Software Update: Zoom Player 5.00 Technology Preview

Inmatrix has released a preview of the upcoming version 5 of Zoom Player. This so-called Technology Preview weighs just under two and a half megabytes cleanly on the hook and can from here are downloaded. The most notable change in this version is a completely rewritten media library (a screenshot of which can be seen at the bottom of this posting). In addition, a very large number of more and less visible changes have been made and here is an extensive and complete overview:

New features:

• Smart Media Mode (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 Media Mode is now available in all versions of Zoom Player to a lesser degree.
• 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.
• 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 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.
• 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 (Advanced Options / OSD / OSD Area), 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). 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 (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 / Values ​​/ Aspect Ratio) allowing you specify which monitor you want Source Relative Stretch (Pixel Aspect Ratio) to apply to.
• New Setting (Advanced Options / Values ​​/ Interface) allowing you to blank (blackout) all secondary monitors (any monitor not currently playing video).
• New Setting (Advanced Options / Values ​​/ Interface) 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).
• The GoTo dialog 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” on the GoTo dialog pastes the clipboard value into the “H:M:S.ms” Time field.
• New Setting on the GoTo dialog allowing you to keep the dialog open even after seeking to a new location. (Useful for FanSub Editors)
• The current time in MS is now visible on the GoTo dialog.
• 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 “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 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 “cBarTLMinWidth” Skin-Script constantly 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”,
• The Nero DVD Navigator is now a DVD Navigator option.
• New Smart Media profiles for several uncommon AVI/MOV codecs.
• New Smart Media profiles for WavPack Audio.

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.
• 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 Imporant 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 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.
• The Blanking Navigator will now allow you to Ebable/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 Equazlier 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 Media Playback”.
• Updated Smart Media 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 GoTo dialog 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.
• “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 Smart Media Mode Source Filter selection now allows you to add DMO filters as post processors.
• The Scene-Cut and GoTo interfaces now require the use of Zoom Player Professional.

Fixes:

• Audio Renderers containing “00” in their device name (such as the “SB Audigy 2 ZS Audio [A400]”) could have disabled audio under some conditions.
• Possible fix for VMR9 Renderless Exclusive fullscreen mode where icons may have flashed.
• 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 Media Playback by the extension of the file being played was not working properly.
• Fixed a possible stability issues with Smart Media Playback and problematic filters.
• A System-Sound would play when trying to exit Zoom Player using the TCP Interface.
• 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.
• 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 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.
• Some cosmetic glitches when using XP Themes.

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