Introduction to Smart Play
Smart Play is a powerful feature that instructs Zoom Player as to how it should read and decode media files. When Zoom Player is run for the very first time, it will scan your system, looking for which currently installed components (on your computer) are best suited to play media (sometimes there can be multiple components on your computer, each telling the system that it should be used to decode media files).

By knowing in advance which components are best suited and scanning your system for matches, Zoom Player can automatically build an advanced play-profile which helps play files better and loads them faster.

Enable Smart Play (Overrides the Windows Decoder / Filter selection)
Enabling Smart Play lets Zoom Player pick the best (or user selected) components for decoding media files. When disabled, Zoom Player will let Windows choose the components. Under some system configurations, letting Windows chose the components can lead to instability, glitches during playback or outright failure to load certain file formats.

Auto-Configure
Pressing the Auto-Configure button will make Zoom Player re-scan your system for any changes (such as newly installed components which may improve playback) and automatically configure itself so it uses the best components it can find. Using this function will wipe any user-defined changes applied to the decoder profiles (see below).

Settings & Black List: Use Indirect Connection when Connecting Filters
This is a debug setting, it tells Zoom Player that the playback components (splitter/decoders/etc) can connect indirectly. This setting should not be used for day to day playback.

Settings & Black List: Show Smart Play graph creation errors (useful for debugging)
When enabled, Zoom Player will inform you of any problems resulting from the connection between components required to play a media file using Smart Play. This is a useful debugging tool as it will essentially tell you why a certain media file fails to load.

Settings & Black List: Disable Smart Play for files with the following extensions (separate with ";")
Any file extension specified here will not use Smart Play and instead will switch back to the Microsoft method of reading/parsing media files. The only reason to use this feature is for specific media types such as DVB TV viewing, where the DVB component requires a very specific connection between components that it builds itself.

Settings & Black List: Prevent the following filters/decoders from being used
If Smart Play fails to load a media file, Zoom Player tries to let windows connect the components (basically a fallback mode). In this case, there are certain components that are known to cause instability. This feature instructs Zoom Player to prevent windows from trying to use these components to load the current media file. As such it gives an additional layer of stability, even when Smart Play couldn't load the file.

Source Filters & Splitters
The "Source Filters" and "Splitters" contain a list of profiles which instruct Zoom Player as to which components to use when reading (Source Filters, which load the file) and parsing (Splitters, which split the media file into different types of content such as Audio/Video streams).

Each list entry represents a file format. You can configure each file format to use different components for reading/parsing. In most cases you wouldn't need to manually configure profiles as Zoom Player can detect and use the best components automatically.

Source Filter Configuration Dialog
With Zoom Player Professional, you can enter the Advanced configuration mode by clicking the "Advanced" button at the bottom of the dialog. In the advanced mode, you can add/remove and re-order profiles (profile order governs which components Zoom Player looks for first when automatically configuring a profile). Each profile is comprised of a "Source Filter". This is the component in charge of reading the media file. Source filter can also take on the role of the "Splitter Filter" which parses the file and splits it into audio/video/subtitle streams (in memory, the original file is not modified). The "This filter is also a Splitter filter" checkbox instructs Zoom Player to identify the source filter as a splitter filter so that it doesn't try to locate an additional splitter filter later on.

Zoom Player Source Filter profiles are specific to File Extensions. This is how Zoom Player identifies which Source Filter profile to use for any given media file. The Advanced configuration dialog allows you to add/remove file extensions.

Lastly, on very rare conditions, a source filter may not identify itself properly to the audio/video decoding filters, specifying a forced "Sub-Type" the audio/video are expecting to see for this particular format allows you to circumvent this issue. To better understand the theory behind this very complex subject, you can download Microsoft's "GraphEdit" tool, which allows you to visually see how various components/filters are inter-connected and how they interact.

Splitter Filter Configuration Dialog
A splitter filter is a component that takes input from a Source Filter and parses the data to split the media file into different streams (audio/video/subtitles/etc). The way a Splitter filter knows that it is compatible with a source filter is by the "Sub-Type" identifier. The Sub-Type is a unique identifier which the splitter filter is expecting to see from the Source filter. Zoom Player's Advanced Splitter Filter configuration dialog allows you to add/remove Sub-Types (one splitter filter can split multiple file formats and as such can accept multiple Sub-Type identifiers).

Another feature of the advance dialog is the ability to specify a white list and a black list for file extensions. This allows you to create separate profiles for files of the same format, but with a different file extension. This feature enables you to use different components for the same file format.

Audio & Video Decoders
The "Audio Decoders" and "Video Decoders" contain a list of profiles which instruct Zoom Player as to which components to use when decoding Audio and Video content (after the media file has been read and parsed by the Source Filters & Splitters).

Each list entry represents a file format. You can configure each format to use different components for decoding. In most cases you wouldn't need to manually configure profiles as Zoom Player can detect and use the best components automatically.

Audio/Video Filter Configuration Dialog
The Audio/Video filter configuration dialog, is nearly identical to the Splitter filter configuration dialog, with the exception that it allows you to override the default audio/video renderer filter. This allows you to use different audio devices or different video rendering technologies with specific file formats.