Converting your computer into a Home Entertainment Center

Introduction:
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).

This article contains a step-by-step guide to converting your Personal Computer into a Home Entertainment Center.

Minimum Requirement:
1. Zoom Player Professional v5 or newer.
2. Windows 98 / Windows NT4 SP5 or newer.
3. 50mb Disk Space.

Recommended:
1. Windows XP or newer.
2. 512mb RAM.
3. DirectX 9 capable Display Adaptor.
4. 2GHZ or faster CPU.

Step #1 - Installation:
Your first step is to Install Zoom Player and any missing system components required to play the different media formats. If you haven't done so already, click here to download Zoom Player.

When running the installer, there are no specific items you need to select. If you are satisfied with the defaults, you can just press the Next button until the installation begins. Once the installation completes, the Zoom Player Install Center application should start automatically. If you chose not to automatically start the Install Center, you can always run the Install Center from the Windows "Start (button) / Programs / Zoom Player" folder.

The Install Center will ask you to connect to the internet so that it can retrieve the latest list of available components that your system may require to play the different media formats. Once presented with the list, all outdated or missing components will be visibly highlighted (in bold text). Simply click the "Install Selected" button and the Install Center will automatically Download, Install and Configure the components for you.

It is important that you run the Install Center prior to running Zoom Player (the player, not the installer). If you've run Zoom Player prior to running the Install Center, you may want to uninstall Zoom Player and then re-install (this may solve issues where certain media formats may not play properly).

Step #2 - Initial Configuration:
To convert your PC into a Home Entertainment Center, you need to configure Zoom Player to match your personal preferences and depending on the situation, limit functionality (making it safer to use by inexperienced computer users).

After running Zoom Player, the first thing you want to do is open the Advanced Options dialog. This can be done by pressing Ctrl+"O" or by right-clicking the user interface and selecting "Options / Setup". Initially you will be greeted by the Basic Options dialog. Click on the "Switch to Advanced Mode" button (bottom left).

With the Advanced Options Dialog visible, open the "Interface / On Screen Display / Full Screen Navigation" sub-tree. You'll notice that the first check box on the newly opened dialog is "Safe Mode". With Safe Mode enabled, all file management (Copy/Move/Erase) features are hidden from the Full Screen Navigational interfaces. This is important in an environment where you don't want to give inexperienced users the ability to manipulate your files.

The next important feature to select is which Navigational interfaces should be accessible. You can select from a list of check boxes under the "Navigation Interfaces on Main Navigator". If the Home Entertainment Center is to be used by inexperienced users, you may want to disable the "File Browser" as it would allow them to browse through your entire file system. Inexperienced users should probably be limited to using the Media Library when opening new content (see below).

Lastly, you should configure the DVD components (Zoom Player allows you to use DVD decoders from different vendors). This can be done by going to "Advanced Options / Playback / DVD" and making sure the "Smart" button is pressed. With the "Smart" button pressed, select your Audio and Video decoder profiles (on most system, selecting "DScaler" is your best choice). You can also select which Audio Device to use under the "Audio Renderer" section. If you don't know which to select then simply select "Default DirectSound Device".

You can enable S/PDIF output (Digital-Output to external receiver) by pressing the little "C" button next to the Audio Decoder. Pressing the "C" button will open the configuration dialog for the currently highlighted decoder. With the DScaler Audio decoder configuration dialog open, the S/PDIF setting is a check box under the "Use SPDIF for AC3 & DTS" section.

Step #3 - The Media Library:
The Media Library serves several purposes. It acts as a repository for all your media content and also as a sandbox for inexperienced users who should not gain access to sensitive files.

The first thing you need to do is configure the Media Library paths. To do this, you must open the Media Library Path Editor. You can do this by pressing Shift+"M" or by clicking on the Top-Bar button (bottom-right button that looks like a circle made of dots) on the main user interface so that the Top-Bar appears and then clicking on the "M" button.

Once open, the Media Library Path editor will present you with a Filter Mode section consisting of four buttons and a category area allowing you to add new media categories. Before adding a new category, make sure that the content-appropriate Filter Mode button is pressed (for example, if you're adding videos, make sure the "Video" button is pressed). With the filter mode button correctly selected, click on the "Add Category" button. You will be prompted for a category name, this should be a name that represents the content of the new category (for example "Movies"). Once entered, you will now be prompted for a directory where your content is located on your system. Browse to the directory, make sure it's properly highlighted and click on the OK button.

You should now have a newly created Tab with the newly created category name. If you have more than one directory containing content of the same category, you can click on the "Add Directory to Category" button to add additional directories to the category (this allows you to merge content from different paths/drives).

You should now continue to add more categories (remember to switch the filter mode when adding different types of content) until your entire media collection has been covered.

Step #4 - Accessing the Full Screen Navigation interfaces:
There are multiple ways to access the Full Screen Navigation interfaces. Every interface has a keyboard macro to access it directly (press F1 for list), or you can access it through the Full Screen menu system. To open the initial menu, either press the "ENTER" key or press the middle button on the Top-Bar (to open the top-bar, click on the circle made of dots button on the bottom-right section of the main user interface).

You can control every function of the Full Screen Navigation system by using the Up/Down/Left/Right/Select (ENTER) keys. Pressing left a few times from any Sub-Menu will return to the Main Menu. With the mouse you can use the scroll wheel to move Up/Down and click on the Right/Left edges of the screen to quickly switch between interfaces (you can also use the scroll bar and mouse clicking to achieve the same results).

Step #5 - The Video Renderer:
Under windows there are several different technologies that govern how video is displayed. Depending on your system configuration and the way in which you view video, you may want to select a different Video Renderer. Selecting the Video Renderer is done in two places. One for DVDs (Advanced Options / Playback / DVD ) and the other for media files (Advanced Options / Playback / Video). If you're having problems such as only hearing audio and not seeing any video or bad video quality, try switching the Video Renderer to "VMR9 Windowless" or "VMR7".

More Information:
If you require additional assistance or have a question, our Support Forum is at your disposal.

Privacy & Security:
The Install Center does not transmit any personal information, it only downloads a component list and checks if any of the components on the list are already installed on your system and compares the version of currently installed component to see if a new version is available.

The Install Center uses Public Key Encryption and MD5 Checksums to ensure all downloaded components are valid prior to installation.