Zoom Player transforms any PC into an HTPC without any special requirements or operating system restrictions, making it simple for newcomers and offering ultimate flexibility to power users alike.
Zoom Player’s internal decoders can be utilized to load image definition files directly, which may reduce performance and memory usage for certain formats. When enabled, this setting can reduce performance and memory usage for some formats.
Video Formats Supported
Zoom Player is a highly advanced media player with extensive configuration options. It provides support for an array of audio and video formats as well as full playlist and image browsing functionality, ID3 tags display capabilities, multiple languages support, DRM encoded Windows Media file playback capability and can even display ID3 tags!
The latest version of the program can be downloaded directly from its developer’s website and includes improved Blu-Ray Disc format support, including menu playback. In addition, an updated scenecut editor and playlist file association capabilities have also been implemented, and mouse scroll wheel navigation to control video displayed in preview window has also been made possible. Finally, new codec detection technology makes enabling additional codecs automatic when necessary.
Other enhancements include the option of choosing a default media library and playlist folder as well as hiding or showing the control bar when in fullscreen mode. The program menu now also features a contextually sensitive “Help” button as well as options to modify keyboard shortcuts used for various functions and auto adjust the screen resolution on tablets.
Zoom Player now enables you to customize both the background and thumbnail representation of current videos in its preview window, with an additional setting allowing you to set how many pixels to skip at the end of every playback session. There are several new video effects such as blur effects that add depth to pictures; it now supports up to 4K resolution, timeline can now be moved with right mouse button click, as well as detect TV tuner cards automatically and adapt its settings accordingly.
This release includes several bug fixes. For instance, the setting ‘Show OSD when opening a new file’ no longer interferes with the pop-up message when OSD is disabled by OS. Furthermore, the program now correctly determines if video has been cropped to fit certain dimensions and supports all aspects of ‘overlay covers entire video area’ setting when OSD is disabled.
Audio Formats Supported
Zoom Player supports many audio media formats, including AAC, AC3, FLAC, GIF Mid/Mid Mid MP3 Wav Wma (and many more!). Most video files also contain embedded audio data which Zoom Player can extract and decode into playback-ready tracks for listening pleasure.
Audio DSP (Digital Signal Processing) settings offer numerous audio enhancements. This includes configuring Equalizer range and PreAmp volume settings; by default the Equalizer range is 12dB while PreAmp sensitivity allows you to increase or decrease gain on internal preamp.
Zoom Player also supports several advanced audio file metadata settings. Zoom Player supports the Tags meta-data standard which enables you to add tags for sorting, filtering and searching of music files – helpful when organizing collections of tracks into collections or searching files by genre or artist names. When used together with Genre and Collection features for finding files more quickly.
Zoom Player supports most popular DVD video formats, such as avi, aac, flv, mkv, mov and MPEG files such as MPEG-1 MPEG-4 OGM TTS; additionally many popular audio files including Ogg APE WAV WMA OggAPE are supported too. All these file types also support Media Tags which can help filter, sort and search them.
Tags and Collections features can be combined with Genre/Artist/Playlist to create tailored searches which will automatically locate matching content in your library. Genre/Artist/Playlist helps organize media files into categories for easy access and playback.
Zoom Player’s installer automatically identifies and installs all necessary codecs and components required to playback common audio and video file formats. Using its Manual Association feature, you can manually associate certain file extensions with Zoom Player; alternatively its Auto-Play button can launch it when media of supported types are inserted onto your computer.
Audio Enhancements
Zoom provides several audio enhancements that can significantly improve the quality of video or phone call meetings, including noise suppression, echo cancellation and background sound filtering. Furthermore, this software offers ways to test microphone and speaker setups before meetings begin and adjust volume controls to prevent sound from fading during discussions.
One key point when considering Zoom software is its extensive list of advanced options, which may overwhelm users seeking just simple playback applications. While the software comes equipped with help files to provide explanation of these features, those unfamiliar with multimedia software may take longer than expected to comprehend where each feature resides or even what its function may be.
There are various settings to customize the appearance and functionality of the zoom player interface, including controlling navigation using either a mouse or remote control device. This is particularly helpful if using zoom software on a PC that does not feature external keyboard and mouse connections.
Zoom can automatically activate Audio stream tracks in media files based on text matches such as Language Country IDs, language name masks (partial language names are supported) or specific Stream index numbers. The software will attempt to first match Country ID identifiers before matching text matches for language names text matches and finally an index number match.
Zoom supports many file formats and provides detailed meta-data information about media files such as size, track number and artist name. Furthermore, zoom can search and display movie folders containing external subtitle files.
Zoom offers the ability to disable its internal audio DSP component for improved performance on older computers with limited CPU or memory resources, and comes equipped with an extensive array of keyboard shortcuts, customizable media library/playlist and advanced jukebox functions. Furthermore, you can select an accelerated scrolling speed for list-based categories and enable/disable an icon navigation interface.
Streaming
Zoom Player’s Smart Play technology quickly transforms any PC into a fully featured home entertainment center or HTPC (Home Theater PC) without the need for expensive specialized hardware or software. Supporting more media formats than any other free program available today and easy enough for anyone to use – Zoom Player makes home entertainment accessible to all!
Fullscreen navigation interface of Media Library uses a 5-key system (up/down/left/right/select) for effortless access and navigation to Media Library, File Browsing, Playlists, Color Controls and Audio Equalizer. User configurable Options Dialog allows for extensive personalization of the application.
Zoom Player goes beyond DirectShow’s standard decoding capabilities by offering dynamic decoding profiles for various media types that enable dynamic switching between decoding components without needing Zoom Player interaction, such as DVB TV viewing. This feature makes Zoom Player the ideal solution for media types that need constant switchability between components without user intervention – such as streaming services like Netflix.
Enabling this option forces Zoom Player to always use the best-of-breed components (manually selected or recommended by you) when decoding media files, instead of default Windows DirectShow components which could lead to unstable or unplayable playback on certain system configurations.
This setting specifies the maximum playback speed used for rewind and fast-forward functions. As the speed increases, less buffering will be required and smoother playback will occur.
Zoom Player will save a Definition file automatically for every media playing session (using Ctrl+Shift+C keyboard shortcut), which contains any settings or preferences set during that particular playback session, ready for loading back onto similar media when it reloaded later. This feature is especially beneficial to users who make frequent use of Chapter Markers.
