Announcing Zoom Player MAX & IPTV version 21
Published March 31st, 2025
What's new in this release:
* Introducing : Modern UI
Zoom Player's user interface has remained more or less the same over
many years and now it's finally time for a fresh new look.
Gone is the skinned user interface, replaced by a simple frame.
Hovering with the mouse cursor (or pressing the Ctrl+"Space" keyboard
shortcut) now brings up a new Control Overlay, a semi-transparent user
interface that appears over the video area.
I tried to setup the default control overlay layout similar to the
previous skinned layout to make the transition to a new interface as
seamless as possible, but at the same time maintained the option to
easily revert the user interface to the old design.
Since the control overlay replaces both the skin and the control bar,
some of the default settings related to the control bar have been
reset in favor of control overlay features. If these changes are not
suited to your setup, you can easily return to using the control bar
instead.
While designing the new Control Overlay interface, I took your feedback
on Zoom Player's reddit forum and made sure the Control Overlay is the
most customizable media interface ever created.
You can customize nearly everything:
+ Button selection across 4 different button zones.
+ Button sizes for each button zone.
+ Text fonts, colors, sizes and transparency.
+ Volume and Timeline color, size and transparency.
+ Element visibility (button zones, volume bar, widgets, etc).
+ Lots and lots of settings to manage the Control Overlay behavior.
The Control Overlay feature can be customized through the advanced
options dialog under "Interface / Control Overlay".
* When upgrading to a version previous to v21, a new dialog shows up to let
you pick the user interface mode, either Classic UI or Modern UI.
Please note that if you are using a non-default skin, your skin selection
is reset to default in either case. You can pick your favorite skin again
through the skin selection dialog ("N" keyboard shortcut).
* The default skin modes have been updated. You can access the new modes
from the right-click context menu or using these keyboard shortcuts:
F3 = No user interface at all, just a floating video window.
F4 = The new default, just a thin frame around the video area.
F5 = Slightly larger frame with a title area and system buttons.
F6 = Charcoal UI using small buttons.
F7 = Full Charcoal UI (the previous default).
F8 = Show bottom bar with more features.
F9 = Show bottom bar with more features.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Control Overlay) to automatically
show the Control Overlay when hovering with the mouse (enabled by default).
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Control Overlay) to automatically
show the Control Overlay when hovering with the mouse even when Zoom Player
is not the active application. This feature is not perfect and can cause
a cosmetic issue where the overlay appears in between Zoom Player's video
window and a window from another application.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Control Overlay) to automatically
show the Control Overlay when the mouse cursor reaches the screen's bottom
in fullscreen mode.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Control Overlay) to automatically
show the Control Overlay when the mouse cursor reaches the screen's top
in fullscreen mode.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Control Overlay) to automatically
show the Control Overlay when performing a forward/backward seek action.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Control Overlay) to automatically
show the Control Overlay when pausing.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Control Overlay) to automatically
show the Control Overlay when using fast forward or rewind.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Control Overlay) to automatically
hide the Control Overlay when idle (3 seconds by default).
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Control Overlay) to automatically
hide the Control Overlay when clicking the video area.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Control Overlay) to show the
control overlay when opening a new media.
* As part of the Modern UI overhaul, I created a new color control overlay
interface. It is accessible through the same color color keyboard shortcut
(Shift+"O") and the right-click context menu.
The new color control overlay is fully compatible with remote control
devices using the left/right/up/down/enter navigation style and provides
a more intuitive and less obtrusive interface.
The color control overlay is now the default option when picking the color
controls from the main home theater interface. You can change this under
"Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation".
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / Video / Colors) that controls the
size of the new color control overlay.
* New snap zones feature that allows you to instantly snap Zoom Player's
window to 10 predefined screen positions and sizes.
The snap zones feature uses a similar interface to the video position
presets used in fullscreen mode. In fact, they share the same Zoom Player
function and keyboard shortcuts.
There is no conflict as snap zones only work in windowed mode while video
position presets only work in fullscreen mode.
There are two ways to set snap zones. The advanced options dialog under
"Interface / Position & Size" or by using keyboard shortcuts. To use
keyboard shortcuts, first position and size Zoom Player's window and then
use the Ctrl+"0-9" keyboard shortcut to set one of the desired zones.
For example, Ctrl+"5" will set the current window size and position to
snap zone #5. To snap Zoom Player's window back to snap zone #5, all you
need to do is press the "5" key in Windowed mode.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Mouse / Settings) that prevents
the first mouse click on the video area from triggering the assigned
functions if Zoom Player was not the active application. This setting
is enabled by default to allow you to switch to Zoom Player's window
now that the user interface is embedded within the video area.
This setting only ignores the first click in the video area. If you click
the control overlay or other Zoom Player windows, the action is triggered
as expected.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / libVLC) allowing you to control
whether the libVLC media engine should be used to stream IPTV archived
(catchup) programs. This setting does not affect VOD playback.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Playback / IPTV) that controls whether
the stream/program filtering works when pressing enter or when typing
in each key stroke.
The new default is to require pressing enter. On older PCs or some
laptops the experience of filtering on every key stroke was not optimal.
* Updated Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation) to
allow the selection of the new Color Control Overlay interface as an
option when opening the color controls from the main Home Theater interface.
* New media library search feature that works by filtering the
currently listed items. This feature will be expanded in future
releases to make it accessible using a remote control.
* The media library's Media Server (PLEX/Emby/Jellyfin) plugin now shows
TV episode numbers next to the episode name.
* You can now drag Zoom Player's window by dragging the title area
of a Home Theater interface. If you are not using the default
home theater skin, you may need a new version of the skin that
supports this feature.
* The default home theater interfaces have been slightly tweaked with the
close button moved to the right side and the title/date/time appearing
more vertically centered in the title area.
* New feature to automatically resize the player window to hide aspect
ratio black bars, showing only the video. By default, this feature
is assigned to the Shift+"`" (~) keyboard shortcut.
* New feature to add the currently playing media to the favorites list. By
default, this feature is assigned to the Ctrl+Shift+"F" keyboard shortcut.
* New keyboard shortcuts to switch between Classic & Modern user interfaces:
Ctrl+Shift+"F10" - Switch to Classic mode
Ctrl+Shift+"F11" - Switch to Modern mode
Classic mode :
- Fully skinned user interface with lots of buttons
- Control overlay interface is disabled
- Control bar appears when moving the mouse to screen-bottom (fullscreen)
- The space key shows the control bar
- Hot corners are enabled at 5%
Modern mode :
- Small frame user interface, no buttons whatsoever
- Control overlay interface appears over video area on mouse movement
- Control bar is disabled
- The space key performs a pause/play action
- Hot corners are disabled (feature conflict with control overlay)
* New "Add to favorites" option on the Playlist Home Theater interface.
* New "Add to favorites" option on the Play History Home Theater interface.
* New feature to show a pop-up Stream Selection menu. By default this
feature is assigned to the control overlay's stream selection button.
* When using IPTV's Xtream Codes API, icons (Live, Movie, Series) are now
displayed next to group names.
* You can now show/hide the Control Overlay using the Ctrl+"Space"
keyboard shortcut.
* New "Control Overlay" entry added to the right-click context menu.
* New Setting (Adv. Options / Interface / Mouse / Settings) that disables
Zoom Player from activating any function assigned to a mouse click when
Zoom Player's video area is clicked when Zoom Player is not the active
application, allowing you to switch to Zoom Player without activating
any mouse button assigned function by accident.
This new setting is enabled by default, otherwise switching to Zoom
Player using the modern UI could trigger undesired actions.
* New IPTV Group Manager interface accessible from the IPTV menu button
or through the right-click menu. The Group Manager allows you to create
new groups and easily select and add multiple streams to the group with
a single click.
The group manager can then export the organized streams to an M3U format,
allowing the groups to be viewed and streamed by other software or devices.
* In the previous version, I've added a feature that when you Zoom in
using the mouse wheel, it zooms toward the mouse cursor. I have since
listened to your feedback and made this feature optional. You can
now turn it off under "Advanced Options / Interface / Mouse / Settings".
* New "Create Shortcut" IPTV context-menu option that creates a shortcut
file for the stream you've right-clicked, allowing you to launch
Zoom Player directly into the stream.
* You can now add and stream Xtream Codes TV Shows from IPTV favorites.
If you previously added a TV Show as favorite, you have to recreate
the TV Show favorite for this to work.
* New "/referrer:[url]" command line parameter that specifies a referrer
header when opening a URL from the command line, for example:
zplayer.exe "/referrer:https://website.com" "https://website.com/v.m3u8"
* New "/useragent:[text]" command line parameter that specifies a user-
agent header when opening a URL from the command line, for example:
zplayer.exe "/useragent:SpecialCode" "https://website.com/v.m3u8"
* New "/exaudio:[media]" command line parameter that manually specifies
an external audio file/URL for the currently playing media, for example:
zplayer.exe "http://website.com/steam/video.mp4"
"/exaudio:http://website.com/stream/audio.mp3"
* New "/subtitle:[filename]" command line parameter that specifies an
external subtitle file that should be loaded when opening a media
file from the command line.
* New right-click context menu "Help" usage guide images for the Media
Server Browser and the new Modern UI control overlay.
+ Due to MadVR issues with Windows 11 and no update currently in sight, on
a fresh install under Windows 11, MPC-VR is now offered as the performance
mode video renderer.
+ It took nearly 3 days of optimization work, but now the advanced options
dialog should open almost twice as fast.
+ The IPTV player window has been optimized for smoother scrolling while
the stream's logo/image is being updated.
+ The new default when using the left arrow keyboard shortcut in the media
library now goes up a folder if you are in a sub-folder rather than
showing the category list. If you are already in the root folder then the
category list is shown.
This change does not affect existing installations, if you would like to
apply it to your current installation, you can disable this setting:
Advanced Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Settings -
"Nav-Left goes up a folder before entering the Drive/Category list".
+ You can now resize Zoom Player's in the "F3" no-user-interface skin mode
when a home theater interface is visible.
+ Zoom Player now saves the current play rate (speed) on exit. So if you
disabled the settings that automatically reset the play rate, reopening
Zoom Player now restores the previous play rate when playing the next
track.
+ Rephrased Zoom Player's function descriptions to make them more logical
and easier to find when sorted alphabetically.
+ Since the new Overlay Control conflicts with the Hot Corner feature,
Hot Corners have been disabled by default. If you previously used the
Hot Corners feature, you can re-enable it in the advanced options
(make sure to disable the Control Overlay).
+ Maximizing the video window now pops-up any visible Zoom Player windows
such as the Playlist Editor, Equalizer, Media Server Browser, IPTV Player,
etc.
+ The default value for the "Show the Mouse Cursor (pixels)" setting (that
also determines the number of pixels the mouse should move to show the
new Control Overlay interface) has been changed from 2 pixels to 16.
If you've previously set another value, you will need to set it again.
+ The default function assigned to the space key is now "Play / Pause",
replacing the previous default of showing/hiding the control bar.
If you wish to return to the previous default, you can do so from
the advanced options dialog under (Interface / Keyboard).
+ The user interface button hints are now showing the function names
from the translations in combination with any hint text from the skin.
This change will help with translations since the text that is currently
embedded in the skin script is not accessible.
The downside is that using non-default skins may show a double-hint.
+ Updated Home Theater icons (media library, play history & color controls).
+ Scrolling through the play history window should be smoother now.
+ The default audio tag display position has changed from "Bottom" to
"Center" in order to make sure it's not obscured by the control overlay.
This change only affects clean installations.
+ The Control Bar menu entry has been moved under the "Controls" sub-menu.
+ The multi-playlist manager can now be resized to a smaller window.
- Streaming from the media library's "Media server" plugin did not respect
the "Use libVLC Engine to stream Media Server content" setting.
- The Media Server Browser and Media Library Media Server plugins failed to
show any episode listing for Jellyfin servers.
- Media Server paths are no longer displayed in the media library, they
were basically just gibberish to a human and a distraction.
- Media Server TV show listings did not show their duration in the
TV jukebox area.
- Fixed a bug in the media library where resizing the window's height
would stop thumbnails from updating until another action was used
(clicking somewhere or using the keyboard).
- Opening a media from the play history window and then as the media was
being loaded quickly reopening the play history window would trigger
a crash.
- Fixed an issue where partially downloaded IPTV metadata was used instead
of keeping the previously downloaded metadata, causing the IPTV stream
list to disappear or appear partially with no error being reported in
the IPTV settings section of the advanced options dialog.
- Eliminated a bit of flickering (two updates) in the IPTV window's stream
list panel when re-opening the window.
- Clicking the "Media Info" radio button on the information window got
broken and didn't show any information.
- Switching between multiple-playlists now properly stops the currently
playing media.
- When using MadVR or MPC-VR as the video renderer with the no-UI skin
mode (F3 keyboard shortcut), you can now resize the video from the
edges and not only from the corners.
- Hopefully fixed cases where Chinese/Japanese time and date display
would show invalid characters.
- Adding IPTV Xtream Codes movie to the favorites did not show the
movie's description when clicked in the favorites section.
- Fixed a bug after playing certain media files and then opening the
media library would open the media library in the wrong mode
(e.g. media scanner).
- Fixed some DPI scaling issues on the "please upgrade" window.