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Smart Play / Settings) allowing you to choose whether Zoom Player or Windows selects the Audio/Video renderers when a file extension is selected for Smart Play exclusion.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Blu-Ray) allowing you to add secondary Blu-Ray movie tracks (based on their duration) to the playlist automatically (by default, 21minutes or longer). Newly added tracks are sorted by duration, longest track listed first.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / DVD / DVD Settings) allowing you to control the way the player seeks in DVD mode.Since DVD seeking can be slow, by default Delayed seeking is used so the actual seek is performed only after 1-2 seconds, allowing you to drag the timeline without actually seeking until you let go of the mouse cursor.However, if you would like the seeking to be instantaneous, you can now disable the delayed seek.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Controls) that determines whether Zoom Player resume function (pressing Stop twice) should resume playback or only restore the previous media position and remain paused.

* New Settings (Adv. Options / Playback / Controls) allowing you to specify the maximum play rate (used with the "fnIncRateEx" and "fnDecRateEx" functions) and the play rate step value (default 10%).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Controls) that mutes the audio for two seconds when using the seek forward and seek backward functions (to prevent garbled audio as the video is seeked frequently).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Controls) that instructs Zoom Player to close itself if the stop button/function is called.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video) which enables a fix when moving the player window from video area causing the window to jump to an unexpected position.
Affects only Windows VISTA (or newer) when the video renderer is set to 'Haali Video Renderer', 'MadVR', 'VMR7' or 'VMR9'.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video) that controls whether Zoom Player should use MadVR's API to display the Control bar, pop-up OSD (play/pause/etc), Screen Blanking and Clock.By enabling this setting, Fullscreen Exclusive mode is preserved when displaying these OSD elements.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video) allowing you to enable MadVR's seek-bar.By default the MadVR seekbar is disabled as its functionality duplicates Zoom Player's Control Bar.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / History) allowing you to auto-save the play history after playing each media file.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / File Format Association / File Extensions) allowing you to only show or use the first part in a Multi-Part RAR archive.For example "myarchive.part1.rar" will display while "myarchive.part2.rar" and "myarchive.part999.rar" wont display.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / System) allowing you to change the windows font used in most Zoom Player dialogs.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / System / Goard Dog) enabling the Guard Dog feature to re-use the command line parameters Zoom Player was launched with.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / System / Screen Saver) allowing you to optionally set thenumber of second the player should remain in screen saver mode before automatically exiting the player.

* The "Background image base name" value (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Images & Tags / Paths & Script" now accepts masks.For example,you can use a value of "folder*" which will have Zoom Player search for JPG/PNG/BMP folder images that start with "folder", i.e. "folder_view.jpg".

* The Zoom Player news feed page is now accessible through the options dialog, presenting you with the latest Zoom Player news and updates.

* Blu-Ray subtitles are now supported when using FFDShow or the latest version of DirectVobSub as the subtitle renderer.

* The activate chapter is now auto-highlighted when opening the chapter/bookmark fullscreen navigation interface.

* New function "fnZoomInLevel" which cycles through 4 Zoom-in levels (16.6%, 33.3%, 50% and 100%).The keyboard macro is Alt+Ctrl+'Z'.

* New function "fnIncRateEx" which increases the play rate by a user specified value (10% by default).The keyboard macro is Alt+Ctrl+'.'.

* New function "fnDecRateEx" which decreases the play rate by a user specified value (10% by default).The keyboard macro is Alt+Ctrl+','.

* New function "fnResetWindows" which resets the user interface windows to their default location.This function is accessible by right-clicking the Zoom Player task-bar button.

* New function "fnSkinSelectNav" which opens the Fullscreen navigation skin selection navigation interface (switch fullscreen navigation skin style).

* You can now play and associate Blu-Ray decrypted ".mpls" Playlist files. This means that multi-part Blu-Ray movies (a Blu-Ray movie composed of several ".M2TS" media files) can now be played as one seamless media.

* You can now associate the ".WebM" and ".WebA" HTML5 video extensions.

* The Fullscreen Playlist navigation interface now highlights the currently playing media files.

* New navigation skin scripts variable "ActiveColor", used to highlight the currently playing media file.

* The Skin Script "CreateExButton" function can now execute external files and open URLs in your browser.
* New Skin Script "InstallFont" command which allows you to use font files in your skin without having to register them with Windows first.
* New navigation skin script variables controlling the virtual keyboard text colors: KeyActive = Active state of the virtual keyboard interface KeyInactive = Inactive state of the virtual keyboard interface KeyEditActive = Active state of the virtual keyboard edit box KeyEditInactive = Inactive state of the virtual keyboard edit box KeyKeyActive= Active key virtual keyboard interfaceFor more information, see the default "Drapes.nav" script file in the Zoom Player 'skin' folder.

* New navigation skin scripts variable "KeyEditOutline" controlling whether the virtual keyboard text edit is outlined.

* New navigation skin scripts variables controling the layout of the virtual keyboard interface: KeyXOfs= Key-List X-Offset (Percent of Interface Width) KeyYOfs= Key-List Y-Offset (Percent of Interface Height) KeyHeight= Key-List Height (Percent of Interface Height) KeyWidth = Key-List Width (Percent of Interface Width) KeyPHeight = Height of path/filename area KeyPWidth= Path Width (Percent of Interface Width) KeyPXOfs = Path X-Offset (Percent of Interface Width) KeyPYOfs = Path Y-Offset (Percent of Interface Height)

* New navigation skin scripts variables "ProgressActive", "SizeColor", "SizeActive" used to specify the color states when displaying file sizes and progress states.

* New navigation skin scripts variables "CursorActive" and "CursorInactive" used to specify the brightness adjustment value for the fullscreen virtual keyboard navigator cursor.

* The WebServer Remote API now accepts a new "&play=[filename]" command, allowing you to open files (and URLs) directly from the web browser.

* Media duration for "M2TS,MKA,MKV,MOV,MP4" files is now detected automatically, to enable, click on the "Default" button at: Adv. Options / File Format Association / File Extensions / Auto-Get Duration

* The screen saver date/time display and currently playing media display layouts have been redesigned for better clarity.These changes also fix the issue where the currently playing media display would alter the font size depending on the length of the playing media name.

* Three new internal screen saver modes "Sinus Plasma", a Power Saving version of "Sinus Plasma" (lower brightness) and a Power Saving version of "Plasma Cloud".

* New "Open Subtitle File" option accessible through the right-click context menu under the "Open" sub-menu.

* New "/SkinMedia", "/SkinAudio" and "/SkinDVD" command line parameters that let you specify which skin should load directly from the command line.Please note that this parameter must be called first (before "/Media", "/DVD" or "/AudBar").

* New "/SharePath:[Path]" command line parameter. This Parameter sets the initial media sharing path. The share path value allows external applications to instruct Zoom Player to list and play media from the shared path folder from a remote location, using Zoom Player's TCP/IP API.

* Pressing the Ctrl+"A" keyboard macro with the playlist editor in focus will now select all items in the list.
* Single-clicking an item in the playlist editor with items previously selected will now clear the current selection and re-select only the clicked item.
* Holding the "Shift" key in combination with the UP/DOWN arrow keys in the playlist editor will now select the items above/below the current selection without clearing the previously selected item(s).

* Holding the "Shift" key in combination with the PGUP/PGDN/Home/End keys in the playlist editor will now select the items above/below the current selection without clearing the previously selected item(s).

* The minimalistic skin modes (F6/F7 keyboard macros) for default Onyx skin now switch the playlist layout to a minimalistic design.

* New "Filter Properties" button on the Smart Play Source and Splitter configuration dialogs, allowing you to configure the selected filter (if the filter allows it).

* The "Automatically check for player updates" setting now checks the Install Center for codec/filter updates and notifies you if new/updated components have been found.

* New Comm API message #6000, used to browse the shareddirectories specified using the "/SharePath" command line parameter.
* New Comm API message #6010, used to add shared media files to the playlist.

* New Comm API message #1920, used to notify that the playlist has been cleared.

* New Comm API message #2670, used to set the monitor used in fullscreen mode.

* New Comm API message #0100, used to Ping the player to check that it's still responsive.

* New Comm API message #1852 which instructs the currently playing media to close.
* New Comm API message #2650 which enables you to position the player window.

* Embedded Windows Bitmap (.BMP) format album art TAG is now supported.

* The configuration path (registry or file based) and the current data directory are now listed on the Options Dialog's 'About' page.



Changes :

+ We are no longer using an EXE compressor, which means that the Zoom Player EXE files will be larger, but you wont get any false-positive virus warnings.

+ The Install Center has been redesigned for greater simplicity and clarity.

+ When running Window XP (or newer), Zoom Player now uses a Natural Sorting algorithm rather than the default ASCII Sorting.For example, using ASCII sorting, files would be listed as: 1.avi 10.avi 2.avi 3.aviWith Natural sorting, the same files would be listed as: 1.avi 2.avi 3.avi 10.avi

+ The default navigation skin no longer uses font-outline. The design doesn't really require it and the performance benefits merit the change. You now have the option to override the navigation interface's font-outline in case you're not satisfied with the change.

+ The Local setting file saving procedure has been hardened to make it more resilient to system crashes.

+ The Play History saving procedure has been hardened to make it more resilient to system crashes.

+ You will now be prompted to restore the Play History database from a backup if Zoom Player detects that the database may be corrupted (due to a system crash).

+ The Action Pop-up OSD auto-hide is now more accurate (250ms vs the previous 1000ms).

+ The Fusion skin's control bar now contains a close button and a few other minor changes.

+ Matroska (MKV) chapters read using the MPC Matroska splitter are now automatically converted to ZP chapters.Enabling chapter tracking and chapter edit to an external chapter file (override internal chapters).
+ The "Show Date and Time" (Alt+Ctrl+"D") clock function has been modified so that it displays or hides the clock instead of just popping the clock through the standard OSD messages for a few seconds.The clock display is transparent, allowing you to see behind the text and in Windows Vista and newer, the text is slightly translucent.

+ When the "Auto-Play media file when opened" is disabled, the first video frame is now displayed.

+ The "Clear History" (Adv. Options / Playback / History) now erases the play history file.

+ Tuning in to a radio station directly from the SHOUTcast.com web site is now possible.All you need to do is select the "TUNE IN" option. You may be promoted to play through the browser or through the player, make sure to select the player. Your browser may prompt you for the application to open the playlist, make sure to select Zoom Player.

+ Improved Blu-Ray main movie detection with some titles.

+ Added a new H.264 sub-type for CoreAVC 2.5.1 compatibility.

+ MadVR support for non-fullscreen images while in fullscreen exclusive mode (zoom in/out, panning, etc).

+ Selecting MadVR as the video renderer automatically enables the "Overlay covers entire video area" setting.

+ You can now right-click play history entries to copy them into the system clipboard.

+ When opening an MMS stream, the buffering percentage value is now displayed.

+ When the 4:3/16:9 Zoom compensation or one of the Zoom-in levels are enabled, playing new media content displays an OSD notification letting you know that Zoom mode is enabled (this notification will not show if you specifically set a viewing region that is not fullscreen).

+ If the "Pause playback when opening file browsing interfaces with a video playing" setting is enabled, opening the play history navigation interface now pauses the video.

+ The "View" section of the media library and file browser navigation interfaces has been renamed to "Filter List".

+ The default process priority given to Zoom Player is now set to "Above Normal" by default when running under Windows 2000 or newer. Previous users of Zoom Player should note that their previous value for this setting has been reset to the new default.

+ When clicking on an extension's icon in the Options Dialog's file association section or clicking the "Apply Icon to Selected Extensions" button, now applies an extension-specific icon taken from the default icon library that ships with Zoom Player.

+ The Re-Synch Audio Ahead/Back now works in 25ms increments rather than the 10ms used previously.

+ The default volume control change value is now 5%, up from the previous 3%.
+ The default Zoom In/Out value is now 10%, up from the previous 1%.

+ The default 'Keyboard Video Window Move' value has changed to 5%, up from the previous 4 pixels.
+ The "fnVidLeft", "fnVidRight", "fnVidUp", "fnVidDown" functions now use the 'Keyboard Video Window Move' value while in fullscreen. Previously, these functions only moved by 1 pixel.

+ On first showing, the Playlist Editor dialog and the Equalizer dialog appear in a docked position rather than in the top left corner of the screen.

+ The "Adv. Options / Interface / Playlist - Use Media Title if available" setting will now display the media title (if available) in the fullscreen playlist navigation interface.

+ The default values for the internal screen saver have been changed and the screen saver is now enabled by default after 30 minutes of idle activity.

+ Updated Media Center navigation icons.

+ The Internal screen saver mode setting has been reset.

+ The default visible buttons on the control bar have been changed.
+ The default values for the Arrow keys have been changed: Te LEFT/RIGHT keys are used to seek 20 seconds backward/forward. The UP key opens the Media Library navigation interface. The DOWN key opens the Playlist navigation interface.
The previous defaults can be restored through the Advanced Options dialog.

+ The default fullscreen navigation interfaces appearing in the main (root) navigation interface have been changed.

+ The Equalizer Magnetize state is now enabled by default.

+ The Equalizer Magnetize state now positions the equalizer interface centered to the bottom or top of the main user interface (depending on space).Previously, the equalizer interface was aligned to the left edge of the main user interface.
+ The "Pause playback when opening file browsing interfaces with a video playing" setting is now enabled by default.
+ The "Use Media Title if Available" Playlist setting is now enabled by default.

+ The Station Browser dialog can now be translated to other languages.

+ Now that the "Goto Time" dialog and the "Chapter/Bookmark editor" were combined into one interface.Using the GoTo time function opens the dialog with the keyboard focus on the Time entry box and the Chapter editor function opens the dialog with the keyboard focus on the Chapter Name entry box.

+ The "Context Menu" fullscreen navigation interface has been renamed "Extended Menu".
+ The Extended Menu fullscreen navigation interface has been brought in line with the rest of the navigation interfaces and now displays icons instead of ASCII characters to represent folders/active state.

+ The Next/Previous chapter functions will now update the fullscreen chapter navigation interface if it's currently visible.

+ The guard-dog function now forces Zoom Player to close if it detects a freeze during shutdown.

+ The Zoom-In/Zoom-Out (+/- keypad keys) functions when used in windowed mode now snaps the player window back into the monitor's work area if the zoom function partially moves the player window off-screen.

+ Zoom Player no longer lists the ".DAT" extension for file association. This extension was used by VCD discs, which are no longer popular. Combined with the fact that the ".DAT" extension is somewhat generic and used by other applications for DATA storage, it was decided that removing this extension would increase stability.
+ You can delete the Install Center cache by clicking on the Install Center "Options" button.

+ Pressing "D" to open the Video Decoder configuration dialog now opens FFDShow's Video Decoder configuration dialog if no media is playing.

+ Pressing Alt+"A" to open the Audio Decoder configuration dialog now opens FFDShow's Audio Decoder configuration dialog if no media is playing.

+ The Advanced Option's "Show fullscreen Color Controls when values are changed through the keyboard macros" setting has been moved to "Playback / Video / Colors".

+ The Advanced Option's "Audio Tags (ID3)" has been renamed to "Audio Images & Tags".

+ The Advanced Option's "Enlarge folder image to fit Video Area, otherwise Center and Shrink only" setting has been moved to "Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Images & Tags".

+ The Advanced Option's "Load folder image file" setting has been renamed to "Load external folder image file" and moved to "Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Images & Tags".

+ The "Guard Dog" settings were moved to the "Adv. Options / System / Guard Dog & Events" section.
+ The "Draw Folder (Background) Image under "Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Images & Tags" setting has been renamed to "Draw embedded background image".In addition, a fix was made so that disabling this setting, no longer disables folder images from loading.

+ The Zoom In/Out functions will now display the video display resolution in a pop-up window.

+ All references to "Skip, Jump, Seek" functions have been replaced with "Short Seek, Medium Seek, Long Seek".
+ Some of the options dialog entries have been rephrased for clarity.

+ The default window size is now slightly bigger to account for the overall increase in resolution of entry level monitors sold today.

+ Automatically restoring media volume levels from history is now disabled by default.You can re-enable these settings through the advanced options dialog.

+ Comm API change to message #1100.Instead of listing whatever the timeline display is showing, it now always shows [Position / Duration]. For example: 00:00:12 / 01:02:35
You can request an #1100 message output by sending an #1100 message with a parameter value of "2".

+ Comm API change to message #3000.Each line of the returned value is now separated by the "|" character rather than a new line (CRLF) which would complicate parsing.

+ The "exInterface" extended function can now discretely enable/disable the pop-up OSD messages.

+ The color-tinting skin values have been reduced to a more reasonable -160..160 range.

+ The PlayListData's skinning function "FontSpace" variable is now calculated automatically.Any value supplied by the skin is ignored.

+ The Smart Play configuration dialogs now prompt you to update a modified profile when clicking on a different profile in the list or clicking the OK button to close the configuration dialog.

+ The "Show Smart Play graph creation errors" will now include the smart play profile name as part of the error message.

+ Blanking is now disabled when closing the playing media.

+ Blanking is now hidden and restored when opening and closing fullscreennavigation interfaces.

+ Pressing ESC now closes any open navigation interfaces prior to restoring blanked secondary monitors when pressing the ESC key multiple times.

+ The "Show currently playing title on the Task Bar button and the Tray Icon", "Blank non-Playing Monitors while in Fullscreen / Zoom mode" and "Show "Places" in Open / Save Dialogs" settings have moved from "Adv. Options / System" to "Adv. Options / Interface".

+ The "Show Time Seek Position Over Timeline" setting has moved from "Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Actions" to "Adv. Options / Interface / Control Bar / Timeline Area".

+ The "File Browser 'Network / Disk' mapping" interface has moved under "Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Paths"

+ The "Start Player in" setting has moved from "Adv. Options / Interface" to "Adv. Options / Interface / Position & Size".

+ The "System Overview" and "Missing Formats" options dialog sections have been removed as the Install Center provides more accurate information.

Fixes :

- The installer used administrator privileges to write the profile files (Smart Play, Equalizer, Skin tint), preventing the player from modifying the profiles when running with UAC enabled (user privileges). The new installer fixes this issue on existing systems.
You can to erase the old "virtualstore" files under: "C:UsersAppDataLocalVirtualStoreProgramDataZoom Player"

- Depending on your version of windows and if UAC is enabled, the file association options dialog would show incorrect information (wrong icon, or indicate that Zoom Player was associated with the extension even if it wasn't).

- Exporting Zoom Player's setting from the options dialog, would fail if UAC is enabled.

- The Zoom Player Install Center auto-configuration did not work on systems with UAC enabled or limited account access.

- The Install Center now identifies 3rd party 64bit installations (e.g. 7-zip). Thanks Gleb Egorych, Midiboy.

- CD Audio Playback was broken when used in Windows 7.

- There was a problem with Windows 7 hiding the Zoom Player tray icon even when setting the icon to always show.This was caused by the tool-tip for the icon containing the playing file name, which differs greatly between multiple files. To fix this issue, 'Zoom Player' is now displayed before the playing file name.

- Opening files from the command line would cause the file path to be modified to uppercase, breaking playback from Linux based NAS devices.

- Fixed compatibility with uTorrent v3.

- Fixed the following visual glitches when a high DPI system font is used:1. The options dialog "File Association" icons did not display correctly.2. The "Add Filter" dialog's legend section did not draw correctly.3. Some text was truncated in the options dialog.4. The station manager station list items were partially cropped.5. The skin selector skin list items were partially cropped.6. The Install Center items were partially cropped.7. The Smart Play Source, Splitter and Decoder configuration dialogs cropped some of the displayed entries.8. The Smart Play filter blacklist cropped some of the displayed entries.9. The Options dialog archive playback extension list cropped some of the displayed entries. 10. The registered filter manager dialog was improperly sized to the point where buttons could overlap.

- When setting a large font for the playlist editor or setting a higher Font DPI value for windows as whole, the playlist fonts would become truncated at the bottom.

- The "Switch resolution on Fullscreen" setting did not perform as expected.

- Trying to open a ".lnk" ShortCut file that pointed to a folder would show an error message instead of opening the folder's content.

- When using MadVR fullscreen exclusive mode in combination with auto-changing monitor resolution on fullscreen, exiting fullscreen did not restore the original monitor's resolution.Thanks Hawke.

- Dragging the player window by clicking "Ctrl + Left mouse button" (or other configured setting) within the video area was broken in Windows Vista and Windows 7 when certain video renderer were used (VMR7/VMR9/ Haali/MadVR).Now there's a workaround in place that ensures the window is dragged to the correct location (with minor flickering at times).
- The "Adv. Options / Interface / Display - Enlarge folder image to fit video area" setting now performs as expected.

- The ID3/TAG display used the character set (used to convert ANSI to Unicode) defined by the Navigation font instead of the ID3/TAG font.

- When the "Auto-Size User Interface to fit Source Video Resolution" setting is enabled, opening a media file with an image resolution larger than the current screen, now limits the image resolution to the screen's resolution. If the new resolution causes the player window to resize itself beyond the screen's resolution, the player window will be pulled back into the screen automatically.

- The "/OpenDrive" command line parameter did not detect Blu-Ray drives properly.
- The "Prefer HD content as the main movie if the track duration is longer than (minutes)" Blu-Ray setting didn't compare the track time correctly.
- The fullscreen monitor (Adv. Options / System) value would get reset if the selected monitor was no longer available (the monitor was off). The value is now preserved and if the monitor is not available, the player will go fullscreen on the primary monitor.

- When playing DVR-MS files, the "Stop" function didn't seek to the beginning of the media file.

- Pressing "R" to cycle through the aspect ratio modes no longer resizes the player window if "Auto-Size User Interface to maintain Video Aspect Ratio" is enabled.If you try to move or resize the window after setting the Aspect Ratio, it will snap into shape.

- The right-click Open URL feature is now better adapted to opening SHOUTcast radio stations using the following format: http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=[number]

- If Smart Play was disabled, Zoom Player would not use the selected Audio Renderer if the "MPC Audio Renderer" was installed and not chosen.

- When using the "Disable Smart Play for files with the following extensions" feature, the selected Audio and Video renderers weren't used, but rather windows (DirectShow) selected its own renderers.Now, you can select if you want Zoom Player or Windows to select the renderers (see above).

- Trying to play a DVD's "VIDEO_TS.IFO" file in media mode would not remove the background image before starting to play the DVD.

- You can now seek, pause and play streaming MMS content.

- The "CUE" chapter parsing code has been rewritten. It now parses unicode/ascii charsets correctly and loads meta-data information (Perfomer/Genre/etc).Thanks Orf.

- The Open-URL dialog was limited to 255 characters.

- The Play History stored the played files in lower case instead of their original case.

- The Stop/Resume function didn't work if stop was pressed in the first 3 seconds of playback.

- The next/previous chapter and track functions can now continue to the next file in the directory when a file fails to load.

- When a custom video renderer does not support the "IBasicVideo2" interface, the Derived aspect ratio value is taken from the source video aspect ratio.

- The "xvid" profile is no longer used to verify that SmartPlay is properly configured.

- When using FFDShow as the Subtitle renderer, subtitles are nowordered alphabetically.

- Fixed a crash when using the FFDShow Subtitle renderer.

- Fixed a crash when trying to play MP3/FLAC/APE audio files with an embedded "BMP" album art image.

- Unchecking the "Enable TAG display" setting would hide the entire display, including the background image rather than just the TAG display.

- When disabling "Draw Text Background" for Audio TAG display, the bottom line (usually the "YEAR" field) would get cropped out.

- Fixed a complete freeze when playing audio files containing corrupt ID3 tags.

- Folder image base names did not recognize the use of paths.Thanks Orf.

- Unchecking "Save last play time and date" from "Adv. Options / Playback / History" would cause Zoom Player to forget any new items played the next time Zoom Player was restarted.

- Clicking the "Switch to Basic Mode" or "Switch to Advanced Mode" Options dialog buttons lost any modified settings.

- The "Automatically restore volume level on replay with video files" setting was not remembered after a Zoom Player restart.

- Choosing to hide the Zoom Player task bar icon would fail (the icon would reappear) under certain circumstances.

- The GuardDog feature no longer restart Zoom Player if the internal screen saver is active.

- Fixed a memory leak when trying to open corrupted JPEG/PNG images or JPEG images in the CYMK print format (which is not supported).

- Fixed a list index out of bounds crash when Random Play was enabled and the "On Playlist Complete" setting was not set to "Auto Replay".

- Fixed an "Out of Resources" crash when trying to set the Zoom resolution to a extremely high value (over 16384x16384, which is now the limit).

- Fixed a very old bug where opening a media file through non-media library interfaces would prevent the fullscreen media library navigation interface from automatically displaying the currently playing media (if the media's path resides within a media library category).

- When using the Media Library or File Browsing fullscreen navigation interfaces, using the "Add to Playlist" function no longer adds media files that are not selected if the "Auto-Part Loader" function is enabled.

- When playing audio media, the player now uses folder or embedded images as the pseudo video resolution for functions that require it (such as auto-sizing the user interface to fit the source video resolution).

- Auto-Correction of video aspect ratio is no longer applied when viewing stand alone, folder and embedded images.
- Switching between audio and media modes after playing an audio file would show remnants of the TAG display in the GUI window if the audio file was closed.

- An LPCM sub-type was accidently listed under the AC3 audio decoder profile.

- The Smart Play configuration dialogs now selects the first profile from the list when erasing a profile so the previously erased profile's filters do not remain active.

- Switching Stay On Top on/off followed by pressing the "Enter" key would reload the currently playing media instead of the action assigned to the "Enter" key.

- You can now play URLs from the Play History dialog.

- You can now play URLs from the command line if Zoom Player is currently running.

- There is no longer a limit of 255 character when trying to open a URL or file from the command line while Zoom Player is currently running.

- When first loading, the keyboard focus is now set to the main player user interface rather than secondary interfaces (Playlist editor, Equalizer).

- When the "On Playlist Complete" setting is set to close Zoom Player or shutdown the computer, the action is no longer performed if the options dialog is open.
- When the "Auto-Play next file in the playlist" setting was disabled, pressing Play when reaching the end of a media file would not perform the "On Playlist Complete" event.

- When the "Move the Playlist Editor display to follow the currently playing media file" setting was enabled, the playlist tried to change position and follow a new item even if the new item was already visible.
- When setting the screen saver mode to "Image SlideShow", re-opening the options dialog would disable the Image Directory browse button.
- When switching between different screen saver modes, the mode switch would not work well if you didn't restart the player.
- When a language or custom context menu script used unicode characters for sub-menus, the root menu name was not properly identified and sub-menu items did not show up.
- When using a language pack, some translated window titles using unicode characters would appear as "????"

- Using the "Del" keyboard macro to delete the currently playing media now removes the entry from the file browsing navigation interface cache.
- Deleting the default "Drapes" navigation skin, will now allow you to select other navigation skins when listed as the first entry in the skin selection dialog.

- Loading image files with the internal image decoder, depending on the image's apsect ratio, could display in the wrong aspect ratio if the "Auto-Fix Aspect Ratio for badly encoded content" setting was enabled.

- The A-B Repeat and RingTone creation timeline highlights were not updated properly on the Control Bar's timeline.

- Ejecting certain drive types would cause Zoom Player to stop the currently playing media even if the media was not on the ejected drive.

- The "Open the Options Dialog on the active monitor" setting wasn't being applied to the Basic Options dialog.
- When using FFDShow as the Subtitle renderer while using a video decoder other than FFDShow, combining this setup with Haali Video Renderer, would result in a pin connection error.

- The 'forcibly hide the windows taskbar in fullscreen mode' setting will now hide the Start Orb (button) in Windows VISTA and Windows 7.

- Skins with no hint value for the Volume/Balance/Play Rate bars showed unrelated hint text.

- Skins with no playlist skinned would show the default onyx skin for the playlist interface with broken button transparency (red borders).
- Selecting a skin or applying a skin tint from the skin selection dialog no longer causes the player window to pop over and obscure the skin selection dialog.

- Installing a Skin file would ask you to open the Skin selection dialog even if it was already open.

- Fixed the "FolderImage" skin script code function that got broken in v7.
- When sorting by Size in the Media Library and File Browsing fullscreen navigation interfaces, the "Play all files in this Directory" entry was listed before the"Previous Directory" entry.

- With "Stay on Top" enabled along with "Screen-Align the Control Bar to" set to either Top or Bottom of the screen, the control bar would lose it's on-top status and would disappear if you clicked the video area or if a new media loaded.

- Performing a legacy install (where all installed files are placed in a single folder) no longer warns you of a problematic installation if UAC (User Account Control) is enabled and you installed under a directory other than the "Program Files" directory.As well as the above, the warning dialog now contains an additional checkbox to dismiss it from showing on future runs.

- The 'forcibly hide the windows taskbar in fullscreen mode' setting will now hide the Start Orb (button) in Windows VISTA and Windows 7.

- The Adjust Image (formally "image resize") and Image Blanking fullscreen navigation interfaces were incorrectly affected by the "Navigation Line Count" setting.

- The "Click here to search list" text in the playlist editor could overlap the scroll widget if the playlist editor font was large enough.

- Fixed a rare 'List index out of bounds' error when deleting items from the playlist.

- The main application window should now appear in Flip3D under Windows Vista and Windows 7.

- Deleting a media library category, would erase other categories if their name was very similar (example "movies" and "movies2").

- The "Custom Mouse Wheel Down" function was not being saved.
- The Screen Saver and clock function accidentally labeled 'October' as 'Saturday'.

- With "Adv. Options / On Screen Display / Actions - Show Time Position Over Timeline" enabled, pressing Alt+F4 would close the position window rather than the player window.

- Opening a display pattern (Shift+"P"), no longer stops the playing video before closing it. This ensures the previous play position is saved correctly.

- Fixed crashes related to corrupt language files.

- Using the Station Edit button would not display the edited station type correctly (would always show 'Radio').

- The "Null" filter no longer appears as Unregistered.

- TCP/IP API Message #1810 (Request Play List), did not implement a separator character between each media entry, making it harder to parse. Now each entry is separated by the ">" character.

- TCP/IP API Message #1811 (Playlist items changed) was not being triggered on every playlist change.

- Changing the navigation keyboard layout could cause a crash when closing the skin selection dialog through the keyboard.Thanks Gleb Egorych.

- When Smart Play is disabled, the Zoom Player DSP filter is no longer part of the graph if no audio streams are detected.

- The red error dialog messages were limited to 255 characters.

- Loading external icon definition files did not apply the icons to all file extensions in some cases.

- Cleaned up some of the ffdshow profile/filter names.

---

* The Complete Change list history can be found on-line at: http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_whatsnew_archive.shtml

--- End.


List of changes from v8 Release Candidate 2:

* The default media center navigation skin has been refreshed with a more eye-pleasing colorset. You can download the old skin here: http://skins.inmatrix.com

* You can now search the Options dialog to quickly bring up settings you need changed.

* Zoom Player can now load ".xspf" IceCast streaming radio playlists. You can now tune-in directly by clicking on an icecast station entry. IceCast Station Directory: http://dir.xiph.org/index.php

* You can now associate the ".xspf" IceCast streaming radio file extension.

* New "/SharePath:[Path]" command line parameter. This Parameter sets the initial media sharing path. The share path value allows external applications to instruct Zoom Player to list and play media from the shared path folder from a remote location, using Zoom Player's TCP/IP API.

* New settings (Adv. Options / Interface / Keyboard) allowing you to set a keyboard/remote anti-repeat rate separately for navigation functions (up/down/left/right/etc) and general functions (play/pause/etc).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / OSD / Actions) that extends the visibility of OSD Action Pop-ups (Play/Pause/etc) by 38ms per character. This allows the OSD to remain visible when longer text is displayed (e.g. when renaming files).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation) allowing you to override a navigation skin's font outline setting. Disabling the navigation interfaces font-outline can speed up interactivity on lower end systems.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback) that Auto-Rotate JPEG images according to embedded EXIF data when using the internal image decoder.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video) that controls whether Zoom Player should use MadVR's API to display the Control bar, pop-up OSD (play/pause/etc) and Clock. By enabling this setting, Fullscreen Exclusive mode is preserved when displaying OSD elements.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / System) enabling the Guard Dog feature to re-use the command line parameters Zoom Player was launched with.

* The "Background image base name" value (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Images & Tags / Paths & Script" now accepts masks. For example, you can use a value of "folder*" which will have Zoom Player search for JPG/PNG/BMP folder images that start with "folder", i.e. "folder_view.jpg".

* The activate chapter is now auto-highlighted when opening the chapter/bookmark fullscreen navigation interface.

* With uTorrent v3 installed, you can now track download progress in the media library and file browsing navigation interfaces for torrents downloaded into a non-default directory.

* Zoom Player can now extract chapter information when using LAV Splitter. While mainly used by Matroska (MKV) files, all format is supported as long as LAV Splitter exposes the chapter interface.

* The Chapter editor dialog has been redesigned for clarity and ease of use.

* The play history dialog has been slightly tweaked for clarity.

* The Scene-Cut Editor dialog has been redesigned for clarity and ease of use.

* The Scene-Cut Editor dialog is now fully keyboard accessible.

* The Station Editor dialog is now fully keyboard accessible.

* The Station Browser dialog is now fully keyboard accessible.

* The Smart Play configuration dialogs are now fully keyboard accessible.

* The Playing Information dialog (Keyboard Macro "I") has been cleaned up and the formats section text can now be copied to the clipboard.

* EXTINF (Duration/Title) data in M3U playlists is now supported.
* New TCP/IP API outbound message #6000, used to browse the shared directories specified using the "/SharePath" command line parameter.
* New TCP/IP API outbound message #6010, used to add shared media files to the playlist.

* New TCP/IP API outbound message #1920, used to notify that the playlist has been cleared.

* New TCP/IP API message #2670, used to set the monitor used in fullscreen mode.

* New TCP/IP API message #0100, used to Ping the player to check that it's still responsive.

* New navigation skin scripts variables "ProgressActive", "SizeColor", "SizeActive" used to specify the color states when displaying file sizes and progress states.

* New navigation skin scripts variable "KeyEditOutline" controlling whether the virtual keyboard text edit is outlined.
* New navigation skin scripts variables controling the layout of the virtual keyboard interface: KeyXOfs = Key-List X-Offset (Percent of Interface Width) KeyYOfs = Key-List Y-Offset (Percent of Interface Height) KeyHeight = Key-List Height (Percent of Interface Height) KeyWidth = Key-List Width (Percent of Interface Width) KeyPHeight = Height of path/filename area KeyPWidth = Path Width (Percent of Interface Width) KeyPXOfs = Path X-Offset (Percent of Interface Width) KeyPYOfs = Path Y-Offset (Percent of Interface Height)

* FRAPS (FPS1) videos can now be played. You may need to enable FRAPS/FPS1 support in FFDShow's codec configuration dialog to enable decoding.

* New MadVR H.264, VC1 and MPEG2 decoding smart play profiles. Requires MadVR 0.69 or newer with the decoding options enabled.

* New ADPCM audio decoder Smart Play profile.

* New Nellymoser audio decoder Smart Play profile.

* You can now search the Station Browser dialog.

* The configuration path (registry or file based) and the current data directory are now listed on the Options Dialog's 'About' page.

+ When running Window XP (or newer), Zoom Player now uses a Natural Sorting algorithm rather than the default ASCII Sorting. For example, using ASCII sorting, files would be listed as: 1.avi 10.avi 2.avi 3.avi With Natural sorting, the same files would be listed as: 1.avi 2.avi 3.avi 10.avi

+ The default navigation skin no longer uses font-outline. The design doesn't really require it and the performance benefits merit the change. You now have the option to override the navigation interface's font-outline in case you're not satisfied with the change.

+ You will now be prompted to restore the Play History database from a backup if Zoom Player detects that the database may be corrupted (due to a system crash).

+ The Action Pop-up OSD auto-hide is now more accurate (250ms vs the previous 1000ms).

+ The Fusion skin's control bar now contains a close button and a few other minor changes.

+ Matroska (MKV) chapters read using the MPC Matroska splitter are now automatically converted to ZP chapters. Enabling chapter tracking and chapter edit to an external chapter file (override internal chapters).

+ The Station Browser dialog can now be translated to other languages.

+ Now that the "Goto Time" dialog and the "Chapter/Bookmark editor" were combined into one interface. Using the GoTo time function opens the dialog with the keyboard focus on the Time entry box and the Chapter editor function opens the dialog with the keyboard focus on the Chapter Name entry box.

+ The "Context Menu" fullscreen navigation interface has been renamed "Extended Menu".
+ The Extended Menu fullscreen navigation interface has been brought in line with the rest of the navigation interfaces and now displays icons instead of ASCII characters to represent folders/active state.

+ The Next/Previous chapter functions will now update the fullscreen chapter navigation interface if it's currently visible.

+ Cleaned up a few more streaming radio stations.

+ The Zoom-In/Zoom-Out (+/- keypad keys) functions when used in windowed mode now snaps the player window back into the monitor's work area if the zoom function partially moves the player window off-screen.

+ Zoom Player no longer lists the ".DAT" extension for file association. This extension was used by VCD discs, which are no longer popular. Combined with the fact that the ".DAT" extension is somewhat generic and used by other applications for DATA storage, it was decided that removing this extension would increase stability.

+ You can delete the Install Center cache by clicking on the Install Center "Options" button.

+ TCP/IP API change to message #1100. Instead of listing whatever the timeline display is showing, it now always shows [Position / Duration]. For example: 00:00:12 / 01:02:35
You can request an #1100 message output by sending an #1100 message with a parameter value of "2".

+ TCP/IP API change to message #3000. Each line of the returned value is now separated by the "|" character rather than a new line (CRLF) which would complicate parsing.

+ The "exInterface" extended function can now discretely enable/disable the pop-up OSD messages.

+ The color-tinting skin values have been reduced to a more reasonable -160..160 range.

+ The PlayListData's skinning function "FontSpace" variable is now calculated automatically. Any value supplied by the skin is ignored.

+ The "Show Smart Play graph creation errors" will now include the smart play profile name as part of the error message.
+ The "Show currently playing title on the Task Bar button and the Tray Icon", "Blank non-Playing Monitors while in Fullscreen / Zoom mode" and "Show "Places" in Open / Save Dialogs" settings have moved from "Adv. Options / System" to "Adv. Options / Interface".

+ The "Show Time Seek Position Over Timeline" setting has moved from "Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Actions" to "Adv. Options / Interface / Control Bar / Timeline Area".

+ The "File Browser 'Network / Disk' mapping" interface has moved under "Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Paths"

- Fixed compatibility with uTorrent v3.

- Fixed the following visual glitches when a high DPI system font is used: 1. The options dialog "File Association" icons did not display correctly. 2. The "Add Filter" dialog's legend section did not draw correctly. 3. Some text was truncated in the options dialog. 4. The station manager station list items were partially cropped. 5. The skin selector skin list items were partially cropped. 6. The Install Center items were partially cropped. 7. The Smart Play Source, Splitter and Decoder configuration dialogs cropped some of the displayed entries. 8. The Smart Play filter blacklist cropped some of the displayed entries. 9. The Options dialog archive playback extension list cropped some of the displayed entries. 10. The registered filter manager dialog was improperly sized to the point where buttons could overlap.

- Exporting Zoom Player's setting from the options dialog, would fail if UAC is enabled.

- The ID3/TAG display used the character set (used to convert ANSI to Unicode) defined by the Navigation font instead of the ID3/TAG font.

- Opening files from the command line would cause the file path to be modified to uppercase, breaking playback from Linux based NAS devices.

- The Zoom Player Install Center auto-configuration did not work on systems with UAC enabled or limited account access.

- When the "Auto-Size User Interface to fit Source Video Resolution" setting is enabled, opening a media file with an image resolution larger than the current screen, now limits the image resolution to the screen's resolution. If the new resolution causes the player window to resize itself beyond the screen's resolution, the player window will be pulled back into the screen automatically.

- When setting a large font for the playlist editor or setting a higher Font DPI value for windows as whole, the playlist fonts would become truncated at the bottom.

- When using the Media Library or File Browsing fullscreen navigation interfaces, using the "Add to Playlist" function no longer adds media files that are not selected if the "Auto-Part Loader" function is enabled.

- Fixed a rare 'List index out of bounds' error when deleting items from the playlist.

- The Adjust Image (formally "image resize") and Image Blanking fullscreen navigation interfaces were incorrectly affected by the "Navigation Line Count" setting.
- The "Click here to search list" text in the playlist editor could overlap the scroll widget if the playlist editor font was large enough.

- Trying to open a ".lnk" ShortCut file that pointed to a folder would show an error message instead of opening the folder's content.

- Using the Station Edit button would not display the edited station type correctly (would always show 'Radio').

- TCP/IP API Message #1810 (Request Play List), did not implement a separator character between each media entry, making it harder to parse. Now each entry is separated by the ">" character.

- TCP/IP API Message #1811 (Playlist items changed) was not being triggered on every playlist change.

- An LPCM sub-type was accidently listed under the AC3 audio decoder profile.

- When disabling "Draw Text Background" for Audio TAG display, the bottom line (usually the "YEAR" field) would get cropped out.

- Fixed a memory leak when trying to open corrupted JPEG/PNG images or JPEG images in the CYMK print format (which is not supported).

- The "Switch resolution on Fullscreen" setting did not perform as expected.

- Fixed crashes related to corrupt language files.

- The "Null" filter no longer appears as Unregistered.

- When using ".CUE" files as chapter files, the chapter/track name did not import properly when the CUE file was ASCII encoded and using a non-default character set (i.e. Russian).

- The Play History stored the played files in lower case instead of their original case.

- The Stop/Resume function didn't work if stop was pressed in the first 3 seconds of playback.


--- What's new in v8.00 RC2:

Legend :

"*" = New
"+" = Change
"-" = Fix

New :

* Support for Windows 7 (or newer) task bar progress button. Using the new Taskbar settings interface (Adv. Options / Interface / Task Bar), you can enable a progress bar that shows either the current media play position or your position within the playlist.

* Support for Windows 7 (or newer) Task lists. Using the new Taskbar tasks interface (Adv. Options / Interface / Task Bar), you can assign any standard Zoom Player function to the Task Bar button.

* Support for Windows Vista (or newer) mouse wheel left/right Tilt (Adv. Options / Interface / Mouse / Mouse Wheel). You can choose between using the mouse wheel tilt for left/right navigation in menus or assign a Zoom Player function to the right and left tilt motions.

* Support for Windows Vista (or newer) AutoPlay handlers, allowing you to select Zoom Player from the Windows Control Panel AutoPlay configuration dialog. Supported auto play handlers include CD, VCD, SVCD, DVD and Blu-Ray discs.

* New virtual-keyboard navigation interface. Used for renaming files through the media library and file browsing navigation interfaces. The virtual-keyboard layout is fully scriptable and supports native (unicode) language input.

* New Out of Process Automation interface API that allows you to control Zoom Player through the COM inter-process interface. A sample application will be posted on the web site and forum.

* The fullscreen Station navigation interface has been redesigned. All previous stations have been moved into a "Favorites" category. Beyond your favorites, you can now browse through radio genres and play stations directly.

* The Station List Media Center interface now has a "Go To top of list" function.

* The "Filter List" section of the Media Library and File Browsing fullscreen navigation interface now includes an option to show "All Files".

* The Media Library Category editor has been redesigned for greater simplicity and clarity and is now fully keyboard accessible, no longer requiring mouse access.

* The Skin selection dialog has been redesigned for greater simplicity and clarity and is now fully keyboard accessible, no longer requiring mouse access.
* The GoTo time/Chapter editor dialog is now fully keyboard accessible, no longer requiring mouse access.

* The play history dialog is now fully keyboard accessible, no longer requiring mouse access.

* The LAV Splitter is now supported for AVI, MOV, MP4, FLV, OGG, OGM and MPEG2 Transport Streams. Please take note that if the LAV Splitter is installed, it disables other splitters from working properly. This means that you must set Smart Play's "AVI" Source filter to LAV Splitter or use the MPC (Gabest) AVI Splitter as the "AVI" Splitter filter (and the same may apply to MPEG2 and Matroska MKV files).

* You can now use the Ctrl+"A" macro to cycle through the available audio channels when using the LAV Splitter.

* New "VP8" profile added to the Smart Play options dialog. VP8 is used by the WebM format and can be decoded using FFDShow and the MPC Video Decoder (FFDShow may need configuration to enable VP8 support).

* New "TWOS Audio" profile added to the Smart Play options dialog. Requires LAV Audio Decoder.
* New "Dolby TrueHD" profile added to the Smart Play options dialog.

* New "E-AC3" profile added to the Smart Play options dialog.

* You can now select FFDShow DXVA (hardware assisted) decoding for H.264 and VC1.
There are a lot of restrictions when using DXVA. Not all video renderers are supported, subtitles wont display, etc... The minimum hardware requirement is NVIDIA 8xxx series cards or ATI 4xxx series cards. For more information, visit the ffdshow development thread over at the doom9 forums : http://forum.doom9.org

* The installer now includes an icon library for the most popular file formats supported by Zoom Player. On initial install, the new icons are applied automatically.

* The RingTone creation dialog has been improved: 1. You can manually modify the Start/Stop positions. 2. You can seek to the start/stop positions. 3. You can seek in the player and use the current media position as the start/stop positions.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface) allowing you to password protect the options dialog. For additional security, the password is kept in an encrypted form.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface) that prevents the Zoom Player user interface from opening on a disabled (turned-off) monitor. Enabled by default, the main user interface is moved to the primary monitor when running Zoom Player on a disabled monitor.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Mouse / Settings) forcing a more aggressive Mouse Cursor hiding code. The mouse cursor should no longer pop-up even when background applications steal focus from the player. This setting is enabled by default. If it causes problems with your mouse cursor hiding too much, it can be disabled.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Tags / Paths & Script) allowing you to enable/disable the aspect ratio for the default folder image. This is useful when the default folder image is an abstract picture (as the included default image is).
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) that controls whether the system 'Pictures, Music and Video' library folders are listed in the media library navigation interface (enabled by default).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) allowing you to prevent access to the main navigation interface from all other navigation interfaces.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) allowing you to completely prevent access to the navigation interfaces function sub-menus.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Position & Size) allowing to prevent exiting Fullscreen / Zoom mode.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Position & Size) that determines whether the 'Keyboard Video Window Move' function works by percentage of the screen size or in pixels.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Smart Play) allowing you to choose whether Zoom Player or Windows selects the Audio/Video renderers when a file extension is selected for Smart Play exclusion.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Blu-Ray) allowing you to add secondary Blu-Ray movie tracks (based on their duration) to the playlist automatically (by default, 21minutes or longer). Newly added tracks are sorted by duration, longest track listed first.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / DVD / DVD Settings) allowing you to control the way the player seeks in DVD mode. Since DVD seeking can be slow, by default Delayed seeking is used so the actual seek is performed only after 1-2 seconds, allowing you to drag the timeline without actually seeking until you let go of the mouse cursor. However, if you would like the seeking to be instantaneous, you can now disable the delayed seek.

* New Settings (Adv. Options / Playback / Controls) allowing you to specify the maximum play rate (used with the "fnIncRateEx" and "fnDecRateEx" functions) and the play rate step value (default 10%).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Controls) that mutes the audio for two seconds when using the seek forward and seek backward functions (to prevent garbled audio as the video is seeked frequently).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Controls) that instructs Zoom Player to close itself if the stop button/function is called.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video) which enables a fix when moving the player window from video area causing the window to jump to an unexpected position.
Affects only Windows VISTA (or newer) when the video renedrer is set to 'Haali Video Renderer', 'MadVR', 'VMR7' or 'VMR9'.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / File Format Association / File Extensions) allowing you to only show or use the first part in a Multi-Part RAR archive. For example "myarchive.part1.rar" will display while "myarchive.part2.rar" and "myarchive.part999.rar" wont display.

* The Zoom Player facebook page is now accessible through the options dialog, allowing you to view the latest Zoom Player news and updates.

* Blu-Ray subtitles are now supported when using FFDShow as the subtitle renderer.

* New function "fnZoomInLevel" which cycles through 4 Zoom-in levels (16.6%, 33.3%, 50% and 100%). The keyboard macro is Alt+Ctrl+'Z'.

* New function "fnIncRateEx" which increases the play rate by a user specified value (10% by default). The keyboard macro is Alt+Ctrl+'.'.

* New function "fnDecRateEx" which decreases the play rate by a user specified value (10% by default). The keyboard macro is Alt+Ctrl+','.

* New function "fnResetWindows" which resets the user interface windows to their default location. This function is accessible by right-clicking the Zoom Player task-bar button.

* You can now play and associate Blu-Ray decrypted ".mpls" Playlist files. This means that multi-part Blu-Ray movies (a Blu-Ray movie composed of several ".M2TS" media files) can now be played as one seamless media.

* You can now associate the ".WebM" and ".WebA" HTML5 video extensions.

* The Skin Script "CreateExButton" function can now execute external files and open URLs in your browser.
* New Skin Script "InstallFont" command which allows you to use font files in your skin without having to register them with Windows first.
* New navigation skin script variable "PathHeightKey" allowing you to set the height of the keyboard entry box in the virtual keyboard navigation interface.
* New navigation skin script variables controlling the virtual keyboard text colors: KeyActive = Active state of the virtual keyboard interface KeyInactive = Inactive state of the virtual keyboard interface KeyEditActive = Active state of the virtual keyboard edit box KeyEditInactive = Inactive state of the virtual keyboard edit box KeyKeyActive = Active key virtual keyboard interface For more information, see the default "Drapes.nav" script file in the Zoom Player 'skin' folder.

* The WebServer Remote API now accepts a new "&play=[filename]" command, allowing you to open files (and URLs) directly from the web browser.

* Media duration for "M2TS,MKA,MKV,MOV,MP4" files is now detected automatically, to enable, click on the "Default" button at: Adv. Options / File Format Association / File Extensions / Auto-Get Duration

* The screen saver date/time display and currently playing media display layouts have been redesigned for better clarity. These changes also fix the issue where the currently playing media display would alter the font size depending on the length of the playing media name.

* Three new internal screen saver modes "Sinus Plasma", a Power Saving version of "Sinus Plasma" (lower brightness) and a Power Saving version of "Plasma Cloud".

* New "Open Subtitle File" option accessible through the right-click context menu under the "Open" sub-menu.

* New "/SkinMedia", "/SkinAudio" and "/SkinDVD" command line parameters that let you specify which skin should load directly from the command line. Please note that this parameter must be called first (before "/Media", "/DVD" or "/AudBar").

* Pressing the Ctrl+"A" keyboard macro with the playlist editor in focus will now select all items in the list.
* Single-clicking an item in the playlist editor with items previously selected will now clear the current selection and re-select only the clicked item.
* Holding the "Shift" key in combination with the UP/DOWN arrow keys in the playlist editor will now select the items above/below the current selection without clearing the previously selected item(s).

* Holding the "Shift" key in combination with the PGUP/PGDN/Home/End keys in the playlist editor will now select the items above/below the current selection without clearing the previously selected item(s).

* The minimalistic skin modes (F6/F7 keyboard macros) for default Onyx skin now switch the playlist layout to a minimalistic design.

* New "Filter Properties" button on the Smart Play Source and Splitter configuration dialogs, allowing you to configure the selected filter (if the filter allows it).

* The "Automatically check for player updates" setting now checks the Install Center for codec/filter updates and notifies you if new/updated components have been found.

* New Comm API message #1852 which instructs the currently playing media to close.
* New Comm API message #2650 which enables you to position the player window.

* Embedded Windows Bitmap (.BMP) format album art is now supported.

Changes :

+ We are no longer using an EXE compressor, which means that the Zoom Player EXE files will be larger, but you wont get any false-positive virus warnings.

+ The Install Center has been redesigned for greater simplicity and clarity.
+ The "Show Date and Time" (Alt+Ctrl+"D") clock function has been modified so that it displays or hides the clock instead of just popping the clock through the standard OSD messages for a few seconds. The clock display is transparent, allowing you to see behind the text and in Windows Vista and newer, the text is slightly translucent.

+ When the "Auto-Play media file when opened" is disabled, the first video frame is now displayed.

+ The "Clear History" (Adv. Options / Playback / History) now erases the play history file.

+ Tuning in to a radio station directly from the SHOUTcast.com web site is now possible. All you need to do is select the "TUNE IN" option. You may be promoted to play through the browser or through the player, make sure to select the player. Your browser may prompt you for the application to open the playlist, make sure to select Zoom Player.

+ Improved Blu-Ray main movie detection with some titles.

+ Added a new H.264 sub-type for CoreAVC 2.5.1 compatibility.

+ Selecting MadVR as the video renderer automatically enables the "Overlay covers entire video area" setting.

+ You can now right-click play history entries to copy them into the system clipboard.

+ When opening an MMS stream, the buffering percentage value is now displayed.

+ When the 4:3/16:9 Zoom compensation or one of the Zoom-in levels are enabled, playing new media content displays an OSD notification letting you know that Zoom mode is enabled (this notification will not show if you specifically set a viewing region that is not fullscreen).

+ If the "Pause playback when opening file browsing interfaces with a video playing" setting is enabled, opening the play history navigation interface now pauses the video.

+ The "View" section of the media library and file browser navigation interfaces has been renamed to "Filter List".
+ The default process priority given to Zoom Player is now set to "Above Normal" by default when running under Windows 2000 or newer. Previous users of Zoom Player should note that their previous value for this setting has been reset to the new default.

+ When clicking on an extension's icon in the Options Dialog's file association section or clicking the "Apply Icon to Selected Extensions" button, now applies an extension-specific icon taken from the default icon library that ships with Zoom Player.

+ The Re-Synch Audio Ahead/Back now works in 25ms increments rather than the 10ms used previously.

+ The default volume control change value is now 5%, up from the previous 3%.
+ The default Zoom In/Out value is now 10%, up from the previous 1%.

+ The default 'Keyboard Video Window Move' value has changed to 5%, up from the previous 4 pixels.
+ The "fnVidLeft", "fnVidRight", "fnVidUp", "fnVidDown" functions now use the 'Keyboard Video Window Move' value while in fullscreen. Previously, these functions only moved by 1 pixel.

+ On first showing, the Playlist Editor dialog and the Equalizer dialog appear in a docked position rather than in the top left corner of the screen.

+ The default values for the internal screen saver have been changed and the screen saver is now enabled by default after 30 minutes of idle activity.

+ Updated Media Center navigation icons.

+ The Internal screen saver mode setting has been reset.

+ The default visible buttons on the control bar have been changed.
+ The default values for the Arrow keys have been changed: Te LEFT/RIGHT keys are used to seek 20 seconds backward/forward. The UP key opens the Media Library navigation interface. The DOWN key opens the Playlist navigation interface.
The previous defaults can be restored through the Advanced Options dialog.

+ The default fullscreen navigation interfaces appearing in the main (root) navigation interface have been changed.

+ The Equalizer Magnetize state is now enabled by default.

+ The Equalizer Magnetize state now positions the equalizer interface centered to the bottom or top of the main user interface (depending on space). Previously, the equalizer interface was aligned to the left edge of the main user interface.
+ The "Pause playback when opening file browsing interfaces with a video playing" setting is now enabled by default.
+ The "Use Media Title if Available" Playlist setting is now enabled by default.
+ Pressing "D" to open the Video Decoder configuration dialog now opens FFDShow's Video Decoder configuration dialog if no media is playing.

+ Pressing Alt+"A" to open the Audio Decoder configuration dialog now opens FFDShow's Audio Decoder configuration dialog if no media is playing.

+ The Advanced Option's "Show fullscreen Color Controls when values are changed through the keyboard macros" setting has been moved to "Playback / Video / Colors".

+ The Advanced Option's "Audio Tags (ID3)" has been renamed to "Audio Images & Tags".

+ The Advanced Option's "Enlarge folder image to fit Video Area, otherwise Center and Shrink only" setting has been moved to "Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Images & Tags".

+ The Advanced Option's "Load folder image file" setting has been renamed to "Load external folder image file" and moved to "Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Images & Tags".
+ The "Draw Folder (Background) Image under "Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Images & Tags" setting has been renamed to "Draw embedded background image". In addition, a fix was made so that disabling this setting, no longer disables folder images from loading.

+ The Zoom In/Out functions will now display the video display resolution in a pop-up window.

+ All references to "Skip, Jump, Seek" functions have been replaced with "Short Seek, Medium Seek, Long Seek".
+ Some of the options dialog entries have been rephrased for clarity.

+ The default window size is now slightly bigger to account for the overall increase in resolution of entry level monitors sold today.

+ Automatically restoring media volume levels from history is now disabled by default. You can re-enable these settings through the advanced options dialog.



Fixes :

- Depending on your version of windows and if UAC is enabled, the file association options dialog would show incorrect information (wrong icon, or indicate that Zoom Player was associated with the extension even if it wasn't).

- CD Audio Playback was broken when used in Windows 7.

- There was a problem with Windows 7 hiding the Zoom Player tray icon even when setting the icon to always show. This was caused by the tool-tip for the icon containing the playing file name, which differs greatly between multiple files. To fix this issue, 'Zoom Player' is now displayed before the playing file name.

- Dragging the player window by clicking "Ctrl + Left mouse button" (or other configured setting) within the video area was broken in Windows Vista and Windows 7 when certain video renderer were used (VMR7/VMR9/ Haali/MadVR). Now there's a workaround in place that ensures the window is dragged to the correct location (with minor flickering at times).
- The "Adv. Options / Interface / Display - Enlarge folder image to fit video area" setting now performs as expected.

- The "/OpenDrive" command line parameter did not detect Blu-Ray drives properly.
- The "Prefer HD content as the main movie if the track duration is longer than (minutes)" Blu-Ray setting didn't compare the track time correctly.
- The fullscreen monitor (Adv. Options / System) value would get reset if the selected monitor was no longer available (the monitor was off). The value is now preserved and if the monitor is not available, the player will go fullscreen on the primary monitor.

- When playing DVR-MS files, the "Stop" function didn't seek to the beginning of the media file.

- Pressing "R" to cycle through the aspect ratio modes no longer resizes the player window if "Auto-Size User Interface to maintain Video Aspect Ratio" is enabled. If you try to move or resize the window after setting the Aspect Ratio, it will snap into shape.

- The right-click Open URL feature is now better adapted to opening SHOUTcast radio stations using the following format: http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=[number]

- If Smart Play was disabled, Zoom Player would not use the selected Audio Renderer if the "MPC Audio Renderer" was installed and not chosen.

- When using the "Disable Smart Play for files with the following extensions" feature, the selected Audio and Video renderers weren't used, but rather windows (DirectShow) selected its own renderers. Now, you can select if you want Zoom Player or Windows to select the renderers (see above).

- Trying to play a DVD's "VIDEO_TS.IFO" file in media mode would not remove the background image before starting to play the DVD.

- You can now seek, pause and play streaming MMS content.

- The Open-URL dialog was limited to 255 characters.

- The next/previous chapter and track functions can now continue to the next file in the directory when a file fails to load.

- When a custom video renderer does not support the "IBasicVideo2" interface, the Derived aspect ratio value is taken from the source video aspect ratio.

- The "xvid" profile is no longer used to verify that SmartPlay is properly configured.

- When using FFDShow as the Subtitle renderer, subtitles are now ordered alphabetically.

- Fixed a crash when using the FFDShow Subtitle renderer.

- Fixed a crash when trying to play MP3/FLAC/APE audio files with an embedded "BMP" album art image.

- Fixed a list index out of bounds crash when Random Play was enabled and the "On Playlist Complete" setting was not set to "Auto Replay".

- Fixed an "Out of Resources" crash when trying to set the Zoom resolution to a extremely high value (over 16384x16384, which is now the limit).

- When playing audio media, the player now uses folder or embedded images as the pseudo video resolution for functions that require it (such as auto-sizing the user interface to fit the source video resolution).

- Auto-Correction of video aspect ratio is no longer applied when viewing stand alone, folder and embedded images.
- Switching between audio and media modes after playing an audio file would show remnants of the TAG display in the GUI window if the audio file was closed.

- Switching Stay On Top on/off followed by pressing the "Enter" key would reload the currently playing media instead of the action assigned to the "Enter" key.

- You can now play URLs from the Play History dialog.

- You can now play URLs from the command line if Zoom Player is currently running.

- There is no longer a limit of 255 character when trying to open a URL or file from the command line while Zoom Player is currently running.

- When first loading, the keyboard focus is now set to the main player user interface rather than secondary interfaces (Playlist editor, Equalizer).

- When the "On Playlist Complete" setting is set to close Zoom Player or shutdown the computer, the action is no longer performed if the options dialog is open.
- When the "Auto-Play next file in the playlist" setting was disabled, pressing Play when reaching the end of a media file would not perform the "On Playlist Complete" event.

- When the "Move the Playlist Editor display to follow the currently playing media file" setting was enabled, the playlist tried to change position and follow a new item even if the new item was already visible.
- When setting the screen saver mode to "Image SlideShow", re-opening the options dialog would disable the Image Directory browse button.
- When switching between different screen saver modes, the mode switch would not work well if you didn't restart the player.
- When a language or custom context menu script used unicode characters for sub-menus, the root menu name was not properly identified and sub-menu items did not show up.
- When using a language pack, some translated window titles using unicode characters would appear as "????"

- Using the "Del" keyboard macro to delete the currently playing media now removes the entry from the file browsing navigation interface cache.
- Deleting the default "Drapes" navigation skin, will now allow you to select other navigation skins when listed as the first entry in the skin selection dialog.

- Loading image files with the internal image decoder, depending on the image's apsect ratio, could display in the wrong aspect ratio if the "Auto-Fix Aspect Ratio for badly encoded content" setting was enabled.

- The A-B Repeat and RingTone creation timeline highlights were not updated properly on the Control Bar's timeline.

- Ejecting certain drive types would cause Zoom Player to stop the currently playing media even if the media was not on the ejected drive.

- The "Open the Options Dialog on the active monitor" setting wasn't being applied to the Basic Options dialog.
- When using FFDShow as the Subtitle renderer while using a video decoder other than FFDShow, combining this setup with Haali Video Renderer, would result in a pin connection error.

- The 'forcibly hide the windows taskbar in fullscreen mode' setting will now hide the Start Orb (button) in Windows VISTA and Windows 7.

- Skins with no hint value for the Volume/Balance/Play Rate bars showed unrelated hint text.

- Skins with no playlist skinned would show the default onyx skin for the playlist interface with broken button transparency (red borders).
- Selecting a skin or applying a skin tint from the skin selection dialog no longer causes the player window to pop over and obscure the skin selection dialog.

- Installing a Skin file would ask you to open the Skin selection dialog even if it was already open.

- Fixed the "FolderImage" skin script code function that got broken in v7.
- When sorting by Size in the Media Library and File Browsing fullscreen navigation interfaces, the "Play all files in this Directory" entry was listed before the "Previous Directory" entry.

- With "Stay on Top" enabled along with "Screen-Align the Control Bar to" set to either Top or Bottom of the screen, the control bar would lose it's on-top status and would disappear if you clicked the video area or if a new media loaded.

- Performing a legacy install (where all installed files are placed in a single folder) no longer warns you of a problematic installation if UAC (User Account Control) is enabled and you installed under a directory other than the "Program Files" directory. As well as the above, the warning dialog now contains an additional checkbox to dismiss it from showing on future runs.

- The 'forcibly hide the windows taskbar in fullscreen mode' setting will now hide the Start Orb (button) in Windows VISTA and Windows 7.

- The main application window should now appear in Flip3D under Windows Vista and Windows 7.

- Deleting a media library catgeory, would erase other categories if their name was very similar (example "movies" and "movies2").

- The "Custom Mouse Wheel Down" function was not being saved.
- With "Adv. Options / On Screen Display / Actions - Show Time Position Over Timeline" enabled, pressing Alt+F4 would close the position window rather than the player window.

- Opening a display pattern (Shift+"P"), no longer stops the playing video before closing it. This ensures the previous play position is saved correctly.


--- What's new in v8.00 RC1:

Legend :

"*" = New
"+" = Change
"-" = Fix

New :

* Support for Windows 7 (or newer) task bar progress button. Using the new Taskbar settings interface (Adv. Options / Interface / Task Bar), you can enable a progress bar that shows either the current media play position or your position within the playlist.

* Support for Windows 7 (or newer) Task lists. Using the new Taskbar tasks interface (Adv. Options / Interface / Task Bar), you can assign any standard Zoom Player function to the Task Bar button.

* Support for Windows Vista (or newer) mouse wheel left/right Tilt (Adv. Options / Interface / Mouse / Mouse Wheel). You can choose between using the mouse wheel tilt for left/right navigation in menus or assign a Zoom Player function to the right and left tilt motions.

* Support for Windows Vista (or newer) AutoPlay handlers, allowing you to select Zoom Player from the Windows Control Panel AutoPlay configuration dialog. Supported auto play handlers include CD, VCD, SVCD, DVD and Blu-Ray discs.

* New virtual-keyboard navigation interface. Used for renaming files through the media library and file browsing navigation interfaces. The virtual-keyboard layout is fully scriptable and supports native (unicode) language input.

* New Out of Process Automation interface API that allows you to control Zoom Player through the COM inter-process interface. A sample application will be posted on the web site and forum.

* The fullscreen Station navigation interface has been redesigned. All previous stations have been moved into a "Favorites" category. Beyond your favorites, you can now browse through radio genres downloaded from the internet and play stations directly.

* The "Filter List" section of the Media Library and File Browsing fullscreen navigation interface now includes an option to show "All Files".

* The Media Library Category editor has been redesigned for greater simplicity and clarity and is now fully keyboard accessible, no longer requiring mouse access.

* The Skin selection dialog has been redesigned for greater simplicity and clarity and is now fully keyboard accessible, no longer requiring mouse access.
* The GoTo time/Chapter editor dialog is now fully keyboard accessible, no longer requiring mouse access.

* The play history dialog is now fully keyboard accessible, no longer requiring mouse access.

* You can now select FFDShow DXVA (hardware assisted) decoding for H.264 and VC1.
There are a lot of restrictions when using DXVA. Not all video renderers are supported, subtitles wont display, etc... The minimum hardware requirement is NVIDIA 8xxx series cards or ATI 4xxx series cards. For more information, visit the ffdshow development thread over at the doom9 forums : http://forum.doom9.org

* The installer now includes an icon library for the most popular file formats supported by Zoom Player. On initial install, the new icons are applied automatically.

* The RingTone creation dialog has been improved: 1. You can manually modify the Start/Stop positions. 2. You can seek to the start/stop positions. 3. You can seek in the player and use the current media position as the start/stop positions.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface) allowing you to password protect the options dialog. For additional security, the password is kept in an encrypted form.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface) that prevents the Zoom Player user interface from opening on a disabled (turned-off) monitor. Enabled by default, the main user interface is moved to the primary monitor when running Zoom Player on a disabled monitor.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Mouse / Settings) forcing a more aggressive Mouse Cursor hiding code. The mouse cursor should no longer pop-up even when background applications steal focus from the player. This setting is enabled by default. If it causes problems with your mouse cursor hiding too much, it can be disabled.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Tags / Paths & Script) allowing you to enable/disable the aspect ratio for the default folder image. This is useful when the default folder image is an abstract picture (as the included default image is).
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) that controls whether the system 'Pictures, Music and Video' library folders are listed in the media library navigation interface (enabled by default).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) allowing you to prevent access to the main navigation interface from all other navigation interfaces.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) allowing you to completely prevent access to the navigation interfaces function sub-menus.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Position & Size) allowing to prevent exiting Fullscreen / Zoom mode.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Smart Play) allowing you to choose whether Zoom Player or Windows selects the Audio/Video renderers when a file extension is selected for Smart Play exclusion.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Blu-Ray) allowing you to add secondary Blu-Ray movie tracks (based on their duration) to the playlist automatically (by default, 21minutes or longer). Newly added tracks are sorted by duration, longest track listed first.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / DVD / DVD Settings) allowing you to control the way the player seeks in DVD mode. Since DVD seeking can be slow, by default Delayed seeking is used so the actual seek is performed only after 1-2 seconds, allowing you to drag the timeline without actually seeking until you let go of the mouse cursor. However, if you would like the seeking to be instantaneous, you can now disable the delayed seek.

* New Settings (Adv. Options / Playback / Controls) allowing you to specify the maximum play rate (used with the "fnIncRateEx" and "fnDecRateEx" functions) and the play rate step value (default 10%).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Controls) that mutes the audio for two seconds when using the seek forward and seek backward functions (to prevent garbled audio as the video is seeked frequently).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Controls) that instructs Zoom Player to close itself if the stop button/function is called.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / File Format Association / File Extensions) allowing you to only show or use the first part in a Multi-Part RAR archive. For example "myarchive.part1.rar" will display while "myarchive.part2.rar" and "myarchive.part999.rar" wont display.

* The Zoom Player facebook page is now accessible through the options dialog, allowing you to view the latest Zoom Player news and updates.

* Blu-Ray subtitles are now supported when using FFDShow as the subtitle renderer.

* New function "fnZoomInLevel" which cycles through 4 Zoom-in levels (16.6%, 33.3%, 50% and 100%). The keyboard macro is Alt+Ctrl+'Z'.

* New function "fnIncRateEx" which increases the play rate by a user specified value (10% by default). The keyboard macro is Alt+Ctrl+'.'.

* New function "fnDecRateEx" which decreases the play rate by a user specified value (10% by default). The keyboard macro is Alt+Ctrl+','.

* New function "fnResetWindows" which resets the user interface windows to their default location. This function is accessible by right-clicking the Zoom Player task-bar button.

* You can now play and associate Blu-Ray decrypted ".mpls" Playlist files. This means that multi-part Blu-Ray movies (a Blu-Ray movie composed of several ".M2TS" media files) can now be played as one seamless media.

* The Skin Script "CreateExButton" function can now execute external files and open URLs in your browser.
* New Skin Script "InstallFont" command which allows you to use font files in your skin without having to register them with Windows first.
* New navigation skin script variable "PathHeightKey" allowing you to set the height of the keyboard entry box in the virtual keyboard navigation interface.
* New navigation skin script variables controlling the virtual keyboard text colors: KeyActive = Active state of the virtual keyboard interface KeyInactive = Inactive state of the virtual keyboard interface KeyEditActive = Active state of the virtual keyboard edit box KeyEditInactive = Inactive state of the virtual keyboard edit box KeyKeyActive = Active key virtual keyboard interface For more information, see the default "Drapes.nav" script file in the Zoom Player 'skin' folder.

* The WebServer Remote API now accepts a new "&play=[filename]" command, allowing you to open files (and URLs) directly from the web browser.

* Media duration for "M2TS,MKA,MKV,MOV,MP4" files is now detected automatically, to enable, click on the "Default" button at: Adv. Options / File Format Association / File Extensions / Auto-Get Duration

* The screen saver date/time display and currently playing media display layouts have been redesigned for better clarity. These changes also fix the issue where the currently playing media display would alter the font size depending on the length of the playing media name.

* Three new internal screen saver modes "Sinus Plasma", a Power Saving version of "Sinus Plasma" (lower brightness) and a Power Saving version of "Plasma Cloud".

* New "Open Subtitle File" option accessible through the right-click context menu under the "Open" sub-menu.

* New "/SkinMedia", "/SkinAudio" and "/SkinDVD" command line parameters that let you specify which skin should load directly from the command line. Please note that this parameter must be called first (before "/Media", "/DVD" or "/AudBar").

* Pressing the Ctrl+"A" keyboard macro with the playlist editor in focus will now select all items in the list.
* Single-clicking an item in the playlist editor with items previously selected will now clear the current selection and re-select only the clicked item.
* Holding the "Shift" key in combination with the UP/DOWN arrow keys in the playlist editor will now select the items above/below the current selection without clearing the previously selected item(s).

* Holding the "Shift" key in combination with the PGUP/PGDN/Home/End keys in the playlist editor will now select the items above/below the current selection without clearing the previously selected item(s).

* The minimalistic skin modes (F6/F7 keyboard macros) for default Onyx skin now switch the playlist layout to a minimalistic design.

* New "Filter Properties" button on the Smart Play Source and Splitter configuration dialogs, allowing you to configure the selected filter (if the filter allows it).

* The "Automatically check for player updates" setting now checks the Install Center for codec/filter updates and notifies you if new/updated components have been found.

* New Comm API message #1852 which instructs the currently playing media to close.
* New Comm API message #2650 which enables you to position the player window.

* Embedded Windows Bitmap (.BMP) format album art is now supported.

Changes :

+ We are no longer using an EXE compressor, which means that the Zoom Player EXE files will be larger, but you wont get any false-positive virus warnings.

+ The Install Center has been redesigned for greater simplicity and clarity.
+ The "Show Date and Time" (Alt+Ctrl+"D") clock function has been modified so that it displays or hides the clock instead of just popping the clock through the standard OSD messages for a few seconds. The clock display is transparent, allowing you to see behind the text and in Windows Vista and newer, the text is slightly translucent.

+ When the "Auto-Play media file when opened" is disabled, the first video frame is now displayed.

+ The "Clear History" (Adv. Options / Playback / History) now erases the play history file.

+ Browsing the SHOUTcast station directory has been disabled as AOL (Owner of the SHOUTcast directory) no longer allows free access to the directory and makes draconian demands for this access.

+ Tuning in to a radio station directly from the SHOUTcast.com web site is now possible. All you need to do is select the "TUNE IN" option. You may be promoted to play through the browser or through the player, make sure to select the player. Your browser may prompt you for the application to open the playlist, make sure to select Zoom Player.

+ Improved Blu-Ray main movie detection with some titles.

+ You can now right-click play history entries to copy them into the system clipboard.

+ When opening an MMS stream, the buffering percentage value is now displayed.

+ When the 4:3/16:9 Zoom compensation or one of the Zoom-in levels are enabled, playing new media content displays an OSD notification letting you know that Zoom mode is enabled (this notification will not show if you specifically set a viewing region that is not fullscreen).

+ If the "Pause playback when opening file browsing interfaces with a video playing" setting is enabled, opening the play history navigation interface now pauses the video.

+ The "View" section of the media library and file browser navigation interfaces has been renamed to "Filter List".
+ The default process priority given to Zoom Player is now set to "Above Normal" by default when running under Windows 2000 or newer. Previous users of Zoom Player should note that their previous value for this setting has been reset to the new default.

+ When clicking on an extension's icon in the Options Dialog's file association section or clicking the "Apply Icon to Selected Extensions" button, now applies an extension-specific icon taken from the default icon library that ships with Zoom Player.

+ On first showing, the Playlist Editor dialog and the Equalizer dialog appear in a docked position rather than in the top left corner of the screen.

+ The default values for the internal screen saver have been changed and the screen saver is now enabled by default after 30 minutes of idle activity.

+ The Internal screen saver mode setting has been reset.

+ The default visible buttons on the control bar have been changed.
+ The default values for the Arrow keys have been changed: Te LEFT/RIGHT keys are used to seek 20 seconds backward/forward. The UP key opens the Media Library navigation interface. The DOWN key opens the Playlist navigation interface.
The previous defaults can be restored through the Advanced Options dialog.

+ The default fullscreen navigation interfaces appearing in the main (root) navigation interface have been changed.

+ The Equalizer Magnetize state is now enabled by default.

+ The Equalizer Magnetize state now positions the equalizer interface centered to the bottom or top of the main user interface (depending on space). Previously, the equalizer interface was aligned to the left edge of the main user interface.
+ The "Pause playback when opening file browsing interfaces with a video playing" setting is now enabled by default.
+ The "Use Media Title if Available" Playlist setting is now enabled by default.
+ Pressing "D" to open the Video Decoder configuration dialog now opens FFDShow's Video Decoder configuration dialog if no media is playing.

+ Pressing Alt+"A" to open the Audio Decoder configuration dialog now opens FFDShow's Audio Decoder configuration dialog if no media is playing.

+ The Advanced Option's "Show fullscreen Color Controls when values are changed through the keyboard macros" setting has been moved to "Playback / Video / Colors".

+ The Advanced Option's "Audio Tags (ID3)" has been renamed to "Audio Images & Tags".

+ The Advanced Option's "Enlarge folder image to fit Video Area, otherwise Center and Shrink only" setting has been moved to "Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Images & Tags".

+ The Advanced Option's "Load folder image file" setting has been renamed to "Load external folder image file" and moved to "Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Images & Tags".
+ The "Draw Folder (Background) Image under "Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Images & Tags" setting has been renamed to "Draw embedded background image". In addition, a fix was made so that disabling this setting, no longer disables folder images from loading.

+ The Zoom In/Out functions will now display the video display resolution in a pop-up window.

+ All references to "Skip, Jump, Seek" functions have been replaced with "Short Seek, Medium Seek, Long Seek".
+ Some of the options dialog entries have been rephrased for clarity.

+ The default window size is now slightly bigger to account for the overall increase in resolution of entry level monitors sold today.

+ Automatically restoring media volume levels from history is now disabled by default. You can re-enable these settings through the advanced options dialog.

Fixes :

- Depending on your version of windows and if UAC is enabled, the file association options dialog would show incorrect information (wrong icon, or indicate that Zoom Player was associated with the extension even if it wasn't).

- CD Audio Playback was broken when used in Windows 7.

- There was a problem with Windows 7 hiding the Zoom Player tray icon even when setting the icon to always show. This was caused by the tool-tip for the icon containing the playing file name, which differs greatly between multiple files. To fix this issue, 'Zoom Player' is now displayed before the playing file name.

- Dragging the player window by clicking "Ctrl + Left mouse button" (or other configured setting) within the video area was broken in Windows Vista and Windows 7 when certain video renderer were used (VMR7/VMR9/ Haali/MadVR). Now there's a workaround in place that ensures the window is dragged to the correct location (with minor flickering at times).
- The "Adv. Options / Interface / Display - Enlarge folder image to fit video area" setting now performs as expected.

- The "/OpenDrive" command line parameter did not detect Blu-Ray drives properly.
- The "Prefer HD content as the main movie if the track duration is longer than (minutes)" Blu-Ray setting didn't compare the track time correctly.
- The fullscreen monitor (Adv. Options / System) value would get reset if the selected monitor was no longer available (the monitor was off). The value is now preserved and if the monitor is not available, the player will go fullscreen on the primary monitor.

- When playing DVR-MS files, the "Stop" function didn't seek to the beginning of the media file.

- Pressing "R" to cycle through the aspect ratio modes no longer resizes the player window if "Auto-Size User Interface to maintain Video Aspect Ratio" is enabled. If you try to move or resize the window after setting the Aspect Ratio, it will snap into shape.

- The right-click Open URL feature is now better adapted to opening SHOUTcast radio stations using the following format: http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=[number]

- If Smart Play was disabled, Zoom Player would not use the selected Audio Renderer if the "MPC Audio Renderer" was installed and not chosen.

- When using the "Disable Smart Play for files with the following extensions" feature, the selected Audio and Video renderers weren't used, but rather windows (DirectShow) selected its own renderers. Now, you can select if you want Zoom Player or Windows to select the renderers (see above).

- Trying to play a DVD's "VIDEO_TS.IFO" file in media mode would not remove the background image before starting to play the DVD.

- You can now seek, pause and play streaming MMS content.

- The Open-URL dialog was limited to 255 characters.

- The next/previous chapter and track functions can now continue to the next file in the directory when a file fails to load.

- When a custom video renderer does not support the "IBasicVideo2" interface, the Derived aspect ratio value is taken from the source video aspect ratio.

- The "xvid" profile is no longer used to verify that SmartPlay is properly configured.

- When using FFDShow as the Subtitle renderer, subtitles are now ordered alphabetically.

- Fixed a crash when using the FFDShow Subtitle renderer.

- Fixed a crash when trying to play MP3/FLAC/APE audio files with an embedded "BMP" album art image.

- Fixed a list index out of bounds crash when Random Play was enabled and the "On Playlist Complete" setting was not set to "Auto Replay".

- Fixed an "Out of Resources" crash when trying to set the Zoom resolution to a extremely high value (over 16384x16384, which is now the limit).

- When playing audio media, the player now uses folder or embedded images as the pseudo video resolution for functions that require it (such as auto-sizing the user interface to fit the source video resolution).

- Auto-Correction of video aspect ratio is no longer applied when viewing stand alone, folder and embedded images.
- Switching between audio and media modes after playing an audio file would show remnants of the TAG display in the GUI window if the audio file was closed.

- Switching Stay On Top on/off followed by pressing the "Enter" key would reload the currently playing media instead of the action assigned to the "Enter" key.

- You can now play URLs from the Play History dialog.

- You can now play URLs from the command line if Zoom Player is currently running.

- There is no longer a limit of 255 character when trying to open a URL or file from the command line while Zoom Player is currently running.

- When first loading, the keyboard focus is now set to the main player user interface rather than secondary interfaces (Playlist editor, Equalizer).

- When the "On Playlist Complete" setting is set to close Zoom Player or shutdown the computer, the action is no longer performed if the options dialog is open.
- When the "Auto-Play next file in the playlist" setting was disabled, pressing Play when reaching the end of a media file would not perform the "On Playlist Complete" event.

- When the "Move the Playlist Editor display to follow the currently playing media file" setting was enabled, the playlist tried to change position and follow a new item even if the new item was already visible.
- When setting the screen saver mode to "Image SlideShow", re-opening the options dialog would disable the Image Directory browse button.
- When switching between different screen saver modes, the mode switch would not work well if you didn't restart the player.
- When a language or custom context menu script used unicode characters for sub-menus, the root menu name was not properly identified and sub-menu items did not show up.
- When using a language pack, some translated window titles using unicode characters would appear as "????"

- Using the "Del" keyboard macro to delete the currently playing media now removes the entry from the file browsing navigation interface cache.
- Deleting the default "Drapes" navigation skin, will now allow you to select other navigation skins when listed as the first entry in the skin selection dialog.

- Loading image files with the internal image decoder, depending on the image's apsect ratio, could display in the wrong aspect ratio if the "Auto-Fix Aspect Ratio for badly encoded content" setting was enabled.

- The A-B Repeat and RingTone creation timeline highlights were not updated properly on the Control Bar's timeline.

- Ejecting certain drive types would cause Zoom Player to stop the currently playing media even if the media was not on the ejected drive.

- The "Open the Options Dialog on the active monitor" setting wasn't being applied to the Basic Options dialog.
- When using FFDShow as the Subtitle renderer while using a video decoder other than FFDShow, combining this setup with Haali Video Renderer, would result in a pin connection error.

- Skins with no hint value for the Volume/Balance/Play Rate bars showed unrelated hint text.

- Skins with no playlist skinned would show the default onyx skin for the playlist interface with broken button transparency (red borders).
- Selecting a skin or applying a skin tint from the skin selection dialog no longer causes the player window to pop over and obscure the skin selection dialog.

- Installing a Skin file would ask you to open the Skin selection dialog even if it was already open.

- Fixed the "FolderImage" skin script code function that got broken in v7.
- When sorting by Size in the Media Library and File Browsing fullscreen navigation interfaces, the "Play all files in this Directory" entry was listed before the "Previous Directory" entry.

- With "Stay on Top" enabled along with "Screen-Align the Control Bar to" set to either Top or Bottom of the screen, the control bar would lose it's on-top status and would disappear if you clicked the video area or if a new media loaded.

- Performing a legacy install (where all installed files are placed in a single folder) no longer warns you of a problematic installation if UAC (User Account Control) is enabled and you installed under a directory other than the "Program Files" directory. As well as the above, the warning dialog now contains an additional checkbox to dismiss it from showing on future runs.

- The main application window should now appear in Flip3D under Windows Vista and Windows 7.
- With "Adv. Options / On Screen Display / Actions - Show Time Position Over Timeline" enabled, pressing Alt+F4 would close the position window rather than the player window.


Zoom Player 7.0

Change list from RC2:

* Support for APE TAG embedded folder image (PNG and JPEG image format are supported).

* If a fullscreen navigation interface is visible, right-clicking it will show a "Close Navigator" option.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback - On Playlist Complete) allowing you to play the next file in the directory with the same file extension.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / BluRay) allowing you to specify when a detected BluRay playlist containing HD content of a specified duration will be detected as the main movie over an SD (DVD quality) of longer duration.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video / Subtitles) allowing you to specify the subtitle synchronization adjustment value used by the subtitle synchronization functions.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Control Bar), allowing you to auto-hide the control bar after the specified number of seconds even when playback is paused.

- Fixed a video stuttering issue when using certain video renderer with Aero Desktop Composition enabled (Windows 7/Vista).

- An "ACCESS VIOLATION 00000000 READ ADDRESS 00000000" error when using the advanced playlist control has been fixed.

- Using the previous chapter function with only one chapter would go to the previous track rather than seeking to the first chapter.

- When enabling "Close on Inactivity" for the fullscreen navigation interfaces, Opening a navigation interface through the SendMessage WinAPI command would have caused the dialog to time-out and close instantly.


Change list from RC1:

* Zoom Player can detect a Blu-Ray disc structure, parse the Blu-Ray playlist and automatically load the longest video in the playlist (which is assumed to be the main movie).Thanks Christophe.
This feature can be accessed through several ways: 1. Switching to DVD Mode and pressing Play. 2. Opening the Drive (through the right-click menu). 3. Opening the BluRay folder. 4. Opening the "index.bdmv" file, which is now listedin the various file browsing dialogs.
This feature is limited to Zoom Player Home MAX.

* The default skin's Control Bar now includes a pop-up volume window, allowing you to more accurately and easily set the volume levels while fullscreen.

* The "Remember the last Media Position" setting has now been overhauled into its own separate "History" sub-section under the "Playback" section within the advanced options dialog.

* The "Remember the last Media Position" setting has been split in two, with a setting for "Retain Media Playback History" and a setting for "Automatically restore last media position on replay". This gives more flexibility as to which aspects of playback should be restored when replaying a media file.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / History) which controls whether the last play time and date is saved for the playing media.If disabled, the play date is not saved and the playing item will not be listed in the play history and play history navigation interfaces.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / History) which controls whether the audio volume should be restored to its the previous level when replaying the media file.
With this setting enabled, the audio volume level is retained for every media file played within the Playback History retention period (default is 30 days).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / History) which controls whether the audio volume should be restored to its the previous level when replaying audio-only files.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video) allowing you to disable Zoom Player control over FFDShow's video Sharpening values.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video) allowing you to disable Zoom Player control over FFDShow's video DeInterlacing values.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video) allowing you to disable VMR7's mixing mode (can fix VMR7 issues with some hardware).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Audio) allowing you to link the 'Volume Up'/'Volume Down' functions to the Equalizer PreAmp function so when the volume level reaches 100% and you continue using the 'Volume Up' function, the Equalizer PreAmp value is increased.Clicking volume down will first reduce the PreAmp value and when the PreAmp value reaches its previous level, the volume level is reduced.Setting the volume level through other means, will reset the PreAmp value to its previous level.
PreAmp is a digital amplifier function which can reduce audio quality if the audio recording volume is normal, but can be very useful if the original recording volume is low.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface) allowing you to set the player to stay on top of other applications when switching to audio mode (and restoring a normal window state after returning to media mode).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Position & Size) affecting the "Auto-Size User Interface to fit Source Video Resolution". When enabled, only the user interface height is adjusted.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation) allowing you to set the navigation scroll acceleration speed.After some tweaking, the default value has been sped up to "Very Fast" scrolling.The previous default value was "Average".

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation) allowing you to set the navigation scroll acceleration reset time in MS. The new default value is 300ms, in v6 the fixed value was 500ms.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) allowing keyboard input to be used for Quickly Searching in many of the navigation interfaces.This setting is enabled by default.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation) allowing you to specify if keyboard searches are matched against the start of the line or any position in the line.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation) allowing you to set the keyboard input timeout (a value in MS indicating how much time should pass before the search query is reset).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / DVD / DVD Settings) that determines whether Zoom Player searches only CD devices (CD/DVD/BluRay/etc...) or all drives for content when pressing play in DVD Mode.Default is to only scan CD devices, but if you map network-shares as drives, you may want to turn this setting off.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video / Subtitles) allowing you to select whether Zoom Player disables FFDShow subtitle rendering when DirectVobSub is used as the Preferred Subtitle Renderer. By default, FFDShow subtitle renderer is disabled when using DirectVobSub.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video / Colors) which allows you to select whether FFDShow should be used for software color control.

* New Function (Alt+Shift+"Z") which compensates for badly encoded widescreen (16:9) content that is encoded in fullscreen (4:3) format by Zooming 33% into the Video (and returning to the previous video position when called a second time).
This function will also view widescreen (16:9) content as fullscreen on fullscreen (4:3) Monitors/TVs by Zooming in and cropping the left/right sides of the video.

* New Function (Ctrl+"E") allowing you to create Ring Tones by selecting a start and a stop position in many supported audio/video formats and extract the selected section in MP3/ACC formats supported by most mobile phones.
This feature requires the FFMPEG components installed on your system (which is available through the Install Center application).

* New Function (Alt+Shift+"W") to activate the White Wash screen-burn repair directly instead of accessing the function through the patterns function.

* The File Browser, Media Library and Playlist fullscreen navigation interfaces "Select" function has been expanded to allow selecting "Select all matching multi-part files", "All Audio", "All Pictures", "All Video" and "All matching the currently highlighted file Type" (file extension).

* The File Browser and Media Library fullscreen navigation interfaces can now access a "View" function which brings up a selection of files/information to view in the file list: 1. File Size 2. File Extension 3. Subtitle files 4. Archive files

* Pressing Right with the "Add to Playlist" function highlighted in the File Browser or Media Library fullscreen navigation interfaces will now take you to the Playlist navigation.Pressing left from the playlist navigator will take you back to the original navigation interface (either file browser or media library).

* New "Go to top of list" fullscreen navigation function (Applies to the Playlist, File Browser and Media Library interfaces).

* The Advanced Playlist Control interface has been redesigned to be more intuitive.

* The Play History fullscreen navigation interface implements a new function interface (accessible by clicking right).The functions are: 1. EraseCompletely erase the selected item. 2. HideHide the selected item, but keep media informationto maintain functionality (Last media position, volume). 3. Go to top of listMoves the focus to the top of the history list.

* Right-Clicking the Equalizer's bars will now reset each bar clicked to its default value.

* Hovering the mouse cursor over an Equalizer bar now shows its exact value.

* New "/WinName" command line parameter allowing you to set the Zoom Player Window Name.
For example: zplayer.exe "/winname:ZoomPlayer2"

* New File Association and Smart Play profiles for the MOD/TOD/MTS camcorder file extensions. (MOD = MPEG2 Program, TOD/MTS = MPEG2 Transport Stream).
Sadly, when JVC, Panasonic and Canon came up with the ".MOD" file extension, they didn't take into account its existing use as an Audio Tracker format.Due to this, ".MOD" extension is no longer associated with the MOD Audio Tracker format.You can change this default behavior by modifying Zoom Player's Smart Play profiles.

* Zoom Player will now save FFDShow's color control values in Zoom Player's media definition files (".df" file extension).

* New "VolumeWindow" Skin Script code, allowing you skin the new pop-up volume bar associated with the "fnVolumeWindow" function.

* Smart Play profile support for the latest DivX filters: MPEG4.ASP (DIVX/XVID) MPEG4.AVC (H.264) AAC Audio MKV Splitter

* You can now choose from three screen saver modes: 1. Plasma Cloud CGI. 2. Image Slideshow 3. Blank power-saving ode.

+ The default video renderer has been changed to VMR9 Windowless for Windows XP and EVR for Windows 7/Vista.

+ Scroll Acceleration is now active system-wide in all fullscreen navigation interfaces (where appropriate), making navigation faster and easier using remote devices and keyboards.

+ The media library fullscreen navigation interface now remembers the sorting order for each category independently.

+ The DirectShow filter registration options dialog feature (Adv. Options / System / Filter Management) has been rewritten to support configuration of popular DirectShow filters directly from the options dialog.Older unused filter profiles were removed and new updated profiles have been added.

+ You can now used Keyboard input with the GoTo navigation dialog to directly set the GoTo time.This requires that Keyboard Input for navigation be enabled.

+ Improved Screen Saver image selection randomness.No image will appear twice until all images were displayed first, even after the screen saver restarts.

+ Pressing PgDn/PgUp to play the next/previous media file in the same directory now works even after erasing the currently playing file, making it much easier to browse through a media or image collection to erase unwanted files.

+ Using the Next/Previous playlist track with random play enabled and only one file in the playlist no longer plays the same file again, but rather plays the next file in the directory.

+ The Advanced Options "Fullscreen Navigation" pages have been moved under the "Interface" section (previously it was within the "On Screen Display" section).

+ By default, the Media Library Filter Selection fullscreen navigation page will no longer appear when pressing Left on the Media Library category page (user-selectable through the options dialog).

+ The "Windows Media Video" Smart Play profile has been split into two distinct profiles: 1. Windows Media Video (used in WMV files) 2. VC1 (used in BluRay discs)

+ For clarity, the "Auto Segment Load" feature has been renamed "Multi Part file loader".

+ For clarity, the Multi Part file loader's "Segment Script" setting has been renamed "Name Masking" .

+ The "Multi Part file loader" feature has been disabled by default due to user confusion over files being added to the playlist automatically. You can re-enable this feature through the options dialog.

+ Pressing the ESC key with a fullscreen navigation interface enabled and secondary monitors are blanked will now remove the blanking first (In previous versions, the navigation interface was closed first).

+ Pressing the ESC key in the options dialog is now treated as if the Cancel button is clicked.

+ Frame Capture (Alt+"F") now works with the EVR video renderer.

+ Starting the screen saver from the main fullscreen navigation interface no longer pauses if an audio file is being played (only pause on video file).

+ To maintain backward compatibility, the Zoom Player chapter (bookmark) file extension has changed from ".chp" to ".zpchp". Zoom Player will still look for the ".chp" file when the newer format file doesn't exist.

- Closing multiple player instances at once with Zoom Player set to save its setting to a local file could cause the settings file to corrupt.

- A bug in the ID3v1 parser caused playlists containing audio files with ID3v1 tags not to save/load properly if the ID3v1 TAG contained in the audio file was semi-corrupt.

- Opening the options dialog through a skin button while a new audio file starts playing and the skin automatically changes to audio mode would cause a "not enough timers" crash.

- The "Default media open path" (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Paths) used by the standard open dialog and the file browsing fullscreen navigation interface can now accept network paths. For network paths to work with the file navigator, you must add the path under as an "Additional File Nav path" (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation).

- Chapters are now time based rather than frame based as different components (filters/renderers) would report different frame rates for the same media file, causing chapter files created with one set of filters playing invalid when using a different set of filters.

- Adding/Removing audio devices (such as a Skype Phone which acts as a speaker device), will no longer change the audio device settings Zoom Player uses.If you insert a new audio device while Zoom Player is already running, opening the options dialog or restarting the player is required.

- Zoom Player no longer requires "wmvcore.dll" on the system to run. (it may be required for WMV playback, depending on your setup).

- The Adjust Image fullscreen navigation interface lost the H-SIZE/V-SIZE values.They are now back.

- Fixed a crash when trying to open a DVD title over a network path.

- Fixed a rare crash when trying to show the Control Panel while the media library navigation interface is opening.

- The eMule File Tracker did not work with files between 2 and 4gb.

- The uTorrent File Tracker did not work if the Torrent folder and the torrent file name used the same name.

- The FFDShow Subtitle Renderer would sometimes display subtitles from previously played videos.

- Selecting files in the file Browser and Media Library fullscreen navigation interface and adding them to the playlist now adds them in the correct sorting order and doesn't re-sort the original list.

- Fixed a bug introduced in v7 RC1 which caused a "list index out of bounds" error when Random Play was enabled while only having one file in the playlist.

- Using the Quick Search function on the File Browser and Media Library fullscreen navigation interfaces with a directory containing a low number of files would previously show a blank screen.

- The "Play all files in this directory" navigation function would not appear if there was only one directory listed.Applies to both the media library and file browsing fullscreen navigation interfaces.

- Using the Quick Search function in a directory containing 1000's of files could cause the file names to be cut short.

- You can no longer set image-blanking values greater than the video size.

- Pressing Enter after closing the options dialog could cause a play command to be issued (instead of the assigned function).

- The internal screen saver will no longer activate when the White Wash pattern is in use.

- If "On Playlist Compelete" was set to "Do Nothing" and the video renderer was set as EVR, reaching a media's end would result in the video disappearing.

- The Filter Profiles list (Adv. Option / System / Filter Management) would not list any filters when doing a Standard install.

- Transparent buttons on the control bar would lose their transparency region under certain conditions.


Here's whats new in v7 RC1:

New :

* Zoom Player now notifies you of new versions automatically (can be disabled under "Adv. Options / System").

* The Audio TAG display system has been rewritten and includes the following new features: 1. Enhanced scripting of displayed data. 2. Text Background with customizable translucency levels. 3. Additional text color for additional clarity. 4. Selectable background color.

* New Mini-WebServer support (Adv. Options / System), allowing you to control Zoom Player through any web browser.The Mini-WebServer is fully HTML scriptable.

* Zoom Player can now control FFDShow's DeInterlacing setting, allowing you to Enable/Disable deinterlacing support from the keyboard (ctrl+shift+"D"), right-click context menu and the fullscreen navigation interface (through the Adjust Image interface).
Make sure to use the latest version of ffdshow (at least beta 6) for this to function.

* Zoom Player can now control FFDShow's Sharpen setting, allowing you to Enable/Disable sharpen support from the keyboard (ctrl+shift+"S") and fullscreen navigation interface (through the Adjust Image interface).

* Support for MadVR Video Rendering technology.

* Support for FLAC Vorbis Audio TAGs, including display of embedded image (as folder image, PNG/JPEG formats supported).

* Support for ID3v2 embedded image display (mostly in MP3 files) (displayed as folder image, PNG/JPEG formats supported).

* New Fullscreen Information Navigation interface, showing you information on the currently playing media (Name, Resolution, TAGs, Folder Image etc...). This interface uses the new TAG display script system to display more advanced information.

* New position value for the TAG display allowing you to set it to "Animate".

* Support for the new QuickTime v7 ActiveX control. The new QuickTime control seems better and has better stability.
QuickTime v6 (and older) ActiveX control is no longer supported. By default, the ActiveX control is not used for playback, but rather DirectShow is used (as it's more responsive and supports more features), ActiveX mode is for compatibility with QuickTime content that may not play properly through DirectShow.
You can enable ActiveX support for QuickTime under: Adv. Options / Playback

* You can now use the Microsoft Windows Media Player ActiveX control to stream Windows Media content (mms://, rtsp:// and http://www.website/stream.asx type links).Using the ActiveX control means you'll be losing any advanced DirectShow based features (such as color-controls and video renderer selection) but bypassing any microsoft bugs in their DirectShow bridge to Windows Media Streaming (such as streams suddenly stopping of their own).
This feature is enabled by default, you can disable it under : Adv. Options / Playback / Windows Media

* The resize fullscreen navigation interface now allows you to directly set the current Aspect Ratio as well as see the aspect ratio values for all Aspect Ratio modes.

* The equalizer fullscreen navigation interface now allows you to set the volume level.

* Pressing Left on the Main Navigation interface now brings you into a system function menu allowing you to close the navigation interface, start the screen saver, blank secondary screens or close the player entirely.This menu is not accessible if you are using Safe Mode navigation.

* You can now select if the Internal Screen Saver covers the entire monitor or only the active video area.

* You can now specify the slideshow value for the internal screen saver. The Default value is 15 seconds (previously it was once per minute).

* You can now select a transition effect for the internal screen saver.

* The play history fullscreen navigation interface now allows you to play back web addresses (mms streams for example) and such links are now identified by the URL icon.

* You can now Right-Click the volume bar to the left/right of the current volume level to increase/decrease the volume in small steps instead of directly setting the volume level with the mouse cursor position (which is done with the left mouse click).

* New "Save Playing file as ..." Function accessible through the Playlist right-click context menu or by using the Alt+Shift+"S" keyboard macro. When used, a save dialog will pop-up allowing you to save the currently playing media file to a new location on your computer.

* All Subtitle settings have moved to "Adv. Options / Playback / Video / Subtitles".

* Opening a subtitle file with a media playing will try to display the subtitles within the playing media.

* The file-open dialog now has a "Subtitles" filtering category.

* You can now select the preferred subtitle renderer filter.Options are 1. DirectVobSub, also known as "VSFilter" (default). 2. FFDShow.
When selecting FFDShow, Zoom Player will try to use the FFDShow video decoder filter to render the subtitles.If the FFDShow video decoder is not used, the FFDShow subtitle renderer filter will be used instead.
Please note that this feature requires FFDShow build 2998 or newer to function and wont work on versions of Windows older than Windows 2000. Previous FFDShow builds had a bug that limited subtitle functionality.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface) allowing you to select the active player mode (Previous/Media/DVD/Audio) that Zoom Player should start in.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Tags) allowing you to choose whether the Folder (Background) image is drawn.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) controlling whether subtitle files are listed in the Media Libary and File Browsing fullscreen navigation interfaces.

* New Settings (Adv. Options / Interface / Mouse) allowing you to change the functionality of the mouse right-click button.You can choose between Disabled, Context Menu (default) and a Custom function.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback) allowing you to control whether loading entire directories also loads image files (Used by Open Directory function, Play all files in this directory navigation function and when opening archives). Does not have an affect on Media Library image categories.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback) allowing you to choose whether to interact with QuickTime content or treat it as a media file.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Smart Play) which determines if Zoom Player falls back to DirectShow graph creation mode if Smart Play fails to create a media file graphic.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video / Color Control) allowing you to instruct Zoom Player to try use FFDShow as the preferred color control interface (overriding any hardware supported controls).
Please note that this feature requires FFDShow to be used as either the Video Decoder or as a Post Processing filter.

* New Settings (Adv. Options / System / Events) allowing you to execute an external program when Zoom Player is starting and closing (with an option to wait for the starting program to close).
Usage Example: Set a custom monitor resolution using an external command line tool and then set the resolution back when Zoom Player closes.

* New Settings (Adv. Options / Playback / Paths & Files) allowing you to hide the archive extraction window (the external program executed to extract the archive).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) allowing you to display file sizes.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) allowing you to pause the video when opening a navigation interface while a video file is playing (audio playback is unaffected by this setting).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) controlling whether right-clicking the navigation interface closes it.This was the previous default behavior, but the new default action is to display the context menu.Enable this setting to restore the previous default behavior.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) controlling whether the new Fullscreen Information navigation control routes keyboard input to the player (using the keyboard arrow keys to control the player rather than the fullscreen interface).

* New "/DATAPATH:[PATH]" command line parameter which can be used to specify an alternative path to any user-changeable configuration files used by Zoom Player, including: 1. "MediaAutoGraph" directory (Controls which decoders are used) 2. "DVD-Bookmarks" directory (DVD Bookmarks and Last Position data) 3. "zplayer.playcache" (Play History and Last Media Position) 4. "zplayer.library" (Media Library paths) 5. "zplayer.radio" (Streaming Station list) 6. "zplayer.eq" (The Audio Equalizer values) 7. "default.zpl" (The last active Playlist)
Usage: /DATAPATH:Z:ZP_DATA
When using this parameter, it's vitally important that at the very least, the "MediaAutoGraph" directory exists in the Data Path, otherwise, playback may fail.

* New "/DEINT:[0/1]" command line parameter to enable/disable DeInterlacing.
Usage: /DEINT:0 - DeInterlacing disabled. /DEINT:1 - DeInterlacing enabled.
DeInterlacing requires the use of FFDShow as either the Video Decoder or as a Post-Processing filter.

* New "/CLOCK:[n]" command line parameter that allows you to set the media synchronization timer for DirectShow playback.
Usage: /CLOCK:0 - Default (same as not using the parameter at all) /CLOCK:1 - Disables Synchronization entirely /CLOCK:2 - Sets Synchronization to the System Timer

* The Playlist Fullscreen navigation interface now allow you to enable/disable the Random Play state.

* Playback support for the AMR audio format and file association of the ".AMR" extension.

* Playback support for the VP7 video format and file association of the ".VP7" extension.

* Playback support for the Theora video format and file association of the ".OGV" extension.

* Playback support for the AIFF audio format and file association of the ".AIFF" extension.

* Playback support for the MPEG2 Transport Stream media format and file association of the ".M2TS" extension.

* Playback support for LPCM audio in M2TS files.

* Support for the Gabest MPEG2 Splitter audio stream switching using the keyboard macro Ctrl+"A".

* New Open Web Page function (Ctrl+"W") accessible from the right-click context menu, allowing you to open web pages in Zoom Player.

* New "Prune History" button (Adv. Options / Playback) which erases any play history entries that are no longer pointing to an existing file.

* New "<PlayListPos>" dynamic script variable that is used to display the current position in a playlist.

* New "<FilePath>" dynamic script variable that stores the currently playing media file path.

* Some of the fullscreen navigation interfaces have a new right-arrow on the active line indicating additional functionality when clicking right.

* Zoom Player now uses uTorrent's WebUI Token authentication for an additional security layer.

* The Station fullscreen navigation interface now indicates if a station is a TV or Radio station.

* The Station fullscreen navigation interface now remembers the last selected station when exiting the player.

* The Station Editor incorporated a new "Update Station" button allowing you to update a station's details without having to delete and add.

* The Media Library and File Browsing Fullscreen Navigation interfaces now support sorting by file size.

* Support for UTF8 encoded skin files (which can include UTF8 encoded text for button hints and other skin text elements).

* The Folder image base name (Adv. Options / System & Files / Paths, Folders & Files) can now accept multiple values for the base name separated by the "|" character.For example, setting the Folder image base name to "folder|album" would cover image files starting with "folder" and "album", such as: Folder.jpg Album.png

* New Menu script command allowing you to execute external programs through the right-click context menu.See "English.Menu" in the "Language" Zoom Player directory for more information.

* New "1100" CommAPI command which enables/disables timeline updates.



Changes :

+ The Color Control interface (Adv. Options / Playback / Video / Color Control) has been rewritten and now supports FFDShow as a mode of color control.
Zoom Player will first try to use Hardware Color Control (Overlay Mixer, VMR9 and EVR).But if a certain function isn't supported, it will try using FFDShow to supplement the functionality.
For example, neither EVR or VMR9 support Gamma controls, when these video renderers are in-use, Zoom Player will try using FFDShow to control the Gamma while the other color control remain hardware based.
Please note that FFDShow must be used as a decoder or post-processor for this modified feature to work.

+ Using Windows XP SP3 or Windows Vista SP1 should improve the open file dialog responsiveness.

+ The Media Library path editor has been further streamlined for simplicity.

+ All browsing for directory dialogs now allow you to specify a path through an edit box, making it easier to specify direct IP network paths.

+ When detaching the Control Bar, it now snaps to other interfaces such as the Video Window, Equalizer and Playlist Editor.

+ Opening the Main Navigation interface should now be faster, especially on multi-core CPUs.

+ The internal screen saver is now capped at 50fps.

+ Previously, when enabling text display for the internal screen saver, you had both the time and playing information displayed.You can now choose to display each individually.

+ The Station Editor interface has been redesigned for simplicity.

+ Random Play now remembers the random order of play so that you can go to a previous random track in the same order as it was played.

+ Support for more Flash Video and VP6 sub-types.

+ The Media Last Position database (used in play history and restoring the last position of a played media file) is now automatically saved every 30 minutes and a backup file is kept in case something goes wrong (previously it would only save when exiting the player, which could cause position data to be lost in cases where the computer or player crashed).

+ The Play History interface has been restructured to make it a bit easier to use.

+ The Search function within the play history dialog now filters the item list and only shows items that match the search value.

+ The "Adv. Options / System & Files / Paths, Folders & Files" page has been divided into more logical areas: 1. Adv. Options / Playback / Path & Files. 2. Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display /Fullscreen Navigation / Paths. 3. Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display /Audio Tags / Paths & Script.

+ The Frame Capture (screenshot) feature has been moved to: Adv. Options / System & Files / Screen Saver & Capture

+ Drives with no volume name no longer display empty brackets in the fullscreen file browsing navigation interface.

+ Playing a single file with random play enabled no longer plays that file in a loop if the "On Playlist Complete" setting is set to do something else.

+ The Volume Up/Down keyboard macros have been changed from Shift+"Home" and Shift+"End" to "+","=" (volume up) and "-" (volume down). The Previously associated Video Zoom-In/Zoom-Out functions are still accessible through the keypad "+" and "-" keys.
This should make it easier to control volume, especially on netbook/laptop type devices which don't have access to the keypad without using a special function button.

+ The active playlist is now automatically saved every 15 minutes (to prevent data lose in case windows crashes).

+ The "5000" CommAPI command used for seeking in time can now accept a fractional value indicating MS.For example, "122.500" will seek to 2 minutes,2 seconds and 500 ms.

+ The "Image Resize" fullscreen navigation interface has been renamed to "Adjust Image".

+ The "/Sort" command line parameter now works even if Zoom Player is already running.

+ The "File Extensions" Adv. Options Menu has been moved under the "File Format Association" menu (was previously under the system menu).



Fixes :

- Fixed a memory leak when playing web (HTML) files.

- Fixed a few rare occurrences of Floating Point errors.

- The "Export Settings" function would not properly save some unicode paths.

- The Skin Tint profiles did not support unicode names.

- Fixed a division by zero error in the Download Navigator when downloading 0bytes sized files from uTorrent or eMule.

- Fixed a memory leak in the Download Navigator.

- The Zoom Player Install Center application could show a newer version of an installed component as requiring an update.

- Having track information (Duration/TAGs/etc...) loaded in the background would not properly read non-english character sets.

- Sorting randomly didn't maintain the playing index which could cause the wrong TAG information to be displayed.

- When playing a media file from the fullscreen navigation interfaces, Zoom Player will now hide the default background image beforehand so there's a smoother transition into the video.

- Associating a file extension (".avi" for example) through the open-with Windows Explorer dialog under vista would disable Zoom Player's ability to associate the file extension.

- Doing a Standard (non-legacy) Zoom Player install with UAC disabled would sometimes break file association (usually due to a bad install).

- M3U playlists with directory-relative file paths would not always load.

- Trying to register Zoom Player automatically by double-clicking the registration file would fail if the evaluation period has ended.

- Loading or Dropping a subtitle file no longer reloads the file to display the subtitles if the subtitle rendering filter is already in the graph.

- Cycling through Subtitle tracks in ".MKV" files containing no internal subtitles with one external subtitle file, didn't work.

- You can now associate shortcut files (".lnk") with Zoom Player DVD external program execute events (On PAL/NTSC DVD detected and On DVD Stop events).

- An access violation crash could occur if you have the stop function set to closing the playing media (instead of seek to start), move the previously played file to a different directory, try playing it again (and fail since the file is no longer there) and then try playing a DVD.

- If you had the "Hide extension for known file types" enabled in Explorer's folder view options dialog, Zoom Player's open dialog would not list the correct files.

- The "/Sort" command line parameter did not function if no files were specified as part of the command line.

- The Open Dialog did not list CD Audio files when the media type was set to CD-Audio.

- The Open Dialog did not list the DVD file (VIDEO_TS.IFO) when setting the media type to "Video".

- The file browser fullscreen navigation interface did not list download percentage for eMule/uTorrent downloads under some conditions even when correctly configured.

- When enabling "Continue to the next item on the playlist when an invalid file is played", the next playing file could display an incorrect aspect ratio and may even not load if the next file was the last in the playlist.

- When drag & dropping files to the playlist editor, the currently playing file would not highlight correctly and going to the next/previous track (file) may load the wrong one.

- When drag & dropping files to a specific spot in the playlist editor, the files would appear in reverse order.

- The file association options dialog page would show incorrect icons if you were using Windows Vista with UAC enabled.

- Newer version of the Flash ActiveX component are now detected. Previously flash playback would work, but the player would list it as missing.

- The "Open Directory" function should now work properly with network paths.

- The ".3G2" extension was missing from the default video extension list.

- Having the control bar auto-hide when the mouse cursor is moved away didn't work properly on secondary monitors.

- If the internal screen saver was active in combination with the Guard Dog feature (Adv. Options / System), the Guard Dog would misidentify the player as unresponsive and close it.

- The internal screen saver would not activate if the secondary monitors were blanked out.

- The internal screen saver no longer shows or moves the mouse cursor.

- The internal screen saver did not respect the aspect ratio of images displayed when the Source Relative Stretch (Pixel Aspect Ratio) feature was enabled.

- With the internal screen saver's streamer function disabled, the transition effects got broken.

- The internal screen saver would take CPU power even if the streamers were disabled.It now takes a lot less CPU power (only during transitions).

- The "1950" CommAPI command used for removing items from the playlist did not properly adjust the currently playing item index when an item was removed.In addition, it would not close the currently playing file if it was removed.

- You can now paste (Ctrl+V) into the Chapter editor's "Go To time" and "Go To Frame" dialogs.


--- What's new in v6.00:

New :

* Since a lot of people don't appreciate the changes microsoft
made to Windows Vista with its UAC limitations, the Zoom Player
installer now lets you choose between two modes:

Standard install where dynamic files are saved in the AppData
(Application Data) directory and static files are saved in the
install directory.This is required when running Windows Vista
with UAC enabled or running Windows XP with a limited user account.

Legacy mode where all the files are saved in the selected directory.
This is easier to backup, but wont work properly when running
Vista with UAC enabled or Windows XP on a limited user account.
With Legacy mode selected, the file extension association functionality
is restored to Windows XP levels (UAC under Windows Vista limits some
file extension association functions such as changing file icons).

* To maintain compatibility with Windows Vista's user account control
(UAC) mechanism, the Zoom Player installer (using Standard Install)
will move all files that require modification to the windows Application
Data directory (Can be reached by typing "%AppData%Zoom Player"
in any folder window).

In addition to the move, user-specified skins must be re-selected
through the skin selection dialog.

* Zoom Player now warns you when it detects you are running in
legacy mode under restricted file access (UAC in Vista or a limited
user account under XP/Vista).

* New "Auto-Configure" button on the Smart Play options dialog.
When clicked, all current decoder configuration will be reset
and then the system is scanned for the best decoder configuration
using the currently installed decoders.

* New F8/F9 skin modes (equivalent to the Onyx Lite skin).

* Full EVR (Enhanced Video Renderer) support.
Please note that due to a Microsoft issue/bug, you must use
YUY2 as the colorspace, otherwise color control features
will not function.

* Added support for Haali's Video Renderer technology.
Haali's Video Renderer uses Bicubic interpolation of video using
3D hardware.This means improved video quality, especially when
up-scaling to higher resolution.Older 3D Graphic card may not
be supported (Cards with PS 1.4 or better should work well).

* Zoom Player can now communicate with uTorrent's Web UI interface
in order to display download progress within the Media Library
and File Browsing fullscreen navigation interfaces.This feature
is accessible under "Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display /
Fullscreen Navigation / File Tracker".Press the "?" button on
this page for additional information.

* Zoom Player can now keep track with eMule's temporary files directory
in order to display download progress within the Media Library
and File Browsing fullscreen navigation interfaces.This feature
is accessible under "Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display /
Fullscreen Navigation / File Tracker".Press the "?" button on
this page for additional information.

* New "Download Manager" navigation interface (Ctrl+"J"), allowing you
to get an overview of your currently downloading files (compatible with
eMule and uTorrent).

* You can now specify additional paths for the File Browser (Adv. Options /
Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen Navigation).
New paths appear as drives.You can add network shares (for example
"//USER/Video/" and even local paths such as "C:Media" creating instant
shortcuts to important directories on your system.

* The File Navigation interface now shows the drive sizes and free space.

* The Chapter editing interface has been modified with a chapter name history
drop-down list and instead of a dialog opening up when adding a chapter,
now you can just type in the chapter name (or pick from the drop-down
history list) and press enter or click the add chapter button, making it
easier to add chapters.

* The Scene Cut editor has been simplified and enhanced.The Scene cut
editor no longer requires you to click on the save button, saving is
done automatically now. A new edit button allows you to edit entries
without having to remove an old entry first.Lastly, the scene cut
interface layout has been updated to make it simpler to use.

* Zoom Player's ".zpl" playlist format has been extended to support
TAG data (author,composer,artist,etc).All TAG data read from
a media file (ID3,ApeTAG,WMA Tag,etc) is automatically saved
within the play list format (allowing you to override TAG data
display without actually modifying the source media file).

* New "Configure Subtitle Filter" button (Adv. Options / Playback /
Video & Subtitles) allowing you to configure the Subtitle filter
more easily.

* Options dialog tree nodes now have an icon to make them easier to
navigate and remember.

* The Media Library, File Browser and Playlist fullscreen
navigation interfaces now offer a "Quick Search" option
allowing you to more easily browse through large listings.
The Quick Search option is accessible by navigating to the
right and selecting the "Quick Search" entry.

* The Media Library and File Browser navigation functions have
been restructured so that the sorting function is now part
of a sub-menu.

* "Select All" and "Clear Selection" functions have been added
to the Media Library and File Browser navigation interfaces
as a sub-menu under the "Select" function.

* The Playlist navigation interface has been restructured so
that the sorting method is now a sub-menu with more sorting
options available (by Size, Directory, Date and Randomly).

* Pressing right on the Playlist history navigation interface
now brings you to the top of the list (the most recently
played item).

* New "Navigation Style" Navigation interface, allowing the
navigation skin to be replaced from within the navigation
interface itself.

* New "Open Navigator" button on the Media Library Path Editor.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Video / Aspect Ratio)
instructing Zoom Player "Derived" Aspect Ratio mode to Automatically
Adjust (fix) the Aspect Ratio for badly encoded content.
This would convert 4:3 content encoded as 720x480 to display as 720x540,
720x576 to 768x576, 352x240 to 352x264, 352x288 to 384x288, etc...
Badly encoded 16:9 content is also adjusted in a similar fashion.

This setting also fixes small aspect ratio inaccuracies caused by a
requirement made by video encoders for the video pixel width or height
to be dividable by 16 (or 8 or 4).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface) allowing you to disable the
delete key from erasing the currently playing file.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface) allowing you to lock filter/decoder
configuration (property) pages to the main user interface (otherwise they
appear as a floating window).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display) allowing you
to select custom DVD & Media background images.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display /
Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) allowing you to skip the "Library
Filter Mode" page.With this setting enabled, navigating left on the
media library category list will go straight to the Main navigation menu.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display /
Fullscreen Navigation) allowing you to specify the minimum number of
characters that appear when using Quick Search.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display /
Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) restoring the ability to "Play all
files in this Directory" from the main file list (file and
media library navigators).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display /
Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) allowing you to select if Cut,
Copy & Paste operations allow you to overwrite files.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display /
Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) allowing you to highlight previously
viewed files.This setting with the "remember last
media position" setting (Adv. Options / Playback) and will
highlight any previously viewed file in the Media and File
Navigation interfaces by making its icon semi-transparent.
Please note that this feature can tax the CPU if the play
history (generated by remembering the last media position)
is over a few 100 files.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback) allowing you to set the
"On Play Complete" event (which triggers when a playlist has
finished playing) to "Randomize & Replay", giving you another
random play method.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback) allowing you to limit
remembering the last media position to media files longer than
a specified amount of minutes.This is useful when you don't want
the last media position remembered when playing short media files.

* New Button (Adv. Options / Playback) allowing you to reset the
Remember Last Position cache (and play history, which use the same data).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video & Subtitles) allowing
you to enable/disable Closed Captions support for media files.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video & Subtitles) allowing
you to automatically hide Closed Captions when playing media files.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video & Subtitles) allowing
you play media files with the subtitles not showing by default.

* New "Guard Dog" feature (Adv. Options / System).
When enabled, the Guard Dog periodically tests that the Zoom Player
process is responding.If the process stops responding for a
specified number of seconds, the Guard Dog will close the player and
start a new instance using a specified command line parameter list.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / System & Files / Paths, Folders
and Files), allowing you to select the Frame Capture (screenshot)
format.BMP, PNG and JPEG are supported.

* New Auto-Segment load setting (Adv. Options / System & Files /
Paths, Folders and Files), allowing you to match file names
automatically by how similar they are.Press the "?" button
for more details on how the matching works.This feature is
on by default for versions that support it.

* New Function (fnBlankMonitors) assigned to the Alt+Shift+"K"
keyboard macro, allowing you to manually toggle blanking
(black-out) of non-playing monitors.The automatic-blanking
of non-playing monitors is accessible through the options
dialog (Adv. Options / System - Blank non-Playing Monitors
while in Fullscreen / Zoom mode).Pressing ESC restores
any blanked out monitor.

* New Function (fnFSActMonitor) assigned to the Alt+Shift+"Enter"
keyboard macro, allowing you to go fullscreen on the currently
active monitor, overriding the fullscreen to monitor "X" setting.

* New "fnPosToClipboard" function (Alt+Ctrl+"C") allowing you to copy
the current playing position to the windows clipboard (which can then
be pasted in another program).

* The Zoom Player function selection dialog is now split into three
categories: Content, Interface and Control.The function list is
also sorted, making functions easier to find.

* New Vista specific feature allowing you to make the entire
Zoom Player window semi-transparent.This also requires that
you use a video renderer that would work (Haali's/VMR9/EVR)
and that VISTA Aero is enabled.To use:
Alt+Ctrl+F4 = Fully visible window.
Alt+Ctrl+F5 = 80% visibility.
Alt+Ctrl+F6 = 60% visibility.
Alt+Ctrl+F7 = 40% visibility.

You can also specify exact transparency values using the new
"exTransWin" extended function.

* New "exTransWin" extended function, allowing you to specify
a transparency value (1-255) for the Zoom Player window.
This function requires Windows VISTA with Aero enabled.

* New "exRandomPlay" extended function, allowing you to discretely
set the Random Play setting to on/off (compared to the fnRandomPlay
function which toggle between on/off).

* New "exSkinTint" extended function allowing you to set the skin's RGB
tinting value.

Example:
zplayer.exe /exfunc:exskintint,$7F3000

* New "/Browse" command line parameter instructing Zoom Player to open
the specified web address in its internal web browser.This command line
works even if Zoom Player is already running.

Example:
zplayer.exe /browse:http://www.inmatrix.com

* New "/SP:[n]" command line parameter allowing you to turn Smart Play ON/OFF.
To turn Smart Play off use "/SP:0" to turn it on use "/SP:1".

* New "/Color" command line parameter allowing you to set the skin's RGB
tinting value




Example:
zplayer.exe /color:$7F3000

* New "/Config" command line parameter.Using this parameter,
you can specify which local (non-registry) configuration file
Zoom Player should use. This parameter is very useful when running
multiple instances of Zoom Player, each with a different configuration.
If the specified configuration file doesn't exist, Zoom Player will
create one (using the default configuration).

Usage:
zplayer.exe "/config:z:path to config filefilename.local"

Note that the "" characters are required as this command
line parameter contains spaces.

* New "/Func" command line parameter.This parameter allows
you to instruct Zoom Player to execute functions directly
from the command line.

This parameter can also be used while Zoom Player is running,
enabling simple command-line based automation.

Example for always starting with the Main Navigator open:
zplayer.exe /Func:fnMainNav

For a full function list, see the Function List:
http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/highlights/zpfunctions.shtml

* New "/ExFunc" command line parameter.This parameter allows
you to instruct Zoom Player to execute extended functions
directly from the command line.

This parameter can also be used while Zoom Player is running,
enabling simple command-line based automation.

Example for always starting with the Playlist Editor open:
zplayer.exe /ExFunc:exInterface,2

For a full function list, read the Skinning Tutorial:
http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/highlights/zpfunctions.shtml

* New "/MultInst" command line parameter.Using this parameter
instructs Zoom Player to start another instance of the player
even if Zoom Player's multiple-instances setting is set to
disabled.

* New "/nCols", "/nRows", "/Col" and "/Row" command line parameters
allowing you to divide the active monitor into columns and rows which can
be used to position the player window.The "/nRows" defines the number
of rows, "/nCols" defines the number of columns, "/Col" defines the
active column (starting with column "0") and "/Row" defines the active
row (starting with row "0").

Example:
zplayer.exe /ncols:3 /nrows:3 /col:1 /row:1

* New "/StartPath" command line parameter allowing you to set the initial
path for the file-open dialog and the file browsing navigation interface.

* New "IconScale" parameter for the "ListData" navigation
skin-script command, allowing you to set the size of
list line icons relative to the size of the line height.

* New "" skin script dynamic variable that returns the current
playing index.

* New "" skin script dynamic variable that returns the current
playlist item count without adding the "file(s)" text to the returned value.

* All screen saver settings have been moved to:
Advanced Options / System / Screen Saver

* The internal screen saver has been enhanced to support image
slideshows in addition to the plasma background.

* You can now specify if the text information and animated streamers
are displayed by the internal screen saver.

* Added support for the Microsoft DVD decoders (part of Windows Vista).

* Support for PowerDVD v8 filters (CD Audio/H.264/MPEG2 and DVD Navigation)

* Added support for the "ffds" XVID sub-type created by the
ffdshow encoder.

* New "default" button next to the Archive Playback configuration
dialog (Adv. Options / System & Files / Paths, Folders and Files).

* Added support for DCoder's Bass Source filter.The bass
source filter adds support for the following audio formats:
AAC, ALAC, APE, FLAC, MP3, MPC, TTA, WV, MO3, IT, XM, S3M,
MTM, MOD, UMX.

* Added support for DCoder's Bass Source filter SHOUTcast streaming.
DCoder's Bass Source filter is more reliable and supports streaming
of SHOUTcast MP3/OGG/AAC content.

* Added support for the Illiminable FLAC decoder as an alternative
to CoreFLAC.

* Added support for FLV4 type Flash Video (".FLV" files).

* The Keyboard Shortcut list (F1) has been restructured, making it
easier to find keyboard macros.

* Can now quickly get duration for Windows Media Audio (".wma") files.
The default value for auto-get duration now includes the "wma" format,
If you are upgrading from a previous installation, you will need to
go to "Adv. Options / System / File Extensions" and press the Default
button next to the "Auto-Get Duration" edit line.

* The ".DVR-MS" file extension can now be associated with Zoom Player.

* The ".EVO" file extension can now be associated with Zoom Player.

* Added support for the ".CBR" and ".CBZ" comic book formats to the
archive extraction tool.To enable, you must reset to the default
archive extensions (Adv. Options / System & Files / File Extensions).

* Initial EVO/EVOB (HD-DVD video files) playback support,
If you are upgrading from a previous installation, you will need to
go to "Adv. Options / System / File Extensions" and press the Default
button next to the "Video" edit line.

* You can now activate a Zoom Player registration by double-clicking
on a valid "zplayer.regkey" file from within Explorer.

* New "ProgressColor" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation
Skin-script command, allowing you to select which color will be
used when displaying download progress within the Media Library,
File Browsing and Download Manager fullscreen navigation interfaces.

* New "PathColor" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation
skin-script command, allowing you to select which color will be
used for the path text within the Media Library, File Browsing
and Download Manager fullscreen navigation interfaces.

* New "PathOutline" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation
skin-script command, allowing you to select which outline color will
be used for the path text within the Media Library, File Browsing
and Download Manager fullscreen navigation interfaces.

* New "PathExtraColor" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation
skin-script command, allowing you to select which outline color will
be used for the extra path text within the Media Library, File Browsing
and Download Manager fullscreen navigation interfaces.

* New "PathExtraOutline" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation
skin-script command, allowing you to select which outline color will
be used for the path extra text within the Media Library, File Browsing
and Download Manager fullscreen navigation interfaces.

* New "ConfirmColor" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation
skin-script command, allowing you to select which color will be
used for the confirmation fullscreen navigation interface.

* New "ConfirmOutline" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation
skin-script command, allowing you to select which outline color will
be used for the confirmation fullscreen navigation interface.

* The DVD AutoGraph script format now supports a parameter that
connects the Video Decoder's Subpicture pin to the Video Renderer
directly (to support DXVA with subtitles).

* New DVD profiles for the Convolver filter:
http://convolver.sourceforge.net/

* The Main fullscreen navigational interface is now accessible directly through
the right-click context menu.

* Support for the ".WAX" ,".WVX", ".WMX" playlist file extensions.

+ Newly supported file extensions: M4B, HDMOV.

* New "1130" CommAPI command that retrieves the currently playing frame rate
per second (FPS).This is the same value seen on the information dialog
("I" keyboard macro).

* New "1140" CommAPI command that retrieves that estimated frame rate per
second (FPS).This value is not 100% accurate as some formats do not
have a fixed frame rate or simply do not report a frame rate.In cases
where the real FPS is unattainable, an estimated FPS value is returned.

* New "1811" CommAPI command allowing you to retrieve the number of items
in the current playlist.This message is also shown when the playlist
item count is modified.

* New CommAPI message 1860 allowing you to pass a web address (URL) for
Zoom Player to open.



Changes :

+ "Zoom Player WMV Professional" has been renamed to
"Zoom Player Home Premium".

"Zoom Player Standard" has been renamed to
"Zoom Player Home Basic".

+ Dropping items into the playlist now drops the items at the mouse
cursor position in the playlist.

+ The Color Control and Equalizer navigation interfaces have been
redesigned to take less screen space.

+ The default skin is now selected directly from the skin list,
(as the first skin listed) instead of clicking on the default
skin button.

+ The skin selection interface is now sorted alphabetically.

+ The skin selection interface behavior has been changed slightly.
In order to apply a custom tint, you must now click the Apply Tint
button.

+ The default Audio mode skin now has a wider volume bar and
includes a new button that opens the station manager.

+ The Control Bar and OSD Pop-ups are now accessible even when the
player window is set to "Stay on Top".

+ Pressing stop twice was set to resume playback from the position
prior to the stop function being called.This wasn't too clear so
now a "Resume" OSD message pops up.

+ The Navigation interfaces should work slightly faster, especially
in situations where more complex navigation skins are used (skins
with large transparency effects).

+ When setting the navigation interface's line count, the Equalizer
and Color Control interfaces ignore a value of "-2" as they are
only 3 lines to begin with.

+ The Frame Capture Alt+"F" (screenshot) function should now work
in all video renderers except Overlay Mixer, VMR9 Renderless
(VMR9 Windowed and Windowless should work) and EVR.

+ The archive configuration now allows you to specify dynamic system
paths.For example:
"%programfiles%7-Zip7z.exe" x "%n" "-o%p"
Instead of :
"C:Program Files7-Zip7z.exe" x "%n" "-o%p"
The default values have been updated and you can use the new
default button to set them.

+ The ".iso" and ".img" extensions have been moved from the executable
extension list into the archive extension list.With the latest
version of 7-Zip (www.7-zip.org) installed, you can now extract
and play CD/DVD images directly from within Zoom Player.Make sure
to press the default buttons (Adv. Options / System / File Extensions).

+ The Main Navigation interface should appear much quicker now,
especially when accessed while a video is playing.

+ The "/X", "/Y", "/W" and "/H" command line parameters now
function even if Zoom Player is already running, allowing
you to re-position & size the main user interface window
from the command line (previously, these parameters only
worked when initially running Zoom Player).

+ The Media Library and File Browser navigation functions have been
re-ordered for increased usability.

+ The File Association options dialog has been restructured
for additional clarity.

+ You can now specify a +6,+8 or +10 values for the navigation
interface line count.

+ Function descriptions have changed to make them easier to Read,
Understand and Search.

+ The Girder Exported commands are now sorted and split into
categories, making it easier to program remote devices
and home automation systems.

+ Mouse left click while holding the Alt key now zooms in 10%
instead of 50% (which wasn't as useful).

+ The Alt+"S" keyboard macro that shows the subtitle filter configuration
dialog can now be used without any media playing.

+ Ctrl+"C" now enables/disables closed captioning when used by
media files (it was previously limited to DVDs).

+ You can now select a custom playlist font without having to
customize the playlist colors as well.

+ Synchronizing the Subtitles Ahead/Back is now done in 100ms
increments (instead of the previous 25ms).

+ The Mouse Wheel "function-cycle" function and the Mouse Wheel
Function navigation interfaces now list the custom function as
the actual function name instead of "Custom".

+ The AB-Repeat function (Alt+"R") used to loop a specific section of
audio/video will now highlight the timeline to indicate the looping
section (only on the default and newer skins).

+ When using the File Browsing and Media Library navigation interfaces, the
Copy & Paste functions will now show an OSD message while moving files and
a success/fail OSD message when the file operation completes.

+ The File Browser and Media Library navigation interfaces will now
display the file's icon when using the function pane.

+ If no navigation interfaces are enabled through the options dialog,
the main navigation interface will no longer be accessible.

+ The DVD Fast Forward and Rewind rate now support two more values:
"8/16/32" and "12/24/48".

+ Opening "mms://" addresses should now work a little better.

+ When opening the player with secondary windows open (playlist editor,
equalizer, etc...) the keyboard focus did not remain on the main window.

+ Several items on the right-click menu have been renamed for clarity.

+ The "Add Chapter" function's keyboard macro has been changed from "C" to
Ctrl+Shift+"C".

+ Real-Time Frame rate reporting on the information dialog should now work
with Custom Video Renderers as long as they support the IQualProp interface.

+ The "1600,1601 and 1703" Audio Track CommAPI commands are now accessible
for media files (no longer limited to DVDs).

+ The "1700,1701,1703 and 1704" Subtitle CommAPI commands are now accessible
for media files (no longer limited to DVDs).

+ Updated description of video renderers.

+ When opening the options dialog on a monitor with resolution too low
to display the entire dialog, the dialog will now cover more of the
screen area.

+ Enabling/Disabling the DVD & Media Background images has moved to
"Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display"



Fixes :

- A bug in the archive extracting code could cause extracted
archive to extract in the wrong directory under some conditions.

- When random play was enabled and only one file was playing,
the "On Play Complete" event was called if the same file was
opened twice.

- The external command to "Enqueue/Play with" Zoom Player has been
moved to a shell extension under Windows 2000/XP/Vista, making it
faster and more reliable.

- Playing the next/previous file in the directory, or using similar
functions such as playing the next/previous file of the same type
in the directory didn't work with UNC paths (network paths).

- When extracting and playing the content of an archive file, the
first file in the archive would be loaded twice in succession.

- Some M3U playlist files wouldn't load properly if the files within
contained ANSI characters which conflicted with UTF8 decoding.

- Setting a custom aspect ratio with a "0" value could cause
Zoom Player to crash with an invalid division by zero error.

- A sorting glitch was fixed in the file browser and media library
navigation interfaces where the "Go to previous directory" option
appeared at the bottom of the file list instead of at the top.

- Deleting entries from the Chapter Browser navigation interface no
longer causes a "Divide by Zero" error in some cases.

- Having both "Auto-Size User Interface to maintain Video Aspect Ratio"
and "Prevent moving the user interface off the primary monitor" enabled
could cause a freeze when using the Alt+"4" or Alt+"5" functions to Zoom
the video window beyond the size of the monitor.

- When using the internal image decoder, Zoom Player can now detect
badly named image files (such as PNG files with JPG extension).
Supported mislabeled image formats include: BMP, JPG, PNG.

- Some MJPEG files may not have been detected properly by Smart Play.

- Fix for the Zoom Player Install Center where it wouldn't
recognize certain updates as up to date if they were
installed to a unicode file path.

- The Zoom Player registration key is now searched for in
both the Zoom Player directory and in the application data
directory.

- Pressing "Del" to erase the currently playing file with
other entries selected in the playlist would not remove the
erased file from the playlist.

- ID3/TAG display of unicode file name would show "???" if
the audio file had no ID3 data.

- ID3/TAG display of unicode file name would show "???" if
the audio file ID3 data containing unicode text and the
Windows country code was non-english.

- ID3/TAG display wouldn't always update when loading certain
audio file formats.

- When trying to select a DVD auto-execute software (Adv. Options /
Playback / DVD / DVD Tools), typing in the "New" field would not
enable the "Apply" button.

- The Skip to the next file in the playlist when an unplayable file is
encountered function no longer skips to the next file if the entire
playlist is unplayable.This fix prevents the playlist from looping
in error messages forever.

- Improved Network path support for paths starting with "//".

- The internal image decoder can now load images from network paths.

- Ejecting a drive while listening to streaming media could cause
playback to stop.

- Using the "," character as part of a chapter name would truncate
the chapter name.

- When specifying a transparent color for the Timeline, loading
a different skin that didn't contain timeline transparency would
not clear the transparent regions properly.

- Fixed a bug where applying a custom File Extension Association icon
would not always work properly.

- Failing to load a media file with a background image enabled could
cause the background image to display in an incorrect aspect ratio.

- The TV Pattern mode would incorrectly draw a red vertical line at
some resolutions.

- The background image and circle pattern would not respect the source
relative stretch feature when it was set to a specific monitor (the
stretch value was applied to all monitors).

- Cosmetic fix for the navigation scrollbar widget being slightly
inaccurate position wise.

- Under some conditions, the TCP port would not become accessible.

- File Association should now be working under Windows VISTA with
UAC mode enabled.

- The "Continue to the next item on the playlist when an invalid
file is played" didn't work when the file was missing rather than
corrupt/problematic.

- Using the play next file in the same directory should no longer flash
the media background images between files. This fix also makes the
images load faster.

- When the player was set to "Stay On Top", some options dialog sub-menus
would appear beneath the options dialog, making them inaccessible.

- When Stay On Top was enabled, some interfaces were appearing behind
the main user interface.

- Setting a Playlist Font/Color override would return to the skin values
when switching skin modes.

- When the player window would lose focus, the control bar
stopped auto-hiding.

- With some file formats, the playlist would not update the
total playlist duration properly.

- Enabling the "Show Time Seek Position Over Timeline" feature
would cause the Zoom Player window to become the top-most
window if the mouse cursor hovered over the timeline.

- Trying to open the Options dialog with the main window set
to "Stay on Top" and Zoom Player set to only show an icon on
the tray area would cause the options dialog to appear behind
the main window.

- Monitor Powerdown will no longer be disabled when playing
in windowed mode (Powerdown will only be disabled when
fullscreen).

- Exporting Girder commands while using a local configuration file would
not use the correct window name, preventing the exported girder file
from working.

- More cases of unsupported hardware color control are now detected by the
color control navigational interface.

- Disabling the "'Del' key moves media files to the recycle bin (with
confirmation)" settingwould erroneously disable the erase function from
working in the media library and file browsing navigation interfaces.

- Trying to play Audio-CDs through the file browsing navigation interface
would not play the file.

- Detaching the control bar would not snap its position to
the previously saved detached position under some conditions.

- With a detached Control Bar, it was possible for the mouse wheel
functions not to work if the control bar was moved.

- Trying to play streaming content while in DVD Mode would not
switch to media mode automatically and then fail to play.

- The Context Navigator did not use the scripting parameters
assigned to it correctly.

- The Contact Sheet creation form didn't allow you to select
the contact sheet color values.

- Some navigation interface titles could not be translated
into other languages.

- The "exSetMode" function would not switch modes properly
under some conditions.

- Switching between Media/DVD/Audio mode could result in
an Audio mode skin loaded in DVD mode.

- Switching between skin modes in the skin selection dialog would not update
the available skin lists properly between modes.

- Opening the skin selection dialog with a navigation interface visible
would not show the correct tint values (it showed the skin's tint
values rather than the navigation tint values).

- When Stay On Top was enabled, the seek-to hint window would appear
behind the main user interface window.

- The "Scrollbar Highlight" color for forced Playlist colors
was not being saved properly.

- If the internal screen saver got activated with the open
file dialog already open, it could cause Zoom Player to
become non-responsive.

- Navigation interfaces would not appear when using VISTA Aero and
having the blank secondary monitor feature enabled.

- Pressing Insert in the File Navigator with no files listed would
raise a List out of Bounds error.

- The File Navigator would forget the last active drive if you opened
and closed Zoom Player without opening the navigator.

- The "/F:[x]" and "/Z:[x]" parameters did not go Fullscreen on the right
monitor if Zoom Player was in window mode.

- Fixed a buffer overlow issue thanks to Luigi Auriemma.

- Fixed a number is not integer error with the uTorrent file tracker.

- The Zoom Player install center would not allow you to configure
filters if Zoom Player was installed in a unicode directly.

- Loading ".WPL" playlist containing network addresses should now
look for the files over the network rather than in a local path.

- The basic options dialog tree list wouldn't translate properly.

- Windows Media files that required a password to play would fail to
display the password prompt and fail to play.

- Switching the Navigation Interface color-tint through the skin
selection interface could cause a crash under certain circumstances.

- Playing a media file from one of the navigation interfaces no
longer shows the media background image before playing the file.

- Having the Control Bar Auto-Show and then having it Auto-Hide
if the distance is too big could cause the Control Bar to
remain on-screen under some circumstances.

- The Scene-Cut Jump and Mute Audio functions were not working correctly.

- Clicking on the Zoom Player tray icon while fullscreen on a secondary
monitor would cause the Zoom Player window to resize without drawing
the skin properly.

- Improved stability for DCoder's DVB filter's graph building.

- Ejecting a non-playing CD/DVD/USB device while a DVD is playing
would cause the DVD to stop.

- The Next/Previous chapter functions were not working properly in
the default DVD skin.

- On some non-standard resolution, the fullscreen navigation interface
would not cover the right-most pixel.

- Playing audio files with file extensions that could also be used for
video files (such as ".MP4") would have Zoom Player remember the
last media position for the audio file, even if remembering audio
file last position was disabled.

- Playing a Matroska file with External subtitles would not allow you
to cycle through the external subtitle tracks with Ctrl+"B".

- Having On Play Complete set to "Do Nothing" while having "Remember
Last Media Position" enabled would cause the video to rewind, even
though it should have paused on the last frame.

- CommAPI message 5130 (call navigation function) was not working.

- Under Windows VISTA, pressing Alt+Tab with some interfaces would
cause several buttons/checkboxes to disappear.

- Filter property pages will now appear on the same monitor as the
Zoom Player user interface.

- Several small cosmetic glitches fixed in the default skin.

- Cosmetic glitch fixed in the advanced playlist control (buttons could
overlap).

- Several navigation interfaces were not showing unicode text correctly.


Changes from 6.00 RC2 :
CODE
* New "/Browse" command line parameter instructing Zoom Player to open
the specified web address in its internal web browser.This command line
works even if Zoom Player is already running.

Example:
zplayer.exe /browse:http://www.inmatrix.com

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display) allowing you
to select custom DVD & Media background images.

* Added support for the PowerDVD v8 MPEG2 video decoder.

* New CommAPI message 1860 allowing you to pass a web address (URL) for
Zoom Player to open.

+ Dropping items into the playlist now drops the items at the mouse
cursor position in the playlist.

+ Updated description of video renderers.

+ When opening the options dialog on a monitor with resolution too low
to display the entire dialog, the dialog will now cover more of the
screen area.

+ Enabling/Disabling the DVD & Media Background images has moved to
"Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display"

- The external command to "Enqueue/Play with" Zoom Player has been
moved to a shell extension under Windows 2000/XP/Vista, making it
faster and more reliable.

- The installer automatically sets legacy mode when running under
Windows 95/98/ME.

- A few more "divide by zero" bugs should be squashed with EVR.

- Playing the next/previous file in the directory, or using similar
functions such as playing the next/previous file of the same type
in the directory didn't work with UNC paths (network paths).

- Opening the media information dialog ("I") while fullscreen and
then switching to windowed mode would incorrectly show the dialog.

- When Stay On Top was enabled, the seek-to hint window would appear
behind the main user interface window.

- Erasing sub-directories in the file browsing navigation interface
would fail under some circumstances.

- Setting the control bar to be aligned with the top/bottom of
the screen instead of the video area didn't work properly.

- Fullscreen Navigation Safe Mode (File Browsing/Media Library
navigation interfaces) got broken.

- Using the "Play all files in this directory" function from the
file browsing fullscreen navigation interface would crash.

- Networked mapped drives didn't work well with the file browsing
fullscreen navigation interface.

- Playing a media file from one of the navigation interfaces no
longer shows the media background image before playing the file.

- Left over debug code broke the media library navigator if no
drive D: existed on the system.

- If transparent action OSD was enabled with OSD skinning enabled
prior to installing v6.0 RC2, visual glitches could occur in the OSD.

- Under some conditions, the TCP port would not become accessible.

- Some Windows Media settings were not enabled in the preimum version.


Change log from v6.00 RC1:

CODE
* You can now specify additional paths for the File Browser (Adv. Options /
Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen Navigation).
New paths appear as drives.You can add network shares (for example
"//USER/Video/" and even local paths such as "C:Media" creating instant
shortcuts to important directories on your system.

* The Chapter editing interface has been modified with a chapter name history
drop-down list and instead of a dialog opening up when adding a chapter,
now you can just type in the chapter name (or pick from the drop-down
history list) and press enter or click the add chapter button, making it
easier to add chapters.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface) allowing you to lock filter/decoder
configuration (property) pages to the main user interface (otherwise they
appear as a floating window).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display /
Fullscreen Navigation / Settings) allowing you to select if Cut,
Copy & Paste operations allow you to overwrite files.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display /
Fullscreen Navigation) allowing you to specify the minimum number of
characters that appear when using Quick Search.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video & Subtitles) allowing you to
enable/disable Closed Captions support for media files.

* New Button (Adv. Options / Playback) allowing you to reset the
Remember Last Position cache (and play history, which are the same thing).

* New "/SP:[n]" command line parameter allowing you to turn Smart Play ON/OFF.
To turn Smart Play off use "/SP:0" to turn it on use "/SP:1".

* New "<FileIndex>" skin script dynamic variable that returns the current
playing index.

* New "<PlayListCount>" skin script dynamic variable that returns the current
playlist item count without adding the "file(s)" text to the returned value.

* New DVD profiles for the Convolver filter:
http://convolver.sourceforge.net/

* The Main fullscreen navigational interface is now accessible directly through
the right-click context menu.

* Support for the ".WAX" ,".WVX", ".WMX" playlist file extensions.

+ Opening "mms://" addresses should now work a little better.

+ When using the File Browsing and Media Library navigation interfaces, the
Copy & Paste functions will now show an OSD message while moving files and
a success/fail OSD message when the file operation completes.

+ When opening the player with secondary windows open (playlist editor,
equalizer, etc...) the keyboard focus did not remain on the main window.

+ Real-Time Frame rate reporting on the information dialog should now work
with Custom Video Renderers as long as they support the IQualProp interface.

+ The "Add Chapter" function's keyboard macro has been changed from "C" to
Ctrl+Shift+"C".

- Fixed List Index out of Bounds error when playing archived files.

- Switching between skin modes in the skin selection dialog would not update
the available skin lists properly between modes.

- Using the play next file in the same directory should no longer flash
the media background images between files. This fix also makes the
images load faster.

- The Screen Orbiting feature did not accept values properly.

- Setting a Playlist Font/Color override would return to the skin values
when switching skin modes.

- Disabling Skinning of the OSD Action pop-up and setting it to transparent
didn't work properly.

- The Skip to the next file in the playlist when an unplayable file is
encountered function no longer skips to the next file if the entire
playlist is unplayable.This fix prevents the playlist from looping
in error messages forever.

- Improved Network path support for paths starting with "//".

- Cosmetic glitch fixed in the advanced playlist control (buttons could
overlap).

- Cosmetic glitch when drawing translucent scrollbar/path graphics within
the fullscreen navigation interfaces that caused the scrollbar and path
graphics to become less and less transparent over time.

- More cases of unsupported hardware color control are now detected by the
color control navigational interface.

- Disabling the "'Del' key moves media files to the recycle bin (with
confirmation)" settingwould erroneously disable the erase function from
working in the media library and file browsing navigation interfaces.

- Trying to play Audio-CDs through the file browsing navigation interface
would not play the file.

- EVR with Smart Play disabled should now work on Windows XP (with .NET v3
or newer installed).

- Various "Invalid Floating Pointer operation" EVR errors have been fixed.

- Opening the skin selection dialog with a navigation interface visible
would not show the correct tint values (it showed the skin's tint
values rather than the navigation tint values).

- When the player was set to "Stay On Top", some options dialog sub-menus
would appear beneath the options dialog, making them inaccessible.

- When the player window would lose focus, the control bar
stopped auto-hiding.

- The internal image decoder can now load images from network paths.


January 27th, 2008:

Announcing Zoom Player v6.00 release candidate 1
Version 6 is nearing completion and includes many new features, enhancements and bug fixes.

Change log from v6.00 beta 2:

CODE
* Full EVR (Enhanced Video Renderer) support.
Please note that due to a Microsoft issue/bug, you must use
YUY2 as the colorspace, otherwise color control features
will not function.

* New "Configure Subtitle Filter" button (Adv. Options / Playback /
Video & Subtitles) allowing you to configure the Subtitle filter
more easily.

* Added support for the ".CBR" and ".CBZ" comic book formats to the
archive extraction tool.

* New "fnPosToClipboard" function (Alt+Ctrl+"C") allowing you to copy
the current playing position to the windows clipboard (which can then
be pasted in another program).

* New "exSkinTint" extended function allowing you to set the skin's RGB
tinting value.

Example:
zplayer.exe /exfunc:exskintint,$7F3000

* New "/Color" command line parameter allowing you to set the skin's RGB
tintint value

Example:
zplayer.exe /color:$7F3000

* New "/nCols", "/nRows", "/Col" and "/Row" command line parameters
allowing you to divide the active monitor into columns and rows which can
be used to position the player window.The "/nRows" defines the number
of rows, "/nCols" defines the number of columns, "/Col" defines the
active column (starting with column "0") and "/Row" defines the active
row (starting with row "0").

Example:
zplayer.exe /ncols:3 /nrows:3 /col:1 /row:1

* New "/StartPath" command line parameter allowing you to set the initial
path for the file-open dialog and the file browsing navigation interface.

* The File Navigation interface now shows the drive sizes and free space.

* New "1130" CommAPI command that retrieves the currently playing frame rate
per second (FPS).This is the same value seen on the information dialog
("I" keyboard macro).

* New "1140" CommAPI command that retrieves that estimated frame rate per
second (FPS).This value is not 100% accurate as some formats do not
have a fixed frame rate or simply do not report a frame rate.In cases
where the real FPS is unattainable, an estimated FPS value is returned.

* New "1811" CommAPI command allowing you to retrieve the number of items
in the current playlist.This message is also shown when the playlist
item count is modified.

+ The options dialog tree view is now vista skinned.

+ uTorrent passwords are no longer plain-view.If you've used this feature,
you need to re-enter your password.

+ The "1600,1601 and 1703" Audio Track CommAPI commands are now accessible
for media files (no longer limited to DVDs).

+ The "1700,1701,1703 and 1704" Subtitle CommAPI commands are now accessible
for media files (no longer limited to DVDs).

+ The Alt+"S" keyboard macro that shows the subtitle filter configuration
dialog can now be used without any media playing.

+ If no navigation interfaces are enabled through the options dialog,
the main navigation interface will no longer be accessible.

- The installer now copies files over between standard and legacy
installations (previously the files were only copied between legacy
and standard installations). This could cause cases where the
registration key not found.

- Exporting Girder commands while using a local configuration file would
not use the correct window name, preventing the exported girder file
from working.

- The "/F:[x]" and "/Z:[x]" parameters did not go Fullscreen on the right
monitor if Zoom Player was in window mode.

- Fixed a buffer overlow issue thanks to Luigi Auriemma.

- Fixed a number is not integer error with the uTorrent file tracker.

- The Zoom Player install center would not allow you to configure
filters if Zoom Player was installed in a unicode directly.

- Loading ".WPL" playlist containing network addresses should now
look for the files over the network rather than in a local path.

- The basic options dialog tree list wouldn't translate properly.

- The fusion skin now has a black video area (previous video area
was dark gray, which didn't confirm to video display standards).


January 9th, 2008:
Announcing Zoom Player v5.02 final
This version fixes a bug that caused Zoom Player v5.01 to think it was corrupted.


Announcing Zoom Player v5.01 final
This release patches a recently discovered vulnerability (not found in the wild).


6.0 Beta 2, Changes from v5.50 beta 1:

CODE
* Since a lot of people don't appreciate the changes microsoft made to Windows Vista with its UAC limitations, the Zoom Player installer now lets you choose between two modes:
Standard install where dynamic files are saved in the AppData directory and static files are saved in the selected directory. This is required when running Windows Vista with UAC enabled or running Windows XP with a limited user account.
Legacy mode where all the files are saved in the selected directory. This is easier to backup, but wont work properly when running Vista with UAC enabled or Windows XP on a limited user account. With Legacy mode selected, the file extension association functionality is restored to Windows XP levels (UAC under Windows Vista limits some file extension association functions such as changing file icons).

* Zoom Player now warns you when it detects you are running in legacy mode under restricted file access (UAC in Vista or a limited user account under XP/Vista).

* New F8/F9 skin modes (equivalent to the Onyx Lite skin).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video) allowing you to automatically hide Closed Captions when playing media files.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback) allowing you to set the "On Play Complete" event (which triggers when a playlist has finished playing) to "Randomize & Replay", which gives you another random play method.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback) allowing you to limit remembering the last media position to media files longer than a specified amount of minutes.This is useful when you don't want the last media position remembered when playing short media files.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Audio & Subtitles) allowing you play media files with the subtitles not showing by default.

* New "Guard Dog" feature (Adv. Options / System). When enabled, the Guard Dog periodically tests that the Zoom Player process is responding.If the process stops responding for a specified number of seconds, the Guard Dog will close the player and start a new instance using a specified command line parameter list.

* The Media Library, File Browser and Playlist fullscreen navigation interfaces now offer a "Quick Search" option allowing you to more easily browse through large listings. The Quick Search option is accessible by navigating to the right and selecting the "Quick Search" entry.

* The Media Library and File Browser navigation functions have been restructured so that the sorting function is now part of a sub-menu.

* "Select All" and "Clear Selection" functions have been added to the Media Library and File Browser navigation interfaces as a sub-menu under the "Select" function.

* The Playlist navigation interface has been restructured so that the sorting method is now a sub-menu with more sorting options available (by Size, Directory, Date and Randomly).

* Pressing right on the Playlist history navigation interface now brings you to the top of the list (the most recently played item).

* New "exRandomPlay" function, allowing you to discretely set the Random Play setting to on/off (compared to the fnRandomPlay function which toggle between on/off).

* New "/Config" command line parameter.Using this parameter, you can specify which local (non-registry) configuration file Zoom Player should use. This parameter is very useful when running multiple instances of Zoom Player, each with a different configuration. If the specified configuration file doesn't exist, Zoom Player will create one (using the default configuration).
Usage: zplayer.exe "/config:z:path to config filefilename.local"
Note that the "" characters are required as this command line parameter contains spaces.

* New "/Func" command line parameter.This parameter allows you to instruct Zoom Player to execute functions directly from the command line.
This parameter can also be used while Zoom Player is running, enabling simple command-line based automation.
Example for always starting with the Main Navigator open: zplayer.exe /Func:fnMainNav
For a full function list, see the Function List: http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/highlights/zpfunctions.shtml

* New "/ExFunc" command line parameter.This parameter allows you to instruct Zoom Player to execute extended functions directly from the command line.
This parameter can also be used while Zoom Player is running, enabling simple command-line based automation.
Example for always starting with the Playlist Editor open: zplayer.exe /ExFunc:exInterface,2
For a full function list, read the Skinning Tutorial: http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/highlights/zpfunctions.shtml

* New "/MultInst" command line parameter.Using this parameter instructs Zoom Player to start another instance of the player even if Zoom Player's multiple-instances setting is set to disabled.

* All screen saver settings have been moved to: Advanced Options / System / Screen Saver

* The internal screen saver has been enhanced to support image slideshows instead of the plasma background.

* You can now specify if the text information and animated streamers are displayed by the internal screen saver.

* You can now specify a network address for the uTorrent fullscreen navigation file tracker.

* Added support for the Microsoft DVD decoders (part of Windows Vista).

* Added support for the "ffds" XVID sub-type created by the ffdshow encoder.

* New "default" button next to the Archive Playback configuration dialog (Adv. Options / System & Files / Paths, Folders and Files).

* The DVD AutoGraph script format now supports a parameter that connects the Video Decoder's Subpicture pin to the Video Renderer directly (to support DXVA with subtitles).

+ The Color Control and Equalizer navigation interfaces have been redesigned to take less screen space.

+ When setting the navigation interface's line count, the Equalizer and Color Control interfaces ignore a value of "-2" as they are only 3 lines to begin with.

+ The archive configuration now allows you to specify dynamic system paths.For example:"%programfiles%7-Zip7z.exe" x "%n" "-o%p" Instead of :"C:Program Files7-Zip7z.exe" x "%n" "-o%p" The default values have been updated and you can use the new default button to set them.

+ The ".iso" and ".img" extensions have been moved from the executable extension list into the archive extension list.With the latest version of 7-Zip (www.7-zip.org) installed, you can now extract and play CD/DVD images directly from within Zoom Player.Make sure to press the default buttons (Adv. Options / System / File Extensions).

+ The Main Navigation interface should appear much quicker now, especially when accessed while a video is playing.

+ The "/X", "/Y", "/W" and "/H" command line parameters now function even if Zoom Player is already running, allowing you to re-position & size the main user interface window from the command line (previously, these parameters only worked when initially running Zoom Player).

+ The Media Library and File Browser navigation functions have been re-ordered for increased usability.

+ The File Association options dialog has been restructured for additional clarity.

+ You can now specify a +6,+8 or +10 values for the navigation interface line count.

- A bug in the archive extracting code could cause extracted archive to extract in the wrong directory under some conditions.

- When random play was enabled and only one file was playing, the "On Play Complete" event was called if the same file was opened twice.

- When extracting and playing the content of an archive file, the first file in the archive would be loaded twice in succession.

- Setting a custom aspect ratio with a "0" value could cause Zoom Player to crash with an invalid division by zero error.

- A sorting glitch was fixed in the file browser and media library navigation interfaces where the "Go to previous directory" option appeared at the bottom of the file list instead of at the top.

- When using the internal image decoder, Zoom Player can now detect badly named image files (such as PNG files with JPG extension). Supported mislabeled image formats include: BMP, JPG, PNG.

- Some MJPEG files may not have been detected properly by Smart Play.

- Fix for the Zoom Player Install Center where it wouldn't recognize certain updates as up to date if they were installed to a unicode file path.

- The Zoom Player registration key is now searched for in both the Zoom Player directory and in the application data directory.

- Pressing "Del" to erase the currently playing file with other entries selected in the playlist would not remove the erased file from the playlist.

- ID3/TAG display of unicode file name would show "???" if the audio file had no ID3 data.

- ID3/TAG display of unicode file name would show "???" if the audio file ID3 data containing unicode text and the Windows country code was non-english.

- ID3/TAG display wouldn't always update when loading certain audio file formats.

- When trying to select a DVD auto-execute software (Adv. Options / Playback / DVD / DVD Tools), typing in the "New" field would not enable the "Apply" button.

- Ejecting a drive while listening to streaming media could cause playback to stop.

- Using the "," character as part of a chapter name would truncate the chapter name.

- When specifying a transparent color for the Timeline, loading a different skin that didn't contain timeline transparency would not clear the transparent regions properly.

- Fixed a bug where applying a custom File Extension Association icon would not always work properly.

- Failing to load a media file with a background image enabled could cause the background image to display in an incorrect aspect ratio.

- The TV Pattern mode would incorrectly draw a red vertical line at some resolutions.

- The background image and circle pattern would not respect the source relative stretch feature when it was set to a specific monitor (the stretch value was applied to all monitors).

- Cosmetic fix for the navigation scrollbar widget being slightly inaccurate position wise.

http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Zoom_Player_WMV_Professional_Beta/978385825/4


WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 5.5 Beta 1:

* Zoom Player can now communicate with uTorrent's Web UI interface in order to display download progress within the Media Library and File Browsing fullscreen navigation interfaces. This feature is accessible under "Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen Navigation / File Tracker". Press the "?" button on this page for additional information.

* Zoom Player can now keep track with eMule's temporary files directory in order to display download progress within the Media Library and File Browsing fullscreen navigation interfaces. This feature is accessible under "Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen Navigation / File Tracker". Press the "?" button on this page for additional information.

* New "Download Manager" navigation interface (Ctrl+"J"), allowing you to get an overview of your currently downloading files (compatible with eMule and uTorrent).

* The Scene Cut editor has been simplified and enhanced. The Scene cut editor no longer requires you to click on the save button, saving is done automatically now. A new edit button allows you to edit entries without having to remove an old entry first. Lastly, the scene cut interface layout has been updated to make it simpler to use.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Video / Aspect Ratio) instructing Zoom Player "Derived" Aspect Ratio mode to Automatically Adjust (fix) the Aspect Ratio for badly encoded content. This would convert 4:3 content encoded as 720x480 to display as 720x540, 720x576 to 768x576, 352x240 to 352x264, 352x288 to 384x288, etc... Badly encoded 16:9 content is also adjusted in a similar fashion. This setting also fixes small aspect ratio inaccuracies caused by a requirement made by video encoders for the video pixel width or height to be dividable by 16 (or 8 or 4).

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen Navigation) allowing you to skip the "Library Filter Mode" page. With this setting enabled, navigating left on the media library category list will go straight to the Main navigation menu.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface) allowing you to disable the delete key from erasing the currently playing file.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / System / Paths) allowing you to select the Frame Capture (screenshot) format. BMP, PNG and JPEG are supported.

* The Zoom Player function selection dialog is now split into three categories: Content, Interface and Control. The function list is also sorted, making functions easier to find.

* New "IconScale" parmeter for the "ListData" navigation skin-script command, allowing you to set the size of list line icons relative to the size of the line height.

* New "ProgressColor" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation Skin-script command, allowing you to select which color will be used when displaying download progress within the Media Library, File Browsing and Download Manager fullscreen navigation interfaces.

* New "PathColor" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation skin-script command, allowing you to select which color will be used for the path text within the Media Library, File Browsing and Download Manager fullscreen navigation interfaces.

* New "PathOutline" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation skin-script command, allowing you to select which outline color will be used for the path text within the Media Library, File Browsing and Download Manager fullscreen navigation interfaces.

* New "PathExtraColor" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation skin-script command, allowing you to select which outline color will be used for the extra path text within the Media Library, File Browsing and Download Manager fullscreen navigation interfaces.

* New "PathExtraOutline" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation skin-script command, allowing you to select which outline color will be used for the path extra text within the Media Library, File Browsing and Download Manager fullscreen navigation interfaces.

* New "ConfirmColor" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation skin-script command, allowing you to select which color will be used for the confirmation fullscreen navigation interface.

* New "ConfirmOutline" parameter for the "ColorData" navigation skin-script command, allowing you to select which outline color will be used for the confirmation fullscreen navigation interface.

* New Vista specific feature allowing you to make the entire Zoom Player window semi-transparent. This also requires that you use a video renderer that would work (Haali's/VMR9/EVR) and that VISTA Aero is enabled. To use: Alt+Ctrl+F4 = Fully visible window / Alt+Ctrl+F5 = 80% visiblity / Alt+Ctrl+F6 = 60% visiblity / Alt+Ctrl+F7 = 40% visiblity. You can also specify exact transparency values using the new "exTransWin" extended function.

* New "exTransWin" extended function, allowing you to specify a transparency value (1-255) for the Zoom Player window. This function requires Windows VISTA with Aero enabled.

* The default Audio mode skin now has a wider volume bar and includes a new button that opens the statio manager.

* The Control Bar and OSD Pop-ups are now accessible even when the player window is set to "Stay on Top".

* Pressing stop twice was set to resume playback from the position prior to the stop function being called. This wasn't too clear so now a "Resume" OSD message pops up.

* Newly supported file extensions: M4B, HDMOV.

* The Navigation interfaces should work slightly faster, especially in situations where more complex navigation skins are used (skins with large transparency effects).

* The skin selection interface behavior has been changed slightly. In order to apply a custom tint, you must now click the Apply Tint button.

* The skin selection interface is now sorted alphabetically.

* The Frame Capture Alt+"F" (screenshot) function should now work in all video renderers except Overlay Mixer, VMR9 Renderless (VMR9 Windowed and Windowles should work) and EVR.

* Function descriptions have changed to make them easier to Read, Understand and Search.

* The Girder Exported commands are now sorted and split into categories, making it easier to program remote devices and home automation systems.

* Mouse left click while holding the Alt key now zooms in 10% instead of 50% (which wasn't as useful).

* Ctrl+"C" now enables/disables closed captioning when used by media files (it was previously limited to DVDs).

* With some file formats, the playlist would not update the total playlist duration properly.

* Enabling the "Show Time Seek Position Over Timeline" feature would cause the Zoom Player window to become the top-most window if the mouse cursor hovered over the timeline.

* Trying to open the Options dialog with the main window set to "Stay on Top" and Zoom Player set to only show an icon on the tray area would cause the options dialog to appear behind the main window.

* Monitor Powerdown will no longer be disabled when playing in windowed mode (Powerdown will only be disabled when fullscreen).

* Detaching the control bar would not snap its position to the previously saved detached position under some conditions.

* Trying to play streaming content while in DVD Mode would not switch to media mode automatically and then fail to play.

* The Context Navigator did not use the scripting parameters assigned to it correctly.

* The Contact Sheet creation form didn't allow you to select the contact sheet color values.

* Some navigation interface titles could not be translated into other languages.

* The "exSetMode" function would not switch modes properly under some conditions.

* Switching between Media/DVD/Audio mode could result in an Audio mode skin loaded in DVD mode.

* The "Scrollbar Highlight" color for forced Playlist colors was not being saved properly.

* If the internal screen saver got activated with the open file dialog already open, it could cause Zoom Player to become non-responsive.


--- What's new in v5.00:

New :

* The default skin has been replaced with a new cleaner, clearer and more versatile skin.

* All navigation interfaces have been rewritten from scratch. Navigtion is now much simpler, only using 5 directional controls (UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, SELECT/ENTER).
All interfaces are inter-connected through the "MAIN" navigation interface and are much more easy to control using a mouse or touch-screen.
Furthermore, navigational interfaces are now scriptable using a simple text-based scripting language, allowing you to easily reposition the layout and introduce alternative graphical elements.
Clicking the right and left most pixels in any of the navigation interfaces is equivalent to clicking RIGHT/LEFT on the arrows.The mouse wheel can be used for UP/DOWN and Double Clicking is the same as SELECT/ENTER.
Multiple navigation styles are now available for download.

* Smart Play (previously Customized Media Mode) has been vastly simplified.In the simple mode, only the available profiles and the currently used filters are visible.If the currently used filter matches a profile (which it most always will), the profile will be highlighted.
Smart Play is now available in all version of Zoom Player to a lesser degree.

* The Advanced Options dialog has been rewritten from scratch. The new dialog layout is much more logical and should help make Zoom Player's powerful features much more easy to access.

* A new install center application is now available, allowing for easy updates and filter configuration without the need to manually install each component.

* The Keyboard Editor will now let you create Global HotKeys. These are functions assigned to keys that are active even if Zoom Player itself is not the active application. Global HotKeys also have (on a per-key basis) the option to bring Zoom Player to the front.

* The Auto-Get Duration for media files has been rewritten to get the duration in the background (working only on unused CPU cycles), allowing you to load massive play lists without having to wait.
Getting durations for media files also supports more formats and is now enabled by default.

* You can now drop Subtitle files on the main user interface in order to display the subtitle track with the currently playing media file. Requires DirectVobSub installed and Smart Play enabled.

* New Equalizer Navigator (Shift+"Q"), allowing you to access Equalizer settings through the navigation system.

* New Play History Navigator (Shift+"H"), allowing you to return to previously played files (if they still exist).

* New "ZPS" Skin Installation System.Simply opening any "ZPS" file (file with a .zps extension) will run Zoom Player and prompt you to install the skin.

* New Navigation Skin selection option within the Skin Selection interface ("N").

* New Contact Sheet creation dialog (Alt+Shift+"C").Using this new interface, you can easily create contact sheet for the currently playing media file (doesn't work with DVDs). You must also set the video renderer to VMR9 Windowless.

* New Functions allowing you to play the Next and Previous files in the same directory as the currently playing file with a matching file extension.These functions are now assigned to the "PgUp" and "PgDn" navigational keys when navigator interfaces are not visible.
For example, when viewing "MyImage.jpg" in a directory that looks like this:
MyImage.jpg MyImage.avi MyImage2.jpg
Pressing "PgDn" will show "MyImage2.jpg", skipping "MyImage.avi" These functions enhance Zoom Player's capability as an image viewer.

* New Functions (Accessible on the Play List's right-click context menu) allowing you to move selected items to the top/bottom of the play list.

* New Function (Alt+"E") that enables you to Open/Close the last visible navigator.This last visible setting is saved between sessions, thus allowing you continuous navigation through multiple sessions.

* New Function (Shift+"L") allowing you to show/hide the all Control Bar buttons (without the need to select/remove which buttons are visible). This function has also replaced the Hide/Show All Control Bar buttons on the Control Bar Context-Menu.You will now be presented with a "Hide All Button" toggle (with a checkbox indicating ON/OFF state).

* New Function (Shift+"J") that reloads the currently playing media file.

* New Function "fnDeleteCurrent", Assigned by default to the Delete key (when the navigational interfaces are not in use), allowing you to erase the currently playing file (with confirmation).

* New Function (Shift+"Esc") allowing you to close all navigational interfaces.If no navigators are visible, this function does nothing.

* New Functions allowing you to go to the Next/Previous DVD Title. This requires that the DVD is authored to accept this functionality (some DVDs are authored to prohibit certain types of access). The macro keys are Alt+Shift+"]" for Next DVD Title and Alt+Shift+"[" for Previous DVD Title.

* New Extended Function (exZoomTo).This function can be set to Zoom the video area to a specific Zoom percentage (for example, Zoom to 125%). You can access this function using the keyboard editor.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Interface) allowing you to have Zoom Player switch to fullscreen/zoom modes when starting to play new content.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Interface / OSD), allowing you to force all OSD Displays (Navigators, OSD Actions, Control Bar, etc...) to display relative to a specific position on screen (while in fullscreen) or locked to fullscreen on the active monitor. When enabled, it allows you to Zoom/Move the video without it having an effect on the positioning of the On Screen Display elements.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Interface / OSD / Fullscreen Navigation), allowing you to choose if you want to sort directories first (list the directories before listing any of the files) in the File and Media Library navigators.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Interface / OSD / Fullscreen Navigation), allowing you to choose if you want to include sub-directories when playing all files in a directory.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Playback), which by default tells Zoom Player to play the next file in the play list when the current file ends, but when disabled, Zoom Player will pause at the end of each file (useful for presentations).

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Video / Aspect Ratio) allowing you specify which monitor you want Source Relative Stretch (Pixel Aspect Ratio) to apply to.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / System) allowing you to blank
(black-out) all secondary monitors (any monitor not currently playing video).

* New Setting (Advanced Options / System) allowing you to enable the Internal Screen Saver for Audio-Only files (so that the Internal Screen Saver would kick-in even if the file is playing).

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Playback / Windows Media) allowing you to use the "WMAPro over S/PDIF" DMO filter to output Windows Media Audio through the S/PDIF port.This setting requires that you use an external Receiver with Windows Media Audio capabilities.

* New Setting (Skin Selector / Save Position).When enabled, each skin's position (window position and size) will be remembered on an individual basis.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Interface / Control Bar / Display), allowing you to position the control bar at the Top, Center or Bottom of the video area.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen Navigation) allowing you to choose which navigation interfaces are to be listed on the Main Navigator.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen Navigation), allowing you to enable a Safe Mode where potentially unsafe navigation functionality (cut/copy/paste/erase files) is hidden from the function list.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen Navigation), allowing you show hidden files (default off).

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Tags) allowing you to choose Auto-Hide the background folder image along with the tags.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Interface / Control Bar) allowing you to show the Control Bar when the mouse cursor is at the top of the screen.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Control Bar) allowing the Control Bar to hide automatically if the mouse cursor is moved a certain distance away from the control bar (50 pixels).

* The mouse left click (DVD/Media), double click and middle click can now be assigned custom functions.

* New Mouse Left-Click setting to only move the user interface window (without the ability to move the video while in fullscreen).

* Support for DCoder's DC-DVB filter (a filter capable of using Zoom Player to view Digital-TV with TimeShifting) has been improved with new Teletext funtionality (number 0-9 to enter page numbers and Ctrl+"B" to switch Teletext on/off). Download the filter at "www.dsp-worx.de".

* The Chapter Editor and GoTo dialog have been merged into a single interface.The new interface is easier to use and more powerful.

* The Chapter Editor now allows you to input a time to seek to using an HH:MM:SS.ms structure.The input is pretty flexible, allowing variants such as H:M:S, M:S, S.ms, etc...

* Pressing Ctrl+"V" in the Chapter Editor pastes the clipboard value into the "H:M:S.ms" Time field.

* New Setting on the Chapter Editor allowing you to keep the dialog open even after seeking to a new position. (Useful for FanSub Editors)

* The current time in MS is now visible on the Chapter Editor.

* The Navigation Keyboard Macros (Up/Down/Left/Right/Select) can now have a custom function assigned to them when a navigator is not in use.

* New "Remove Non-Exisiting Entries" button on the Play History interface, allowing you to remove old entries where the file no longer exists on the system.

* New "On Play Complete" value of "Open Media Library".

* New "/MEDIACAT:category name" command line parameter allowing you to open the media library navigator within the category selection screen when Zoom Player starts.Using "/MEDIACAT" alone will open the category list in the previously saved position, while specifying a category name would highlight a specific category, for example "/MEDIACAT:Music" would highlight the Music category.

* Automatic support for Audio file folder image support by base name. For example, if you have "song.mp3" and "song.jpg" in the same directory, "song.jpg" will automatically load as a folder image.

* New "FolderImage" Skin-Script function allowing you to draw the folder image anywhere within the main user interface.

* The "VolumeExData", "BalanceExData" and "RateExData" Skin-Script functions can now use a Target parameter allowing you to place a Volume, Balance and Rate Control interfaces on the Play List Editor, Equalizer and Control Bar.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the main user interface window is maximized.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the skin selector interface is active.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the station manager interface is active.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the color control navigator is active.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the equalizer interface is active.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if any navigation interface is active.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the media library editor interface is active.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the chapter editor/GoTo interface is active.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the play list editor interface is active.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the play list editor interface is maximized.

* New Skin Script Commands allowing you to have Transparent elements within the timeline (both on the control bar and on the main user interface).

* New Skin Script CreateExButton "ActiveHint" value, allowing you to change the button's hint value depending on the button active state.

* New Skin Script CreateExButton "ActiveHoverX" and "ActiveHoverY" values, allowing you to set a button image when the button is both active and the mouse is hovering over it.

* Entering a negative FunctionParam value on any of the group skin script functions ensures that the skin's window size remains unchanged (use with care).

* New Skin Script "SearchFG" play list parameter, allowing you to set the font color for the search box.

* New Skin Script command "CBarFontMargin" allowing you to specify side margins within the Control Bar timeline in which the font shouldn't be drawn.

* New Skin Script command "TLineFontMargin" allowing you to specify side margins within the main GUI timeline in which the font shouldn't be drawn.

* SHOUTcasted audio information (Title, Author, URL, Copyright, Description) can now be accessed by the following Skin-Script tags: , , , , .

* New "" Skin-Script tag, allowing you to display the current Audio Volume level percentage (0-100).

* New "" Skin-Script tag, allowing you to display the currently playing file's index number.

* New "" Skin-Script tag, allowing you to display the current video zooming used in the window interface (affected by the Alt-"1..5" keys and the new "exZoomTo" function).

* New "cBarTLMinWidth" Skin-Script constant allowing you to specify the minimum width of the Control Bar's TimeLine (default 64 pixels).

* The Skin Selection dialog now has an "Uninstall" button.

* New "RN" tag for the Zoom Player Play List file format (".zpl") instructing Zoom Player to randomize the play list once loaded.

* New Communication API Messages "2610, 2611, 2620, 2621, 2630, 2631, 2640, 2641" allowing you to query the current video display area located within fullscreen mode and to set a new location/size.

* New Communication API Messages "2700, 2701" allowing you to get and set the current Play Rate (Media Mode Fast Play/Slow Motion and DVD Mode Fast Forward/Slow Motion/Rewind rates).

* New Communication API Message "5130" allowing you to execute navigational control functions.

* New Communication API Message "2710" allowing you to query the Random Play state (it is also sent when the user changes the Random Play state).

* New Communication API Message "1450" allowing you to request the Unique DVD Identifier information.

* New DVD "Additional Filter", the "Trombettworks Channel Downmixer", http://www.trombettworks.com/directshow.php

* The Nero DVD Navigator is now a DVD Navigator option.

* New support for ".FLV" (Flash Video) files (used on YouTube and several other locations).You need a recent version of ffdshow (with the FLV1 codec support enabled) and the Gabest FLV Splitter to get the files to play.

* New Smart Play support for WMV:AP (Windows Media Video:Advanced Profile).You also need updated Windows Media decoders to play this new format (the decoders come with WMP 11 and possibly in a decoder pack from Microsoft).

* New Smart Play profiles for several uncommon AVI/MOV codecs.

* New Smart Play profiles for WavPack Audio.

* New 256x256 Windows VISTA icon.



Changes :

+ The WMV DRM license acquisition code has been improved and you should no longer be required to use Windows Media Player to acquire licenses.

+ Zoom Player's image-scaling code has improved.This means a very nice speedup when drawing scaled image elements (navigators, background/folder images, etc...) and a slight improvement in image quality. (Licensed from Avery Lee's VirtualDub)

+ The Media Library Path Editor ("Shift+"M") interface has been restructured, making it clearer and easier to use.

+ The Skin Selection ("N") interface has been restructured, making it clearer and easier to use.

+ The Station Editor ("X") interface has been restructured, making it clearer and easier to use.

+ When running a new version for the first time, you will now be prompted only for important missing decoders.The full list can still be found in the options dialog.

+ The missing decoders list in the Advanced Options dialog has been split into a list of Important decoders and All decoders in order to emphasize that not all decoders listed are required for general day to day media playback.The Simple Options dialog will only show the Important decoders.

+ The Media Library navigator interface should work faster on networked drives and use less drive access.

+ The Media Library navigator will now only highlight the currently playing file once instead of constantly trying to highlight it.

+ The Media Library navigator now remembers the last path location for each category.

+ The erase navigator confirmation dialog now returns to the navigator it was called from.

+ The navigation interfaces can now work without any graphics (without the "NavData" directory).Won't look very good though.

+ Using the Next/Previous Track function with only one file in the play list will play the Next/Previous media file in the same directory (useful for picture browsing).

+ The Auto Show control bar when the cursor is at the screen's bottom now also Auto Shows the control bar when the cursor is at the screen's top.

+ The control bar no longer closes when opening a navigation interface while the control bar is detached.

+ When stay on top is enabled, the control bar remains accessible if it is detached from the user interface.

+ "Advanced Options / Interface / Control Bar / Buttons" no longer lists inaccessible functions.

+ The Information Dialog ("I" with a media file playing) now shows format information for the playing file (requires Smart Play enabled).

+ Integration into Windows Vista file association interface. Zoom Player should now appear as a supported program for all association extensions supported by Zoom Player.

+ A new value has been added to the "Select" (Enter key) allowing it to open the previously open navigator.

+ Switching display resolution while in fullscreen should now react better with the main window covering the full display in the new resolution.And if the display area covered the entire monitor, the display area is now modified to cover the new resolution.

+ Pressing Stop while already stopped (in media mode) will now return the playback position to its previous position.

+ The Default Play List skin has been tweaked a bit for usability and clarity.

+ The File and Media Library Navigators will now dynamically update their content when a removable media is inserted/removed.

+ When opening the File Navigator and the previous saved directory position no longer exists, the file navigator will go up through the directory path until a valid directory does exist or the root path for the drive is reached (previously, it would go straight to the root path).

+ The Blanking Navigator will now allow you to Enable/Disable Blanking.

+ The Control Bar will now have a minimum width of 64 pixels for the timeline and whatever space the active Control Bar buttons take.

+ The Mouse Cursor over the Volume, Rate Control, Balance and Equalizer bars will now use the "Hand Point" mouse cursor.

+ The Fast Play/Slow Motion rates have changes slightly.

+ Showing the Control Bar now hides the navigator interfaces.

+ Better streaming support.

+ Customized Media Playback has been renamed to "Smart Play".

+ Updated Smart Play profiles to account for Elecard v4's change of filter identifications.

+ The "Mouse Wheel" section of the Options Dialog has been renamed to "Mouse" and the "Mouse Toggles" section has moved under it.

+ The Skinning Constants "", "" and "" in DVD Mode will now display the DVD Title instead of the file name (which when playing DVDs always points to "VIDEO_TS.IFO".This is simply more informative.

+ Pressing Enter in the Chapter Editor without any fields filled will now seek to the current position (useful for Subbing).

+ The Information Dialog (Press "I") now shows an approximate bitrate as calculated using size of the file being played when DirectShow doesn't return a valid bitrate.

+ Playing external audio tracks should now maintain proper synchronization when seeking.Playing external tracks will also create improved graphs.

+ The Sort by Date feature now sorts new files first.

+ "Play List Editor display moves to follow currently playing track" setting now centers the currently playing track within the list (instead of having it appear at the top of the list).

+ The White Wash pattern (Shift+"P") now ignores aspect ratio and moves the bar somewhat faster (previously it was too slow).

+ The Smart Play Source Filter selection now allows you to add DMO filters as post processors.

+ Improved shortcut support.When loading shortcuts, instead of loading the shortcut into the play list, the entry is replaced by the file the shortcut is pointing to.
Furthermore, you can now use shortcut files in the file and media library navigators.

+ The TAG-Display background color now uses the user-specified Fullscreen Background color instead of Black.

+ The Browse for Folder dialog is now resizable.

+ The Sub-Type list on the Audio/Video Smart Play configuration dialog will now display the FourCC code for each Sub-Type.

+ The Girder Command export function now exports Zoom Player's functions in a more orderly list grouping function types into Girder categories.

+ The Key Edit dialog is now a bit more friendly.

+ The Blanking Navigator key has been changed from "K" to Shift+"K" in order to prevent accidental activation.

+ The File Navigator key has been changed from "E" to Shift"F" in order to prevent accidental activation.

+ The Scene-Cut and Chapter Editor interfaces now require the use of Zoom Player Professional.



Fixes :

- Executing external applications on Windows 95/98 could cause a crash.

- Audio Renderers containing "00" in their device name (such as the "SB Audigy 2 ZS Audio [A400]") could have disabled audio under some conditions.
- Under certain conditions (such as logging a user out while Zoom Player is still running), Zoom Player would have crashed with an "Unhandled OS Exception" error.

- Trying to run multiple instances all using the same TCP/IP port will no longer crash with a bind error.

- Opening non-standard URLs (tivo:// for example) should now work from command line.

- The Hide TaskBar setting could cause issues in VMR9 Renderless Exclusive mode.

- Flash files should now play in the proper aspect ratio on display devices that do not use square pixels.

- OSD Messages wider than the monitor will now be cut to fit the monitor.

- Possible fix for VMR9 Renderless Exclusive fullscreen mode where tray icons may have flashed.

- Shortcuts with targets using unicode paths are now supported.

- Auto-Get duration would not work under certain conditions.

- Under certain cases, loading play list files with relative paths would not always find the files.

- Parameters in shortcut files are no longer ignored.

- Zoom Player can now use/display BMP files created with Photoshop. (Recent versions of PhotoShop create improperly formatted BMP files).

- Zoom Player user interface elements will now snap to the Visible Work Area (Task Bar rather than the Monitor border).

- The mouse cursor would not hide properly when using the internal image decoder or the Flash/HTML/QuickTime ActiveX controls.

- When Zoom Player was set to save its configuration file locally, or when using an alternative window name, Zoom Player would not load files from external programs if it was already open.

- Auto-Disable DVD Subtitles and Preferred DVD Subtitles are now mutually exclusive (with warning message).

- Opening a new file with the mouse cursor hidden and the control bar visible would hide the mouse cursor to the point it wouldn't show again.

- When Detached, The Control Bar can now be resized from the right as well as the left sides of the interface.

- Better handling of filters that change the duration of the currently playing media in real-time (such as TSFileSource).

- The navigation interfaces would not display properly on a secondary monitor under certain conditions.

- You should now be able to erase the currently playing file from within the Media Library Navigator.

- Mid-Stream aspect ratio changes should now work better (was not working well when switching DVB TV-Channels).

- Switching to Audio Mode from DVD Mode and then back to DVD Mode would load the Media Mode skin instead of the DVD Mode skin.

- A few stability tweaks to the skin parsing engine (better handling of badly written skin-script).

- The setting to prevent Zoom Player from using Smart Play by the extension of the file being played was not working properly.

- Fixed a possible stability issue with Smart Play and problematic filters.

- A System-Sound would play when trying to exit Zoom Player using the TCP Interface.

- The Hand Icon used over the Volume/Balance/Play Rate controls was not the windows hand icon, this is now fixed.

- The Definition File "SetAudioSync" setting wasn't being applied when playing DVDs.

- Using the "/F" or "/Z" parameters while Zoom Player is already fullscreen on a secondary monitor could cause the display to move to the primary monitor.

- The Change Resolution on Fullscreen feature may not have properly covered the video area.

- The Search area background color on the Play List Editor was not being set properly for the default skin.

- External Control Bar buttons (not part of the control bar button list) would not show under certain conditions.

- Having blanking enabled should no longer obscure the navigation interfaces.

- Audio TAGs (ID3) would not position properly in some cases.

- Opening directories would not always sort them properly.

- When ejecting DVDs as they are playing, Zoom Player may have tried to automatically replay them causing a DVD Not Found error to pop.

- Setting the mouse left click to move the video area would not work in fullscreen mode.

- The Navigator Background skin code definition would only accept the image if it existed in the root skin directory.

- The Navigator Background skin code definition was ignored if no icon file was set.

- Automatic Save/Restore of the last position for ".dvr-ms" and ".ts" files was not working correctly.

- Scene-Cut would malfunction under certain conditions (especially when trying to use it in combination with ".dvr-ms" files).

- The Play List Editor Window sizes would glitch if closing Zoom Player while the Play List Editor was maximized.

- When Zoom Player was set to disable the Windows Screen Saver in fullscreen mode, it could under some conditions cause hardware powerdown not to activate after Zoom Player was closed.

- Having a Volume/Balance/Play Rate bar on either the Control Bar, Equalizer or Play List interfaces would disappear when going fullscreen.

- When scrolling on the Play History or the Key Editor, the screen will now update while scrolling.

- Audio files will now be listed in the Play History even if the setting not to remember the last position for audio files is enabled.

- Removing the currently playing file from the play list would not clear the file name from the Task Bar or Tray Icon.

- Adding Chapters/Bookmarks would not automatically make the new Chapters/Bookmarks accessible in certain cases.

- The "" Skin Script value wasn't being cleared when a file was closed.

- Sorting the play list could lead to the currently playing item highlight on the play list editor to show the wrong file.

- Moving items in the Play List up/down could fail on unicode files.

- The Bookmark/Chapter Navigator would not support unicode chapter descriptions.

- The Gradient skin commands were not being effected by the skin tint.

- Several Option dialog tabs may have not translated properly when a unicode translation was used.

- Using a forced duration value in a Zoom Player Play List file would carry over the duration to the next file in the play list if it did not have a forced duration.

- The Pop-Up OSD Action message would not show Unicode characters properly under some conditions.

- Pressing Enter in the Station Navigator when the navigator contained no entries would have caused a crash.

- Switching from DVD Mode to Audio Mode and trying to select a different skin, would set the skin to the DVD Mode and not the Audio Mode.

- Closing the Player when the screen saver is active on a secondary monitor caused Zoom Player to crash and not close properly.

- Opening a URL from the command line would have caused it to open using uppercase, which some servers would not accept as a correct location for the item.

- Communication API Message 2500 would only transmit if a specific play on insert setting was enabled.It will now always transmit if a new disc/drive was inserted.

- Communication API Message 1850 did not properly support UTF8 file names.

- Enabling the TCP/IP interface using an Extended Function did not properly enable the interface.

- Holding Alt+Enter (fullscreen) for a several seconds straight could cause a crash.

- Some cosmetic glitches when using XP Themes.

- Grid Interfaces (Play History, Key Editor etc...) now respect the windows color scheme.


Here's what changed from RC2:
CODE
* The default skin has been replaced with a new cleaner, clearer and more versatile skin.

* The mouse left click (DVD/Media), double click and middle click can now be assigned custom functions.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Interface / OSD / Fullscreen Navigation), allowing you to enable a Safe Mode where potentially unsafe navigation functionality (cut/copy/paste/erase files) is hidden from the function list.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Interface) allowing you to have Zoom Player switch to fullscreen/zoom modes when starting to play new content.

* New Function (Shift+"J") that reloads the currently playing media file.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the main user interface window is maximized.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the skin selector interface is active.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the station manager interface is active.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the color control navigator is active.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the equalizer interface is active.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if any navigation interface is active.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the media library editor interface is active.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the chapter editor/GoTo interface is active.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the play list editor interface is active.

* New Skin Script Active tag for determining if the play list editor interface is maximized.

* New Skin Script Commands allowing you to have Transparent elements within the timeline (both on the control bar and on the main user interface).

* New Skin Script CreateExButton "ActiveHint" value, allowing you to change the button's hint value depending on the button active state.

* New Skin Script CreateExButton "ActiveHoverX" and "ActiveHoverY" values, allowing you to set a button image when the button is both active and the mouse is hovering over it.

+ Entering a negative FunctionParam value on any of the group skin script functions ensures that the skin's window size remains unchanged (use with care).

+ The Play List, Media Library and File Browser navigation interfaces only check for the existance of an external subtitle file once (instead of checking each time the interface is opened).

- Opening the Options dialog on a Monitor/TV with a resolution lower than 800x600 will show scroll bars allowing the dialog to remain accessible.

- External Control Bar buttons (not part of the control bar button list) would not show under certain conditions.

- Having blanking enabled should no longer obscure the navigation interfaces.

- You couldn't disable Smart Play in Zoom Player Standard.

- Increase/Decrease Play Rate functions would not display the exact play rate on the pop-up OSD.

- Audio TAGs (ID3) would not position properly in some cases.

- Navigation interfaces should no longer show hidden files.

- Getting media duration would not work under certain conditions.

- The context navigator colors were not correct if it was the first open navigator.

- Opening directories would not always sort them properly.

- Opening the media library in a filter mode containing no categories would cause an error dialog to appear.

- Setting the mouse left click to move the video area would not work in fullscreen mode.

- Move to Bottom/Top functions on the Play List navigator would not always work properly.

- You could add the "Previous Directory" to the play list in the File / Media Library navigation interfaces.


Here's what changed from RC1:
CODE

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Interface / Control Bar / Display), allowing you to position the control bar at the Top, Center or Bottom of the video area.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen Navigator) allowing you to choose which navigation interfaces are to be listed on the Main Navigator.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Fullscreen Navigator) allowing you to choose If the Navigate-Left key goes up a directory until reaching the root directory or goes to the Drive/Category list directly (File and Media Library Navigators).

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Interface / On Screen Display / Audio Tags) allowing you to choose Auto-Hide the background folder image along with the tags.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Interface / Control Bar) allowing you to show the Control Bar when the mouse cursor is at the top of the screen.

* Clicking the right and left most pixels in any of the navigation interfaces is now equivalent to clicking right/left on the arrows.

* New 2710 CommAPI message allowing you to query the Random Play state (it is also sent when the user changes the Random Play state).

* Pressing Enter on the File Navigator drive list will now open the drive at the root directory.Pressing Right on the drive list opens the last directory browsed on the selected drive.

* Pressing Enter on the Media Library Navigator category list will now open the category at the root directory. Pressing Right on the category list opens the last directory browsed on the selected category.

* New "On Play Complete" value of "Open Media Library".

* New 256x256 Windows VISTA icon.

* New Skin Script "SearchFG" play list parameter, allowing you to set the font color for the search box.

* New Skin Script command "CBarFontMargin" allowing you to specify side margins within the Control Bar timeline in which the font shouldn't be drawn.

* New Skin Script command "TLineFontMargin" allowing you to specify side margins within the main GUI timeline in which the font shouldn't be drawn.

+ The media library navigator now remembers the last path location for each category.

+ The control bar no longer closes when opening a navigation interface while the control bar is detached.

+ When stay on top is enabled, the control bar remains accessible if it is detached from the user interface.

+ "Advanced Options / Interface / Control Bar / Buttons" no longer lists inaccessible functions.

+ The Information Dialog ("I" with a media file playing) now shows format information for the playing file (requires Smart Play enabled).

+ The internal screen saver now runs at idle priority (doesn't take any CPU power unless the CPU isn't doing anything else). This also fixes the problem where using a remote control to turn off the screen saver would not always react instantly.

+ The TAG-Display background color now uses the user-specified Fullscreen Background color instead of Black.

+ The Browse for Folder dialog is now resizable.

- The navigation interfaces would not display properly on a secondary monitor under certain conditions.

- Adding files to the play list from the File or Media Library Navigators could fail under certain conditions.

- Auto-Get duration would not work under certain conditions.

- The Fullscreen Navigation font wasn't being saved properly.

- Having a Volume/Balance/Play Rate bar on either the Control Bar, Equalizer or Play List interfaces would disappear when going fullscreen.

- The mouse cursor would not hide properly when using the internal image decoder or the Flash/HTML/QuickTime ActiveX controls.

- When opening the Media Library Navigator and going to the category selection screen for the first time and then back to the file listing, the file list position would reset.

- Opening non-standard URLs (tivo:// for example) should now work from command line.

- Under some circumstances, the file navigator wouldn't highlight the currently playing file properly.

- The navigation scrollbar size would not always scale properly.

- Opening a new file with the mouse cursor hidden and the control bar visible would hide the mouse cursor to the point it wouldn't show again.

- Frame advance got broken.

- Holding Alt+Enter (fullscreen) for a several seconds straight could cause a crash.


Changes from v4.51:
CODE

* All navigation interfaces have been rewritten from scratch.
Navigtion is now much simpler, only using 5 directional
controls (UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, SELECT/ENTER).

All interfaces are inter-connected through the "MAIN"
navigation interface and are much more easy to control
using a mouse or touch-screen.

Furthermore, navigational interfaces are now scriptable
using a simple text-based scripting language, allowing you
to easily reposition the layout and introduce alternative
graphical elements.

Multiple navigation styles are now available for download.

* Smart Play (previously Customized Media Mode) has been
vastly simplified.In the simple mode, only the available
profiles and the currently used filters are visible.If the
currently used filter matches a profile (which it most always
will), the profile will be highlighted.

Smart Play is now available in all version of Zoom Player
to a lesser degree.

* The Advanced Options dialog has been rewritten from scratch.
The new dialog layout is much more logical and should help
make Zoom Player's powerful features much more easy to access.

* The Keyboard Editor will now let you create Global HotKeys.
These are functions assigned to keys that are active even if
Zoom Player itself is not the active application.
Global HotKeys also have (on a per-key basis) the option to
bring Zoom Player to the front.

* The Auto-Get Duration for media files has been rewritten to
get the duration in the background (working only on unused CPU
cycles), allowing you to load massive play lists without having
to wait.

Getting durations for media files also supports more formats
and is now enabled by default.

* You can now drop Subtitle files on the main user interface in
order to display the subtitle track with the currently playing
media file.
Requires DirectVobSub installed and Smart Play enabled.

* New Equalizer Navigator (Shift+"Q"), allowing you to access
Equalizer settings through the navigation system.

* New Play History Navigator (Shift+"H"), allowing you to return
to previously played files (if they still exist).

* New "ZPS" Skin Installation System.Simply opening any
"ZPS" file (file with a .zps extension) will run Zoom Player
and prompt you to install the skin.

* New Navigation Skin selection option within the Skin Selection
interface ("N").

* New Contact Sheet creation dialog (Alt+Shift+"C").Using this
new interface, you can easily create contact sheet for the
currently playing media file (doesn't work with DVDs).
You must also set the video renderer to VMR9 Windowless.

* New Functions allowing you to play the Next and Previous files
in the same directory as the currently playing file with a
matching file extension.These functions are now assigned to the
"PgUp" and "PgDn" navigational keys when navigator interfaces
are not visible.

For example, when viewing "MyImage.jpg" in a directory that looks
like this:

MyImage.jpg
MyImage.avi
MyImage2.jpg

Pressing "PgDn" will show "MyImage2.jpg", skipping "MyImage.avi"
These functions enhance Zoom Player's capability as an image viewer.

* New Functions (Accessible on the Play List's right-click context menu)
allowing you to move selected items to the top/bottom of the play list.

* New Function (Alt+"E") that enables you to Open/Close the last visible
navigator.This last visible setting is saved between sessions, thus
allowing you continuous navigation through multiple sessions.

* New Function (Shift+"L") allowing you to show/hide the all Control Bar
buttons (without the need to select/remove which buttons are visible).
This function has also replaced the Hide/Show All Control Bar buttons
on the Control Bar Context-Menu.You will now be presented with
a "Hide All Button" toggle (with a checkbox indicating ON/OFF state).

* New Function "fnDeleteCurrent", Assigned by default to the Delete key
(when the navigational interfaces are not in use), allowing you to
erase the currently playing file (with confirmation).

* New Function (Shift+"Esc") allowing you to close all navigational
interfaces.If no navigators are visible, this function does nothing.

* New Functions allowing you to go to the Next/Previous DVD Title.
This requires that the DVD is authored to accept this functionality
(some DVDs are authored to prohibit certain types of access).
The macro keys are Alt+Shift+"]" for Next DVD Title and Alt+Shift+"["
for Previous DVD Title.

* New Extended Function (exZoomTo).This function can be set to Zoom
the video area to a specific Zoom percentage (for example, Zoom to 125%).
You can access this function using the keyboard editor.

* New Settings (Advanced Options / Interface / OSD), allowing you
to force all OSD Displays (Navigators, OSD Actions, Control Bar,
etc...) to display relative to a specific position on screen
(while in fullscreen) or locked to fullscreen on the active monitor.
When enabled, it allows you to Zoom/Move the video without it having
an effect on the positioning of the On Screen Display elements.

* New Settings (Advanced Options / Interface / OSD / Fullscreen
Navigation), allowing you to choose if you want to sort directories
first (list the directories before listing any of the files) in the
File and Media Library navigators.

* New Settings (Advanced Options / Interface / OSD / Fullscreen
Navigation), allowing you to choose if you want to include
sub-directories when playing all files in a directory.

* New Settings (Advanced Options / Playback), which by default tells
Zoom Player to play the next file in the play list when the current
file ends, but when disabled, Zoom Player will pause at the end of
each file (useful for presentations).

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Video / Aspect Ratio) allowing you
specify which monitor you want Source Relative Stretch (Pixel Aspect
Ratio) to apply to.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / System) allowing you to blank
(black-out) all secondary monitors (any monitor not currently
playing video).

* New Setting (Advanced Options / System) allowing you to enable the
Internal Screen Saver for Audio-Only files (so that the Internal
Screen Saver would kick-in even if the file is playing).

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Playback / Windows Media)
allowing you to use the "WMAPro over S/PDIF" DMO filter to output
Windows Media Audio through the S/PDIF port.This setting requires
that you use an external Receiver with Windows Media Audio capabilities.

* New Setting (Skin Selector / Save Position).When enabled,
each skin's position (window position and size) will be remembered
on an individual basis.

* Support for DCoder's DC-DVB filter (a filter capable of using
Zoom Player to view Digital-TV with TimeShifting) has been
improved with new Teletext funtionality (number 0-9 to enter
page numbers and Ctrl+"B" to switch Teletext on/off).
Download the filter at "www.dsp-worx.de".

* The Chapter Editor and GoTo dialog have been merged into a single
interface.The new interface is easier to use and more powerful.

* The Chapter Editor now allows you to input a time to seek to using
an HH:MM:SS.ms structure.The input is pretty flexible, allowing
variants such as H:M:S, M:S, S.ms, etc...

* Pressing Ctrl+"V" in the Chapter Editor pastes the clipboard value
into the "H:M:S.ms" Time field.

* New Setting on the Chapter Editor allowing you to keep the dialog
open even after seeking to a new position.
(Useful for FanSub Editors)

* The current time in MS is now visible on the Chapter Editor.

* The Navigation Keyboard Macros (Up/Down/Left/Right/Select) can now
have a custom function assigned to them when a navigator is not
in use.

* New "Remove Non-Exisiting Entries" button on the Play History
interface, allowing you to remove old entries where the file no
longer exists on the system.

* Automatic support for Audio file image support by base name.
For example, if you have "song.mp3" and "song.jpg" in the same
directory, "song.jpg" will automatically load as a folder image.

* New "FolderImage" Skin-Script function allowing you to draw the
folder image anywhere within the main user interface.

* The "VolumeExData", "BalanceExData" and "RateExData" Skin-Script
functions can now use a Target parameter allowing you to place a
Volume, Balance and Rate Control interfaces on the Play List Editor,
Equalizer and Control Bar.

* SHOUTcasted audio information (Title, Author, URL, Copyright,
Description) can now be accessed by the following Skin-Script tags:
<trackname>, <artistname>, <urllink>, <copyright>, <comment>.

* New "<Volume>" Skin-Script tag, allowing you to display the current
Audio Volume level percentage (0-100).

* New "<FileIndex>" Skin-Script tag, allowing you to display the
currently playing file's index number.

* New "<VideoZoom>" Skin-Script tag, allowing you to display the
current video zooming used in the window interface (affected
by the Alt-"1..5" keys and the new "exZoomTo" function).

* New "cBarTLMinWidth" Skin-Script constant allowing you to specify
the minimum width of the Control Bar's TimeLine (default 64 pixels).

* The Skin Selection dialog now has an "Uninstall" button.

* New "RN" tag for the Zoom Player Play List file format (".zpl")
instructing Zoom Player to randomize the play list once loaded.

* New Communication API Messages "2610, 2611, 2620, 2621, 2630, 2631,
2640, 2641" allowing you to query the current video display area
located within fullscreen mode and to set a new location/size.

* New Communication API Messages "2700, 2701" allowing you to get
and set the current Play Rate (Media Mode Fast Play/Slow Motion and
DVD Mode Fast Forward/Slow Motion/Rewind rates).

* New Communication API Message "5130" allowing you to execute
navigational control functions.

* New Communication API Message "1450" allowing you to request
the Unique DVD Identifier information.

* New DVD "Additional Filter", the "Trombettworks Channel Downmixer",
http://www.trombettworks.com/directshow.php

* The Nero DVD Navigator is now a DVD Navigator option.

* New support for ".FLV" (Flash Video) files (used on YouTube and
several other locations).You need a recent version of ffdshow
(with the FLV1 codec support enabled) and the Gabest FLV Splitter
to get the files to play.

* New Smart Play support for WMV:AP (Windows Media Video:Advanced
Profile).You also need updated Windows Media decoders to play
this new format (the decoders come with WMP 11 and possibly in
a decoder pack from Microsoft).

* New Smart Play profiles for several uncommon AVI/MOV codecs.

* New Smart Play profiles for WavPack Audio.

+ The WMV DRM license acquisition code has been improved and you
should no longer be required to use Windows Media Player to
acquire licenses.

+ Zoom Player's image-scaling code has improved.This means a
very nice speedup when drawing scaled image elements
(navigators, background/folder images, etc...) and a slight
improvement in image quality.
(Licensed from Avery Lee's VirtualDub)

+ The Media Library Path Editor ("Shift+"M") interface has been
restructured, making it clearer and easier to use.

+ The Skin Selection ("N") interface has been restructured,
making it clearer and easier to use.

+ The Station Editor ("X") interface has been restructured,
making it clearer and easier to use.

+ When running a new version for the first time, you will now be
prompted only for important missing decoders.The full list
can still be found in the options dialog.

+ The missing decoders list in the Advanced Options dialog has been
split into a list of Important decoders and All decoders in order
to emphasize that not all decoders listed are required for
general day to day media playback.The Simple Options dialog will
only show the Important decoders.

+ The Media Library navigator interface should work faster on
networked drives and use less drive access.

+ The Media Library navigator will now only highlight the currently
playing file once instead of constantly trying to highlight it.

+ The erase navigator confirmation dialog now returns to the
navigator it was called from.

+ The navigation interfaces can now work without any graphics
(without the "NavData" directory).Won't look very good though.

+ Using the Next/Previous Track function with only one file
in the play list will play the Next/Previous media file in
the same directory (useful for picture browsing).

+ The Auto Show control bar when the cursor is at the screen's
bottom now also Auto Shows the control bar when the cursor is
at the screen's top.

+ Integration into Windows Vista file association interface.
Zoom Player should now appear as a supported program for all
association extensions supported by Zoom Player.

+ A new value has been added to the "Select" (Enter key) allowing
it to open the previously open navigator.

+ Switching display resolution while in fullscreen should now react
better with the main window covering the full display in the new
resolution.And if the display area covered the entire monitor,
the display area is now modified to cover the new resolution.

+ Pressing Stop while already stopped (in media mode) will now return
the playback position to its previous position.

+ The Default Play List skin has been tweaked a bit for usability
and clarity.

+ The File and Media Library Navigators will now dynamically update
their content when a removable media is inserted/removed.

+ When opening the File Navigator and the previous saved directory
position no longer exists, the file navigator will go up through
the directory path until a valid directory does exist or the root
path for the drive is reached (previously, it would go straight
to the root path).

+ The Blanking Navigator will now allow you to Enable/Disable Blanking.

+ The Control Bar will now have a minimum width of 64 pixels for the
timeline and whatever space the active Control Bar buttons take.

+ The Mouse Cursor over the Volume, Rate Control, Balance and
Equalizer bars will now use the "Hand Point" mouse cursor.

+ The Fast Play/Slow Motion rates have changes slightly.

+ Showing the Control Bar now hides the navigator interfaces.

+ Better streaming support.

+ Customized Media Playback has been renamed to "Smart Play".

+ Updated Smart Play profiles to account for Elecard v4's change
of filter identifications.

+ The "Mouse Wheel" section of the Options Dialog has been renamed
to "Mouse" and the "Mouse Toggles" section has moved under it.

+ The Skinning Constants "<filename>", "<filetitle>" and "<filebase>"
in DVD Mode will now display the DVD Title instead of the file name
(which when playing DVDs always points to "VIDEO_TS.IFO".This is
simply more informative.

+ Pressing Enter in the Chapter Editor without any fields filled will
now seek to the current position (useful for Subbing).

+ The Information Dialog (Press "I") now shows an approximate bitrate
as calculated using size of the file being played when DirectShow
doesn't return a valid bitrate.

+ Playing external audio tracks should now maintain proper
synchronization when seeking.Playing external tracks will
also create improved graphs.

+ The Sort by Date feature now sorts new files first.

+ "Play List Editor display moves to follow currently playing track"
setting now centers the currently playing track within the list
(instead of having it appear at the top of the list).

+ The White Wash pattern (Shift+"P") now ignores aspect ratio and
moves the bar somewhat faster (previously it was too slow).

+ The Smart Play Source Filter selection now allows you to add
DMO filters as post processors.

+ Improved shortcut support.When loading shortcuts, instead of loading
the shortcut into the play list, the entry is replaced by the file
the shortcut is pointing to.

Furthermore, you can now use shortcut files in the file and media
library navigators.

+ The Sub-Type list on the Audio/Video Smart Play configuration
dialog will now display the FourCC code for each Sub-Type.

+ The Girder Command export function now exports Zoom Player's
functions in a more orderly list grouping function types into
Girder categories.

+ The Key Edit dialog is now a bit more friendly.

+ The Blanking Navigator key has been changed from "K" to Shift+"K" in
order to prevent accidental activation.

+ The File Navigator key has been changed from "E" to Shift"F" in
order to prevent accidental activation.

+ The Scene-Cut and Chapter Editor interfaces now require the use of
Zoom Player Professional.

- Audio Renderers containing "00" in their device name (such as the
"SB Audigy 2 ZS Audio [A400]") could have disabled audio under some
conditions.

- Under certain conditions (such as logging a user out while
Zoom Player is still running), Zoom Player would have crashed
with an "Unhandled OS Exception" error.

- Trying to run multiple instances all using the same TCP/IP port
will no longer crash with a bind error.

- The Hide TaskBar setting could cause issues in VMR9 Renderless
Exclusive mode.

- Flash files should now play in the proper aspect ratio on display
devices that do not use square pixels.

- OSD Messages wider than the monitor will now be cut to fit the monitor.

- Possible fix for VMR9 Renderless Exclusive fullscreen mode where
tray icons may have flashed.

- Shortcuts with targets using unicode paths are now supported.

- Under certain cases, loading play list files with relative paths
would not always find the files.

- Parameters in shortcut files are no longer ignored.

- Zoom Player can now use/display BMP files created with Photoshop.
(Recent versions of PhotoShop create improperly formatted BMP files).

- Zoom Player user interface elements will now snap to the Visible
Work Area (Task Bar rather than the Monitor border).

- When Zoom Player was set to save its configuration file
locally, or when using an alternative window name,
Zoom Player would not load files from external programs if
it was already open.

- Auto-Disable DVD Subtitles and Preferred DVD Subtitles are now
mutually exclusive (with warning message).

- When Detached, The Control Bar can now be resized from the right
as well as the left sides of the interface.

- Better handling of filters that change the duration of the
currently playing media in real-time (such as TSFileSource).

- You should now be able to erase the currently playing file from
within the Media Library Navigator.

- Mid-Stream aspect ratio changes should now work better (was not
working well when switching DVB TV-Channels).

- Switching to Audio Mode from DVD Mode and then back to DVD Mode
would load the Media Mode skin instead of the DVD Mode skin.

- A few stability tweaks to the skin parsing engine (better handling
of badly written skin-script).

- The setting to prevent Zoom Player from using Smart Play by the



extension of the file being played was not working properly.

- Fixed a possible stability issue with Smart Play and problematic
filters.

- A System-Sound would play when trying to exit Zoom Player using
the TCP Interface.

- The Hand Icon used over the Volume/Balance/Play Rate controls
was not the windows hand icon, this is now fixed.

- The Definition File "SetAudioSync" setting wasn't being applied
when playing DVDs.

- Using the "/F" or "/Z" parameters while Zoom Player is already
fullscreen on a secondary monitor could cause the display to move
to the primary monitor.

- The Change Resolution on Fullscreen feature may not have properly
covered the video area.

- The Search area background color on the Play List Editor was not
being set properly for the default skin.

- When ejecting DVDs as they are playing, Zoom Player may have tried
to automatically replay them causing a DVD Not Found error to pop.

- The Navigator Background skin code definition would only accept
the image if it existed in the root skin directory.

- The Navigator Background skin code definition was ignored if no
icon file was set.

- Automatic Save/Restore of the last position for ".dvr-ms" and ".ts"
files was not working correctly.

- Scene-Cut would malfunction under certain conditions (especially
when trying to use it in combination with ".dvr-ms" files).

- The Play List Editor Window sizes would glitch if closing
Zoom Player while the Play List Editor was maximized.

- When Zoom Player was set to disable the Windows Screen Saver
in fullscreen mode, it could under some conditions cause
hardware powerdown not to activate after Zoom Player was closed.

- When scrolling on the Play History or the Key Editor, the
screen will now update while scrolling.

- Audio files will now be listed in the Play History even if the
setting not to remember the last position for audio files is enabled.

- Removing the currently playing file from the play list would not
clear the file name from the Task Bar or Tray Icon.

- Adding Chapters/Bookmarks would not automatically make the new
Chapters/Bookmarks accessible in certain cases.

- The "<track>" Skin Script value wasn't being cleared when a file
was closed.

- Sorting the play list could lead to the currently playing item
highlight on the play list editor to show the wrong file.

- Moving items in the Play List up/down could fail on unicode files.

- The Bookmark/Chapter Navigator would not support unicode
chapter descriptions.

- The Gradient skin commands were not being effected by the skin tint.

- Several Option dialog tabs may have not translated properly when
a unicode translation was used.

- Using a forced duration value in a Zoom Player Play List file would
carry over the duration to the next file in the play list if it
did not have a forced duration.

- The Pop-Up OSD Action message would not show Unicode characters
properly under some conditions.

- Pressing Enter in the Station Navigator when the navigator contained
no entries would have caused a crash.

- Switching from DVD Mode to Audio Mode and trying to select a
different skin, would set the skin to the DVD Mode and not
the Audio Mode.

- Closing the Player when the screen saver is active on a secondary
monitor caused Zoom Player to crash and not close properly.

- Opening a URL from the command line would have caused it to open
using uppercase, which some servers would not accept as a correct
location for the item.

- Communication API Message 2500 would only transmit if a specific
play on insert setting was enabled.It will now always transmit
if a new disc/drive was inserted.

- Communication API Message 1850 did not properly support
UTF8 file names.

- Enabling the TCP/IP interface using an Extended Function did not
properly enable the interface.

- Some cosmetic glitches when using XP Themes.

- Grid Interfaces (Play History, Key Editor etc...) now respect
the windows color scheme.



What's new in v4.00:

New :

* Zoom Player Professional has been split into a third version. "Zoom Player WMV Professional" is a seperate version of Zoom Player which is capable of playing DRM encoded Windows Media files.
Due to the licensing fees involved in playing DRM content files, Zoom Player WMV Professional requires a purchase upgrade from any previous version of Zoom Player.
In order to play DRM files you must first obtain the DRM license by using Windows Media Player 9 to obtain the license, or with certain WM-DVD discs, just by inserting the disc in the drive for the first time (note that license can expire after several sessions).
You must also download this patch from microsoft which fixes important issues with Windows Media DRM playback: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;823738

* Zoom Player now has an Audio-Bar mode. Playing files in the Audio-Bar mode will disable any video output and certain features that relate to video output and navigation. There is also a new Audio-Bar default skin element with 3 visual configuration (F4/F5/F6). You can switch to Audio-Bar mode by pressing F2, or using the new skin button.

* Double clicking on the file name area will now switch between Audio mode and DVD Mode.

* The Navigator Interfaces have been rewritten from scratch. Most of the functionality has remained the same, but the graphical elements have a clearer look and are now skinnable.
Here are the usability changes:
- The File Navigator 1. Switching between the file and drive listing is now done using the left/right (directions switched). 2. The right direction in the file navigator will go up a directory where possible. 3. The current path is now always visible.
- The Play List Navigator: 1. The design has changed entirely, the display is now split into three regions, the main play list, the current directory for the highlighted file and a mini file browser. 2. When the Play List items are active, pressing the Left button will remove the currently highlighted item from the list. 3. When using the Up/Down buttons within the Play List items, the file browser will automatically switch the current location of the highlighted file. 4. The Right button switches between the Play List items and the File Browser. 5. Pressing Enter in the file browser will add a highlighted file or enter a directory. 6. Pressing the Left button in the file browser will add an entire directory or all the files in the directory if a file is highlighted
- The Media Library Navigator: 1. Similar to the File Navigator design, the media categories are now visible on the left pane at all times. 2. The Right/Left buttons always switch between categories and the active category is highlighted on the left pane.

* The Professional version of Zoom Player can now automatically extract and play any Archive Format (default presets for 7Z,ARJ,BZ2,CAB,RAR and ZIP using the freely available 7-Zip extraction suite). You can configure your own extractors under "Options / Values / Other", but I recommend grabbing 7-Zip at www.7-zip.org as it's free and fast. This new feature can also be used to extract AlbumWrap MP3 files using the freeware "mp3splt.exe" tool from "http://mp3splt.sf.net".

* 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 can now filter out filters that can cause playback instability in standard playback mode through a Filter Black List.
By default I have included the following filters that are known trouble-makers: BiCubic Resizer DivX Antifreeze DeDynamic Audio Filter Morgan Stream Switcher Subtitle Mixer Subtitle Parser TFM Audio Filter
You can easily add/remove filters to the black list through the options dialog (Filter Control / Standard Media Playback). This should make Zoom Player a lot more stable on systems where a lot of 3rd party software have been installed.

* On a fresh install, Zoom Player will look for missing components required to play popular file formats. If no components are detected for a specific file format, you will be prompted to go to the media setup guide. This check is only done once when installing a new version.

* 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".

* 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 Entry (Advanced Options / Values / Other) allowing you to Auto-Get the duration of Media Files according to file extensions. The default is not to Auto-Get as this slows down loading of play lists, however an entry of "AVI;MP3;MPA;OGG" won't slow it too much.

* New Setting (Options / DVD Setup) allowing you to hide the Audio/Video decoder profiles that are not currently registered on your computer.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Mouse Wheel) allowing you to reverse the direction of the mouse wheel with regards to the functions it calls.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Settings / Playback), allowing the Media Definition File (a file containing information on the file being played such as color values, volume, balance, etc...) to be saved automatically (default:off).

* New Setting (Advanced Options / OSD / Navigators) allowing you to have the Play List Navigator opened if the Chapter Navigator is opened and doesn't contain any chapters.

* 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 Setting (Advanced Options / Control Bar / Settings) allowing you to limit the control bar so that it only shows up on mouse movement when in fullscreen mode.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Control Bar / Settings) allowing you to have the Control Bar always visible when playing an Audio file in fullscreen.

* 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.

* New Color Selection (Advanced Options / OSD / Navigators) for Navigators Internal, External and Select Framing Colors.

* You will now be prompted to install DirectVobSub if it's not installed on your system (only one time when a new version is installed).

* New "/SPEAKER:[value]" command line parameter allowing you to set the Windows Speaker setting. Zoom Player will restore the default speaker value when exiting. Possible values are: /SPEAKER:0 - Direct Out /SPEAKER:1 - Headphone /SPEAKER:2 - Mono /SPEAKER:3 - Quad /SPEAKER:4 - Stereo /SPEAKER:5 - Surround /SPEAKER:6 - 5.1 /SPEAKER:7 - 7.1

* New "/AUDBAR" command line parameter starting Zoom Player in Audio-Bar mode.

* New "/LOCKFS" command line parameter which locks Zoom Player in fullscreen mode (useful for Kiosk-Type operation).

* New "/VOL" command line parameter allowing you to set the Zoom Player volume level on start-up. Value can be 0-100. Example: "x:pathtozoom playerzplayer.exe" /vol:75

* New "/MEDIANAV:[CATEGORY]" parameter allowing you to start Zoom Player opened in the Media Library Navigator at a specific category. Example: "x:pathtozoom playerzplayer.exe" "/MEDIANAV:TV Shows"

* New "/EJECT:[n]" command line parameter allowing you to eject a CD/DVD drive from the command line. Example: "x:pathtozplayer.exe" /EJECT:F

* Zoom Player can now associate and play CellPhone 3GPP (.3GP) s263 video files (Must have QuickTime installed for it to play).

* You can now associate the OptimFROG (.OFR) extension and play OptimFROG files once you the decoder installed. OptimFROG is yet another lossless audio compression format (in the nature of APE and FLAC). You can get the OptimFROG decoder here: http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/formats/optimfrog.shtml

* You can now associate the ".FLAC" extension. FLAC is an Open-Source lossless Audio Format. You still need a decoder for it to play. For more information see: http://www.inmatrix.com/articles/mediasetup.shtml

* You can now associate the ".MPC" extension. MPC is a lossy audio format similar to MP3 and Vorbis.

* Two new sections have been added to the Menu file. These new sections allow you to define the menu used for the Context Menu Navigator in DVD and Media modes. I have included useful default entries for these.

* Zoom Player should now support WMV PAR (Pixel Aspect Ratio). You must set the Aspect Ratio mode to Derived for PAR to kick in (you should always set the Aspect Ratio to Derived unless you have other special requirements).

* The LCD interface has been extended and can now be used to call Zoom Player standard and extended functions.

* 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.

* Two new ID3 display tags "" returning the length of the currently playing file and "" returning the total duration for the entire play list.

* The DVD AutoAR feature can now execute an external program when a DVD Aspect Ratio mode changes.

* Zoom Player can now display APE Tags from MPC/MP3/APE/FLAC files.

* Zoom Player can now display WMF Tags from WMA files.

* Zoom Player can now play UTF8 encoded M3U play lists.

* Zoom Player now has 4 default skin visual configuration modes, one with only the volume control (Press "F4"), the same layout with the Balance and Play Rate controls (Press "F5") or the minimalistic layout (Press "F6") or the Video Only Layout (Press "F7").

* New Profiles for Nero Digital filters. These filters seem to be capable of decoding MPEG1 audio (including MP3), MPEG1 Video, XVID and DIVX. Playback is not perfect, I noticed big issues with DIVX playback. These filters are also supposed to decode MPEG2 video and possibly even DVD, but I was unable to get them to work.

* New Profile for the Elecard Video Decoder as a DVD Video Decoder. It may only work for unencrypted DVDs.

* New "Select All" button on the Association Page.

* 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.

* Two new skin variables "cBarNoText" and "tLineNoText" allowing you to disable text display on the timeline and control bar timeline.

* Two new skin variables "tLineFontHeight" and "cBarFontHeight" which are superseding "tLineFontSize" and "cBarFontSize" which were ill suited for Large Fonts. Support for the older variable remains to keep compatibility with old fonts.

* New skin variable "AudioSkin" implying that the specified skin doesn't contain any video area.

* New skin constant "", showing the user selectable entry that usually shows within the timeline (useful to use if you want to disable the text on the timeline itself and show it elsewhere).

* New Keyboard Macro (Shift+"V") to enable/disable the Internal Screen Saver. This macro uses the new "fnSSaverToggle" function.




Changes :

+ Zoom Player now supports VMR7 Windowed playback in all play modes. If you previously used a customized video renderer, make sure to update your settings.

+ Audio DSP should take less CPU power, especially under SSE/SSE2 capable processors.

+ 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 Segment Matching Code has been enhanced to support "*" masking. This new method only works when used at the end of the mask. For example, a mask of "x??.*" would match the following: Andromeda.4x01.answers_given_to_questions_never_asked.avi Andromeda.4x02.pieces_of_eight.mpg Andromeda.4x03.waking_the_tyrants_device.avi And so forth ...

+ SHOUTcast Playback should now be more reliable, Zoom Player will now try the alternate servers if one fails to connect.

+ The "System" Options dialog entry has been replaced with a "Formats" entry. The content of the previous "System" dialog has been moved to the "System Overview" tab within the new "Formats" section. Another tab on the formats section now contains a list of detected missing playback components with links to where you can download and get more information about each component/format.

+ If Windows Animation is enabled (in windows), Zoom Player will no longer animate the window when going fullscreen or when minimizing as it's not very elegant.

+ The "zplayer.regpath" file now allows you to specify a second line with the new Zoom Player Window Name so that you can run multiple instances of Zoom Player and control each remotely as a unique entity. For example, the content of the "zplayer.regpath" file would look like this:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareVirtuaMediaZoomPlayer2 Zoom Two

+ The "System" Options dialog section now displays the merit of each listed filter and also lists known "bad filter" offenders (filters can cause cause audio-loss, flipped video image and so forth).

+ The Flash (SWF files) background color is now set to the fullscreen background color (Advanced Options / Values / Interface), default to black.

+ The Flash and QuickTime playback experience should be better now. The Right-Click context menu should now work perfectly and the keyboard/mouse should be a bit more responsive.

+ DVD "VIDEO_TS.IFO" files are now ALWAYS listed on the File and Media Library navigators.

+ OGM Audio Selection should now work even if the OGG Splitter is not set to Output all Streams.

+ Zoom Player will now check your DirectX version when you try to select the VMR9 as the Video Renderer and inform you if you don't have DirectX v9 installed.

+ The external Minimalistic and Ultra Minimalistic skins have been removed as their functionality is more than covered by the new skin layouts within the default skin.

+ Zoom Player now checks the DirectVobSub path list when looking for subtitle files instead of only looking in the same directory as the media file.

+ The Customized Media Playback Audio/Video Decoder configuration dialog now fits 800x600 resolution in advanced mode.

+ The /F:[n] and /Z:[n] will now allow you to force Zoom Player to fullscreen/zoom mode on a selected monitor even if Zoom Player is already running.

+ DVD Auto-AR values are now applied only once each time the Aspect Ratio mode changes instead of every chapter.

+ The screenshot function will now save the screenshot to the "My Documents" folder if no alternative folder is specified.

+ New "function" parameter on the "DrawExText" skinning function allowing you to specify a double-click function for text labels.

+ Vowel decimation is now used to ensure ID3 display fits within the display area.

+ The Resize Navigator now displays the current Video Aspect Ratio.

+ Adding a chapter from the chapter editor dialog will now enter the specified text as the chapter name if such a text was given.

+ You can now select the Custom Mouse Wheel function from a list instead of manually typing it in.

+ Going fullscreen now moves the Zoom Player window to the front.

+ 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.

+ The F1 keyboard macro now opens the key-help dialog with the focus on the search field.



Fixes :

- Zoom Player could stop responding when trying to load a new media file while the first media file was still being loaded.

- Wrong date encoding error could pop when opening files with no creation dates (could happen with some VCD/SVCD images).

- 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).

- Going to fullscreen on a second monitor using the setting on "Options / Values / Interface" would set the fullscreen size according to the resolution of the monitor the user interface currently resides on instead of the real monitor resolution.

- Using Zoom Player to execute external files could cause certain Zoom Player features to stop responding.

- Opening a DVD while another DVD is already playing would not save the last position properly for the original DVD.

- Remembering the last position on media files would ignore the number of days to save this data and would in fact save it forever. Furthermore, several entries were kept for each file played. It is recommended that you erase the old "zplayer.playcache" file as old entries may stick forever.

- The Increase/Decrease Play Rate wasn't working in the correct order when increase after decreasing or the other way around.

- Dragging the Zoom Player window across monitors or changing resolution should no longer disable the VMR9 scaling fix.

- Dragging the Zoom Player window across monitors or changing resolution should no longer reset the VMR9 color control values.

- Dragging the Zoom Player window across monitors or changing resolution should no longer reset the Overlay color control values.

- The /Q parameter now works when used in combination with the scene-cut end playback event.

- Flash end-of-file should now be detected better.

- Flash clipping should now be OK when setting to the Source or Derived AR modes.

- The Setting to have ZP not clear the play list when opening files externally, wasn't really working (play list was getting cleared anyhow).

- Enter will now open the selected navigator in DVD Mode as long as there is no DVD playing.

- If customized media playback failed to renderer a graph, it was possible that a valid standard graph would get created, but the video would wrongfully appear in an external window.

- Changing the Customized Media Mode Splitter twice would throw an error about the file being in use.

- The Screen Snap Pixel value would not save properly.

- Could not save a Scene-Cut file for DVD discs if they were not previously played.

- Trying to play a truly locked media file (most applications allow you to read files even if they are using them, so not a lot of files are truly locked) could cause ZP to stop responding after an error dialog popped.

- The DrawExText "ShadeBottom" parameter was actually using the value from the "ShadeTop" parameter.

- Switching skins would not set the active skin elements correctly.

- The Control Bar and TimeLine fonts should now appear properly when Windows is set to 120dpi Large Fonts.

- Can now load UTF8 file names from WPL play list files.

- Fixed too many unicode related issues to even begin listing them here.

- "SetOPMWReversed" wasn't exported properly for translation.

- Possible "Insert Disc in Drive" dialog opening inappropriately when opening an ejected DVD drive.

- 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.

- Mouse wheel would not work properly when the play list editor window was visible before going to fullscreen.

- 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.

- Tab switching in options dialog is now more logical.




v4.0 RC3
* VMR7 support added to Standard Media Mode and Customized DVD Mode.

* New Entry (Advanced Options / Values / Other) allowing you to Auto-Get the duration of Media Files according to file extensions. The default is not to Auto-Get as this slows down loading of play lists, however an entry of "AVI;MP3;MPA;OGG" won't slow it too much.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Control Bar / Settings) allowing you to have the Control Bar always visible when playing an Audio file in fullscreen.

+ A Zoom Player WMV Professional key will now activate WMV features on the Zoom Player Professional executable and using a Zoom Player Professional key on the Zoom Player WMV Professional executable will only enable the Zoom Player Professional feature-set.

+ Slight change to the top-buttons on the media mode skin.

+ Further expansion and stability of the TCP/SendMessage interface.

+ The Filters in use Customized Media Mode listing now shows the registration state for the selected profiles.

+ Going fullscreen now moves the Zoom Player window to the front.

- Possible fix to AC3 Filter connection issues.

- Auto Segment Loading could incorrectly match non-media files (such as subtitle files with the same base name).

- Mouse wheel would not work properly when the play list editor window was visible before going to fullscreen.

- Certain Flash files could lose audio when resizing window.

- Loop current media file feature could cause a crash when playing non-DirectShow content (HTML/QuickTime/JPEG/Etc...).

- Unicode file names will now show properly on the application task bar (when the setting is enabled under Options / Settings / Other).

- Tab switching in options dialog is now more logical.


v4.0 RC2
+ The F1 keyboard macro now opens the key-help dialog with the focus on the search field.

- DVD Video/Audio Decoder and Navigator selection would not be remembered under certain conditions.

- Using the Configure buttons on the Customized Media Playback filter listings would cause the dialogs to appear over and over again in a loop.

- The Internal JPEG Decoder would not display JPEG images when certain conditions were met.

- Loading JPEG images with a slideshow value of 0 will now stay on the same image until next track is called or another image is loaded manually.

- Values for DVD Auto-AR external program execute would not save.

- Value for External Audio Track path would not save.

- Value for Internal JPEG Image Decoder would not save.

- Could not save a Scene-Cut file for DVD discs if they were not previously played.

- Background image would not load properly under some conditions.



v4.0 RC1
* 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.


v4.0 beta 3
* Zoom Player Professional has been split into a third version.
"Zoom Player WMV Professional" is a seperate version of Zoom
Player which is capable of playing DRM encoded Windows Media
files.

Due to the licensing fees involved in playing DRM content files,
Zoom Player WMV Professional requires a purchase upgrade from any
previous version of Zoom Player.

In order to play DRM files you must first obtain the DRM license
by using Windows Media Player 9 to obtain the license, or with
certain WM-DVD discs, just by inserting the disc in the drive
for the first time (note that license can expire after several
sessions).

You must also download this patch from microsoft which fixes
important issues with Windows Media DRM playback:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;823738

Furthermore, you must have a Display Card capable of working
in Video Mixing Renderer 9 (VMR9) mode.

* The Navigator Interfaces have been rewritten from scratch.
Most of the functionality has remained the same, but the
graphical elements have a clearer look and are now skinnable.

Here are the usability changes:

- The File Navigator
1. Switching between the file and drive listing is now done using the left/right (directions switched).
2. The right direction in the file navigator will go up a directory where possible.
3. The current path is now always visible.

- The Play List Navigator:
1. The design has changed entirely, the display is now split into three regions, the main play list, the current directory for the highlighted file and a mini file browser.
2. When the Play List items are active, pressing the Left button will remove the currently highlighted item from the list.
3. When using the Up/Down buttons within the Play List items, the file browser will automatically switch the current location of the highlighted file.
4. The Right button switches between the Play List items and the File Browser.
5. Pressing Enter in the file browser will add a highlighted file or enter a directory.
6. Pressing the Left button in the file browser will add an entire directory or all the files in the directory if a file is highlighted

- The Media Library Navigator:
1. Similar to the File Navigator design, the media categories are now visible on the left pane at all times.
2. The Right/Left buttons always switch between categories and the active category is highlighted on the left pane.

* Double clicking on the file name area will now switch between
Audio mode and DVD Mdoe.

* New Setting (Advanced Options / Control Bar / Settings) allowing
you to limit the control bar so that it only shows up on mouse
movement when in fullscreen mode.

* Two new skin variables "tLineFontHeight" and "cBarFontHeight"
which are superseding "tLineFontSize" and "cBarFontSize" which
were ill suited for Large Fonts. Support for the older variable
remains to keep compatibility with old fonts.

* Zoom Player can now associate and play CellPhone 3GPP (.3GP)
s263 video files (Must have QuickTime installed for it to play).

* You can now associate the OptimFROG (.OFR) extension and play
OptimFROG files once you the decoder installed. OptimFROG is
yet another lossless audio compression format (in the nature of
APE and FLAC). You can get the OptimFROG decoder here:
http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/formats/optimfrog.shtml

+ Audio DSP should take less CPU power, especially under SSE/SSE2
capable processors.

+ The playback from archive formats now has a checkbox which allows
you to select whether the file extension should be looked at to
determine if the file is an archive, or if the whole file name
should be evaluated (in a case where the file name might actually
contain the string, such as "my_music_albw.mp3" or "audio.zip.mp3").

+ The Segment Matching Code has been enhanced to support "*" masking.
This new method only works when used at the end of the mask. For
example, a mask of "x??.*" would match the following:
Andromeda.4x01.answers_given_to_questions_never_asked.avi
Andromeda.4x02.pieces_of_eight.mpg
Andromeda.4x03.waking_the_tyrants_device.avi
And so forth ...

+ SHOUTcast Playback should now be more reliable, Zoom Player will
now try the alternate servers if one fails to connect.

+ The "System" Options dialog entry has been replaced with a "Formats"
entry. The content of the previous "System" dialog has been moved to
the "System Overview" tab within the new "Formats" section. Another
tab on the formats section now contains a list of detected missing
playback components with links to where you can download and get
more information about each component/format.

+ Zoom Player can now detect if Flash or QuickTime is missing and
inform you on the "Missing Formats" page.

+ New "function" parameter on the "DrawExText" skinning function
allowing you to specify a double-click function for text labels.

+ If Windows Animation is enabled (in windows), Zoom Player will no
longer animate the window when going fullscreen or when minimizing
as it's not very elegant.

+ Vowel decimation is now used to ensure ID3 display fits within the
display area.

+ The Resize Navigator now displays the current Video Aspect Ratio.

+ You can now select the Custom Mouse Wheel function from a list
instead of manually typing it in.

- Extracting from archive didn't work for unicode archive names.

- Using Zoom Player to execute external files could cause
certain Zoom Player features to stop responding.

- The Control Bar and TimeLine fonts should now appear properly when
Windows is set to 120dpi Large Fonts.

Home Theater PC made Simple
Zoom Player's fullscreen navigation interface is based on a simple 5-Key system (up/down/left/right/select). The 5-key system allows easy access and navigation to such interfaces as Media Library, File Browsing, Playlist, Color Control, Audio Equalizer, Chaptering, Play History and many more. The system's simplicity makes it ideal for users with no previous computer experience.

With Zoom Player, you can instantly Convert any PC into a Home Entertainment Center or Home Theater PC (HTPC) with no requirement for specialized hardware or operating system (Zoom Player runs on every version of Windows).

Utilizing Zoom Player's modular design and flexibility, you can easily design a safe viewing environment, limiting or extending functionality, making it ideal for both children and to the consummate professional.

Forward Thinking
Zoom Player's Install Center will scan your system for missing or outdated components and automatically present you with a list of recommended updates and patches. Using Zoom Player's Install Center technology, you can be sure your system is up to date with the most recent technological innovations without compromising security (all updates are digitally signed) while gaining access to a centralized location, removing the burden of manually searching for the latest updates yourself.

Technology meets Sophistication
Zoom Player installs easily, learning your computer's hardware and software setup. Using the innovative Smart Play technology, Zoom Player employs the ideal "play profile" for every session. This profile comprises the most suitable Audio and Video decoders matched with compatible components - a combination that guarantees a perfect viewing experience, time after time.

A tool for every need
Zoom Player addresses every aspect of DVD and Media control. Zoom Player plays media in every conceivable color composition, display type, playback speed and more. With Zoom Player you can create and manage personalized Media Libraries, virtual Chaptering and Bookmarks, cut and edit scenes with the Scene Cut Editor. Zoom Player employs customizable display characteristics and user defined presets, allows to Remote-Control all menu, navigation and playback functions via wireless (RF) or Infra-Red (IR) Remote Control units, and comes ready with a set of TCP/IP Commands to allow control of Zoom Player via the internet (or any TCP/IP based connection).

Customize, Modify, Reshape as you like
Use Zoom Player's flexible customization options to match your taste. Modify the Graphical User Interface, menus and splash screens. Change operation modes, control options, codec compatibility and many other features. Don't compromise. Make the system meet your EXACT needs.

Shape your desired viewing environment with ease using Zoom Player's modular design and flexibility. Extend or limit functionality as you wish. Personalize the interface, functions and viewing parameters to suit any type of use, any viewer - from a simple, safely monitored, children-friendly viewing tool to a sophisticated, no-limits powerhouse for professionals.

Flavors for All
Zoom Player comes in three flavors: Zoom Player Professional, Zoom Player Premium, and Zoom Player MAX Professional.