* Added support for H.266/VVC, AV1 and Opus detection and icons to
the media library.

* Added a new setting (Adv. Options / System / Screen Saver & Capture)
that allows you to specify if screenshots should be saved in the same
folder as the video currently being played (Only applies to local
files).

* Added a new setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video / Aspect Ratio)
to reset the aspect ratio to "Derived" when opening a new media
(disabled by default).

* Added a new setting (Adv. Options / Playback / History) to automatically
restore the previously active video aspect ratio on replay (disabled by
default). This new feature will only work for videos that was previously
played by this version of Zoom Player (or newer) since previous versions
did not save the active aspect ratio.

* Added settings to control which Zoom Player function is triggered when
using the mouse wheel while holding either the Alt, Ctrl or Shift keys.

The default values are:
Mouse Wheel + Alt : Seek 5 seconds backwards/forwards
Mouse Wheel + Ctrl : Seek 20 seconds backwards/forwards
Mouse Wheel + Shift : Seek 120 seconds backwards/forwards
Watch me code it live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyEXJgvPv7c

* New IPTV Electronic Program Guide Grid. The EPG grid is an alternative
program guide view that lists the episode guide of multiple streams in
an easy to scroll and filter interface.

You can access the EPG grid by pressing the "#" button within the IPTV
window. The EPG grid does not rely on the stream list and can be used
without specifying any stream sources.

The EPG grid's look and feel can be fully customized through the
advanced options dialog under "Playback / IPTV".

* New IPTV global episode guide filter. The new global filter works
across all streams, filtering out streams that do not contain a
program containing the filtering text.

Global filtering is very useful when searching for a particular program
or live event across all available streams.

Please note that performing the initial global search triggers a one time
stream indexing operation that may a few minutes on some systems.

* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / IPTV) to control whether
global EPG filtering includes filtering using the program's description.
This setting can slow down filtering and is disabled by default.

* Per-EPG Time Shift support (Adv. Options / Playback / IPTV) has been
added. The time shift is applied to the entire EPG.

Please note :
If you previously set a time shift on a specific stream then both time
shifts are combined.

* In cases where you list an IPTV stream supporting archive playback but
the stream does not have an Episode Guide or the Episode Guide does
not cover the full archive period specified in the playlist, Zoom Player
now creates empty entries on the EPG listing panels to enable archive
playback covering the full archive period.

* IPTV playback of streams that require authentication using user-agent
or referrer are now supported. For compatibility, Zoom Player uses the
same "#EXTVLCOPT" playlist tag as VLC. This feature requires a version
of LAV Filters newer than 0.79.2 as it was introduced by LAV Filters
in a nightly build released after v0.79.2.

+ Cleaned up the Advanced Options dialog's Video Aspect Ratio section.

+ Cleaned up the Advanced Options dialog's Mouse Wheel section.
Watch me redesign it live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyEXJgvPv7c

+ Redesigned the chapter/bookmark editor to make it cleaner and easier to use.
Watch me redesign it live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyEXJgvPv7c

+ Enhanced the IPTV playlist parsing code to be more tolerant of badly
authored playlists.

- Any interface SFX played while a media was loaded using the DirectShow
media engine would break volume control until a new media was loaded.

- "SOON" and "LIVE" media library YouTube entries would disappear when
pressing the "Load More" option and then closing and reopening the
media library.

- Fixed a UTF8 encoding/decoding bug that failed to decode unicode
characters greater than U+010000 in the TCP/IP control API, causing
Zoom Player to not find files with these characters in the name.

- Loading a Zoom Player chapter file (".zpchp") did not sort the chapters by
position, instead showing them by the order they were listed in the file.
Watch me fix it live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyEXJgvPv7c

- Fixed a bug that prevented the source video resolution from being read
when using MPC-VR as the video renderer.
Watch me fix it live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyEXJgvPv7c

- Fixed a bug that prevented text input on the "Folder/Poster file mask"
and "Backdrop file mask" settings (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen
Navigation / Customization).

- Fixed a bug where IPTV stream's time-shift offset was not being saved
correctly if the stream only had a name and not an ID.

- The media library category editor should now restore the previously
selected category when closing and re-opening the dialog.

- Using the media library's "resume playback" feature did not add the
media's title (when available) to the playlist.

- Fixed a bug that could cause Zoom Player to freeze on exit when a
new IPTV playlist/EPG download has finished with no disk space to
extract it.

- Pressing "Play" from the control bar when using the libVLC engine for
playback could cause the control bar to appear hidden behind the video,
preventing access until the control bar was closed and reopened.



Click here for the complete change list[www.inmatrix.com]


To opt in for beta access, right click Zoom Player in Steam and choose properties. Go to the betas section and type the following code:
ZoomPlayerBeta

You will be granted access to the latest beta. You might need to close and reopen Steam to see the changes.

Over the past year, I have been working hard to ensure Zoom Player maintains its crown as the most versatile Media Player and Home Theater PC software for Windows. I've kept in constant communication with Zoom Player's user base, and software enthusiasts from across the world to better understand which features would take Zoom Player to the next level. What quality of life improvements would help make Zoom Player friendlier and more efficient?


As an indie developer, I have to make hard choices regarding my time allocation to ensure the resources available to me are best allocated to the most requested features. I believe I succeeded with the releases of v18 and v19. Here are the biggest new features introduced since the release of v17.2.


The most significant feature of v18 is the introduction of IPTV support, which establishes Zoom Player as the most advanced IPTV player available for Windows. IPTV, or Internet Protocol Television, is a digital television service delivered via the Internet. Unlike traditional broadcast and cable TV, IPTV transmits television content, including live TV and video on demand (VOD), over the Internet.

You can access Zoom Player's IPTV window either by clicking the new Custom Action button (see below) or by pressing Ctrl+G. Zoom Player provides free access to publicly available channels[github.com] over IPTV. Additionally, you have the option to purchase access to commercial channels through an IPTV service provider of your choice. Full EPG (Electronic Program Guide) listings and Archive Program playback are supported, although they are not included with the free channels offered by default.

In version 19, I polished the IPTV interface by adding new features, implementing quality of life improvements and fixing bugs. Click here[inmatrix.com] for more information on Zoom Player and IPTV.


Another long-requested feature is support for multiple playlists, allowing you to instantly switch between multiple pre-loaded playlists. Multiple playlists are loaded in the background using highly optimized code, so even massive playlists containing thousands of entries should not have much of an impact on Zoom Player's performance. Simply press the new multi-playlist button on the playlist editor (top left corner) to add the current playlist, a playlist from a file, or to manage multiple playlists (remove, rename, reorder).


Zoom Player has now integrated with libVLC, the media engine used by the VLC media player. This integration means that several new features that were unique to VLC are now available in Zoom Player, leveraging the reliability of VLC with Zoom Player's powerful and versatile user interface.

In theory, Zoom Player's default choice of Microsoft's DirectShow media engine is superior to libVLC in many ways. DirectShow is a lower-level implementation, allowing me to develop unique features that are impossible to do with libVLC. At the same time, due to its complexity, there may be cases where libVLC can be more reliable than DirectShow. By default, only Blu-ray discs use libVLC due to its support for playing Blu-ray discs with menus. However, since this is Zoom Player you are reading about, the ultimate choice of which engine to use is up to you!

You can enable libVLC specifically for Blu-ray discs, IPTV streaming, media playback (by file extension), and open-ended streaming (by URL, for example "youtube") under the new advanced options section (Adv. Options / Playback / libVLC). To use libVLC, you must either install the latest version of the 32-bit VLC player or install libVLC from the Install Center (it does not conflict with existing VLC installations). For more information on libVLC's integration click here.


You can now use libVLC to cast the playing video to supported Chromecast-compatible devices. All you need to do is open "Adv. Options / Playback / libVLC" and scan for a Chromecast device. Any content played through the libVLC engine will now display on the selected device. Please consider that it can take a few seconds longer to open media files for casting. Alternatively, you can use the new Shift+"/" keyboard shortcut to scan and pick a casting device in real-time for the currently playing media.


This feature has been among the most frequently requested: Zoom Player's hand-drawn skins can now scale in resolution from 100% to 800% to easily support higher resolution displays. Please note, this feature may not be compatible with older skins, so make sure to use the latest skin version. With this new feature, you can simply open the skin selection dialog (by pressing "N") and select a zoom value that works best with your display.


I completely redesigned the media library's category editor. It should be easier to set up, and you can finally reorder the categories using multiple selection. The media library itself sports new sorting, filtering, info, and playback features along with updated YouTube plugins, making the media library friendlier and more powerful than ever.


The right-click menu has been extended with a new "Help" section. The Help section provides quick access to the keyboard shortcut list and quick-use guides for most of Zoom Player's interfaces. Using the "F1" keyboard shortcut now opens the keyboard shortcut list instantly.


Zoom Player's latest version supports playback of all the newest audio and video codecs (formats), including AV1 video, H.266/VVC video, and Opus audio.


With the help of Chetan Ullal and his work on the MPC Subtitle Helper component[github.com], I was able to integrate the MPC-VR video rendering component for media playback. MPC-VR is actively developed, and includes some features MadVR lacks (certain Dolby HDR profiles).


The default Zoom Player skin now features a Custom Action button designed to resemble a starburst, located in the top-left corner of the player window. Within Zoom Player's options dialog, you can configure the specific action that triggers when pressing the Custom Action button. By default, clicking the button opens the new IPTV interface.


Zoom Player can now send Wake-on-LAN packets to your network-attached devices, enabling the automatic activation of remote PCs or network-attached storage devices based on conditions you specify, for example, on an initial run or when accessing the media library.


I made many more tweaks and fixes, making Zoom Player more intuitive and fun to use, read all about them in the complete change list[inmatrix.com].


I started documenting some of my coding sessions on YouTube, allowing you to follow me as I develop new features, try to optimize code and fix bugs.


Do you love my work on Zoom Player? If you feel I'm doing a good job, please support me on Patreon[www.patreon.com], you will gain my endless love for your kind heart and generosity.