Highlights of v22:
- New Video Streaming Home Theater interface
- Many Video Streaming optimizations and enhancements
- Easily move Zoom Player between monitors
- Quality of life enhancements
- Important bug fixes
Full changelog:
Legend :
"*" = New
"+" = Change
"-" = Fix
* If you have Zoom Player setup to use a local settings file, please
disable this setting (Adv. Options / System) before upgrading. Once
upgraded, you can re-enable the setting. Not following this procedure
may result in your settings being reset.
This issue does NOT apply to Zoom Player MAX.
* I have designed an entirely new Video Streaming Home Theater interface.
You can access the new interface by:
1. Using the right-click menu under "Home Theater".
2. Using the Shift+"G" keyboard shortcut.
3. Navigating through the home theater main interface (assuming
the Video Streaming setting is enabled in Zoom Player's advanced
options).
4. By assigning it as a button in the control overlay's advanced
options page.
What works:
1. Playing streams.
2. Playing VOD movies & series.
3. Playing archive (catch-up) programs.
4. EPG Grid & List view modes.
5. Multiple playlists.
6. VOD movies / series meta-data information and posters (basic).
7. You should be able to easily control and navigate the
interface using a mouse, keyboard or remote control.
8. The Streaming Video Home Theater interface is fully customizable.
From colors to element sizes, press the top bar's paint
brush button to begin customizing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JXbFB5OWyM
What's coming in next :
1. Search / Filtering.
2. Playing stream indicator
3. A prettier VOD Movies / TV Series thumbnail with backdrop display.
4. Manual refresh Playlist/EPG database button.
5. Fancy animations.
* Wrote a Video Streaming Player API meta-data scraping spider that
uses multiple threads to download and cache VOD meta-data such as
descriptions, cast, director, etc).
Specify how many threads in Advanced options under "Playback /
Video Streaming". The default value is "4" and when choosing a higher
value, consider how much you're willing to overload your content
provider's servers or even risk having them block your IP address
(most probably won't notice a higher value).
* The Video Streaming Windowed interface (Ctrl+"G" keyboard shortcut)
icon download/decoding/resizing code is now heavily multi-threaded,
freeing the user interface to be more responsive and icons to load
faster.
The updated code supports displaying WebP icons/thumbnails and uses
a place-holder if no image is found or if an unsupported format is
used (e.g. SVG).
If WebP icons are not showing, make sure you have Microsoft's WebP
extension installed:
https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9PG2DK419DRG
SVG icon support may come eventually if Microsoft decides to release
an extension that supports it.
* Video Streaming M3U playlist URLs and Player API JSON URLs are now
automatically parsed and cached in the background as soon as the
download completes to ensure the fastest operation when opening
the Video Streaming Windowed or Home Theater interfaces.
* Implemented a Video Streaming M3U caching system that automatically
caches M3U files as soon as they're added as a video streaming playlist
sources.
Since cached parsing speed is over 200% faster, initially opening
the Video Streaming Window or Home Theater interfaces should feel
faster when using M3U sources.
* Rewrote the Video Streaming's Player API JSON playlist caching code to
a binary format, increasing both reliability and performance.
* The Video Streaming's Player API JSON playlist parsing now processes
the "Live / Series / Movie" JSON playlists concurrently using multiple
threads, increasing parsing speed by 20-50% depending on your system
and content provider.
* Window's keyboard shortcut to move the active window across multiple
monitors did not work well if Zoom Player had an overlay/window interface
visible, instead of moving Zoom Player, Windows' keyboard shortcut would
move the open window or overlay interface instead.
Another issue with this Windows keyboard shortcut is that it simply doesn't
work well if Zoom Player is in fullscreen mode and you are moving the user
interface between two different resolution monitors.
To work-around both issues. I've created two keyboard shortcuts of my own:
Ctrl+Shift+"]" - Move Zoom Player's interface to the next monitor
Ctrl+Shift+"[" - Move Zoom Player's interface to the previous monitor
* A new feature to specify an exact subtitle synchronization value is
now accessible under the "Controls" section of the right-click menu.
* Added a "refresh" option to Video Streaming TV Series episode listing.
* The Stream Group Manager has been redesigned for greater clarity and
a few new features were added :
1. The ability to easily unhide multiple previously hidden groups.
2. New Cut/Copy/Paste right-click menu functionality in the
"Favorite Group Streams" list to easily organize favorites
between multiple favorite groups.
* The Streaming Video content browser window's stream filtering feature
now supports multiple "or" search queries.
For example, typing "Spo, Wea" will only list streams containing
"Spo" or "Wea" in their title.
* I changed the way streaming playlists are parsed so each playlist
is now parsed in a separate thread. If you're a power user
with multiple streaming sources, you should notice a significant
speed increase when initially opening the video streaming Windowed
or Home Theater interfaces.
* Added another caching layer to optimize the re-opening of the video
streaming window which should now be nearly instantaneous even when
dealing with playlists with over 20,000 groups.
* New feature on the right-click menu of the Video Streaming window
to open streams/favorites in a new player instance.
* New feature on the Video Streaming window to open previously played
streams in a new player instance.
* Zoom Player's pre-configuration wizard has been extended with
support for a new Home Theater video streaming mode and Zoom Player
STREAM will now display the pre-configuration wizard to query whether
to use Video Streaming PC or Home Theater PC modes.
The pre-configuration wizard can be used manually at any time using
the Alt+Shift+"F12" keyboard shortcut.
* The Video Streaming Setup Wizard (Ctrl+Shift+"F12" keyboard shortcut)
has been redesigned to allow you to easily add and manage multiple
Subscriptions and URLs (links) to M3U playlists and XML Episode Guides.
* You can now double-click a favorite group in the Streaming Group
Manager to rename the group and double-click a Group's stream to
add it to the favorites.
* New feature accessible from the right-click menu under the "Open"
sub-menu to show the playing media in Windows' File Explorer.
* You can now right-click a media library entry to show the selected
file or folder in Windows' File Explorer.
* To make it easier to mobilize Video Streaming subscription across
devices, I've added a new feature (Adv. Options / Playback / Video
Streaming) to Disable or Enable Video Streaming subscriptions.
Disabled subscriptions will not show up in the Video Streaming
Windowed or Home Theater interfaces and automated/manual databases
updates will remain paused until the subscription is re-enabled.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video Streaming) that controls
whether playing archived/catchup streaming programs uses the specified
time zone when creating the URL.
Previously, the time zone was always used, disable this setting if
the wrong program plays.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video Streaming) allowing you
to prevent streaming re-connection attempts if the initial connection
took more than a specified number of seconds (15 by default).
The rationale behind this feature is that when a server is truly down
or busy, it usually takes 1-3 seconds for the streaming component to
recognize the issue. However when the server up but not configured to
stream data, it may take streaming component 20 seconds to recognize
the connection failure.
Performing a sequence of 3 connection attempts when the server takes
20 second to responds would have Zoom Player freezing for a solid
minute, which isn't very friendly.
* Added the option to show the current time on the control overlay's
timeline area (Adv. Options / Interface / Control Overlay). The new
letter to show the current time in either of the left/center/right
screen zones is "M".
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Home Theater / Setting) that
controls whether sorting the media library by size in a folder based
category includes sorting folders by their content size.
Since scanning the contents of folders and sub-folders can be slow,
this setting is disabled by default.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Mouse / Wheel) to reverse
the horizontal scroll / tilt direction.
* The playlist editor's "Save Playlist" dialog now allows you to save to
the M3U playlist format using the "Save as type" drop-down menu.
* New Alt+Ctrl+"F1" keyboard shortcut to run Zoom Player's install center
and close the player.
* You can now access Zoom Player's options dialog from the Home Theater
main menu under the "System" section.
* The Video Streaming Setup Wizard is now accessible through the right-
click context menu.
+ The options dialog's search feature has been enhanced to search
drop-down menus and lists while no longer showing search result
entries for invisible controls.
+ The Video Streaming EPG listing should appear a little faster.
+ The Video Streaming subscription section of the advanced options dialog
has been redesigned to improve the user experience.
+ Optimized the Video Streaming playlist group name caching algorithm,
now 500% faster. Initially opening the Video Streaming Window or Home
Theater interfaces should feel faster.
+ Filtering Video streaming streams now includes group names in the
filtered results to make it easier to differentiate between duplicate
stream names by using the group's name.
Duplicate stream names are often the result of varying streaming
quality (e.g. 1080p/4K/HDR/etc).
+ Enhanced the Video Streaming Player API JSON caching to use a
specific caching format for each of the Live, Series and Movie
playlists, lowering the cache file size and slightly speeding
up the caching process.
+ When using the Video Streaming Window in "Player API" subscription
mode, clicking on VOD entries will now show a visual "Loading ..."
indicator in the EPG panel to make it clearer that information is
being downloaded.
+ The Control Overlay's timeline can now be used to seek in sub-second
values. Mostly noticeable on short videos.
+ You can now disable Video Streaming providers auto-updates (download)
by setting the "Auto update (days)" value to "0". You can still trigger
an update by clicking the refresh button on the Video Streaming Window
or through the advanced options dialog's "Playback / Video Streaming"
section.
+ Switching streaming playlist using the drop-down menu on the Video
Streaming Window now always ensures that favorites remain visible at
the top of the list regardless of the selected playlist.
+ The Chapter/Bookmark editor no longer forces you to pick a title before
adding an entry. If no title is specified, only the time is listed.
+ The minimize button has been visually updated to match Window's
design language (vertically centered now).
+ The Hidden Group list in the advanced options dialog's Streaming Video
section can now be used to select and delete multiple hidden group names
from the list in one action.
+ The mouse wheel horizontal scroll / tilt feature has been reset with
its default value now set to "Navigation" and the scroll direction
has been reversed (you can switch the direction back in the options).
+ You can no longer open the Video Streaming Window or Home Theater
interfaces if no playlist sources are defined. In such a case, the
Video Streaming Setup Wizard will open instead.
+ The "Clicking the video area with another app active only takes focus"
setting (enabled by default) has been changed so if you have the control
overlay or control bar set to auto-show on movement, the click shows
the controls.
+ The default "Fast Play" value has been changed from x2 (200% faster) to
x1.5 (150% faster). This change only affects new installations.
+ When saving playlists, the path mode dialog no longer appears and the
full path is saved by default. You can restore the path mode dialog under
"Adv. Options / Interface / Playlist".
- Fixed multiple stability issues related to the Video Streaming window
(freezing on open, window not closing, etc).
- Zoom Player now trims spaces from the start and end of Video Streaming
Player API credentials to prevent accidental copy & paste misfortunes
that result in broken database downloads and streaming links.
- Using a Video Streaming playlist with identical group names used
across different content types (live/series/movies) resulted in streams
from groups with identical names to mix and show across multiple groups.
- Restoring previously opened groups when opening the video streaming
window interface did not work as intended if the video streaming playlist
contained multiple identical group names across different content types.
- Using the Refresh button on the Video Streaming window was a bit
confusing when used with multiple playlists/providers as it showed
you that there's an update ready after each playlist/provider finished
downloading. This caused a weird state where it wasn't very clear
what's going on.
- When Zoom Player hid the mouse cursor on inactivity, it didn't re-show
the mouse cursor when opening several of Zoom Player interfaces using
keyboard shortcuts, making it very difficult to use the newly open
interfaces.
- For a reason I can't explain, the setting to allow YouTube interactivity
was enabled by default, preventing Zoom Player from processing mouse or
keyboard events when playing YouTube content through YouTube's official
JavaScript API.
Since this setting should only be enabled in very special circumstances,
I have decided to take the extra step of resetting this setting, allowing
Zoom Player to properly process keyboard/mouse events. You can re-enable
this setting in Zoom Player's advanced options as-needed.
- The Video Streaming Setup Wizard dialog was not properly adjusting to
high DPI displays.
- Re-opening the Video Streaming Windowed interface now properly restores
both the stream-list's active entry and the top index (starting item in
the list), ensuring the list position remains exactly as it was before
closing the window.
- Fixed an issue with the 12/24 hour time format displayed in some areas,
hopefully for good this time.
- Fixed an issue with seeking to the next/previous chapter where the
seeking was only accurate to the second instead of sub-second.
- Fixed a case when using the control overlay interface to open a window
(e.g. The playlist editor) would cause the control overlay to become
hidden behind the video window.
- The "Adv. Options / Playback / Video Streaming" setting for "Playing
a stream clears the playlist" did not function with the playlist
still being cleared with this setting unchecked.
- Showed the wrong Video Streaming window's EPG selected entry
background color for VOD entries.
- Showed the wrong duration for some Video Streaming "Player API"
VOD entries.
- Video Streaming "Player API" subscription VOD entries could show
"null" instead of no text at times where the provider did not include
certain texts such as Title and Plot.
- Closing the Video Streaming Window as stream icons/posters were queued
for download/decoding prevented the icons/posters from being downloaded/
decoded when reopening the window.
- Due to a bug in character encoding, it was impossible to login to
Emby/Jellyfin media servers when using a username or password
containing certain characters.
- The internal screen saver did not activate when hovering with the
mouse cursor over the control bar's timeline area.
- Fixed a bug that prevented the timeline thumbnail preview from working
when the preview thumbnail and playing video shared the same resolution.
- Zoom Player's error dialog (in red) did not have a minimum size
limit, causing it to break if the error message was too short.
It also flickered when hovering over the buttons and the buttons
themselves were triggered on mouse "down" instead of "click",
making the dialog less intuitive.
- Resetting Zoom Player's setting to default through the options dialog
now also erases the video streaming database cache.
- Sorting a media library category by size with the setting to sort
folders by their size and the setting to list folders before files
both enabled, broke the sorting entirely.
- Fixed a crash when using the video streaming group manager and then
closing the video streaming window before the updated list refreshed
itself.
- The up/down/top/bottom sorting arrows in the Video Streaming Group
Manager's favorite streams section were broken.
- Fixed a case where the Streaming Video "Program Info" window could
appear behind the main Streaming Video window.
- Setting a time shift value to an Streaming Video username/password
login profile did not show the time shift value next to the profile
name.
- The media library's meta-data editor now allows you to replace the
backdrop and poster images after a successful meta-data scrape returned
no image data.
- Fixed a bug that caused the Streaming Video EPG for the previously
selected stream not to show after opening the options dialog.
- Some pop-up confirmation/error/information dialog did not take into
account the monitor's DPI (size) value and showed smaller text.
- Fixed possible crashes when trying to use Zoom Player's TCP/IP API
when a track was loading or when Zoom Player was in the process of
shutting down.
- When showing the time seek position over the timeline (Adv. Options /
Interface) in combination with showing a thumbnail, the font size
setting was not being applied correctly.
- Fixed a small cosmetic glitch when editing the Window position
snap zones (Adv. Options / Interface / Position & Size).
- It was impossible to move the pre-configuration (Desktop/HTPC/etc)
window by dragging from the title area.
- When using the Video Streaming setting to sort the group names, the
category (live/movies/series) sorting order was incorrect.
- The Media Library's resume playback confirmation dialog failed to work
if the media's title contained the "|" (pipe) character.
- Fixed a cosmetic glitch in the default skin's playlist editor where
the search-box text could slightly overlay the bottom playlist entry.
- With the Video Streaming Windowed interface open (Ctrl+"G" keyboard
shortcut), pressing "Enter" in the EPG panel did not start playing
the stream.
- Fixed a crash when trying to display "WEBP" images renamed to "PNG".
- Unchecking the "Show timeline bar" setting didn't properly hide the
timeline bar, causing it to appear in the wrong position, obscuring
other UI elements.
- The "Reset settings to default" feature in the advanced options dialog
did not reset Zoom Player's pre-configuration, resulting in most settings
being reset, but not all and the use-type configuration wizard
(PC, HTPC,etc) not showing up on the next run.
- Fixed cases where DirectShow filter configuration dialogs could appear
behind the control overlay UI.
- The Control Overlay user interface could appear over the UI help windows
accessible from the right-click window.
- Hopefully (the issue was hard to reproduce) fixed a case where the mouse
cursor is hidden due to inactivity while the playlist editor is visible
and moving the mouse cursor over the playlist editor did not restore it.
- Fixed a Zoom Player TCP/IP API bug related to requesting the current
playlist when a media's title contained the pipe "|" character.
- The playlist editor's "Save Playlist" button did not allow you to use
unicode characters for the playlist name.