Introduction to Zoom Player's Home Theater interfaces

I designed Zoom Player with two distinct usage modes. A windowed Media Player and a Home Theater PC. This means that nearly every Zoom Player interface comes in two flavors "Windowed" and "Home Theater".

Keyboard and Remote Control Devices

For simplicity and ease of use, the Home Theater interfaces are controlled through a minimal 5 button system (Up/Down/Left/Right/Select {Enter}), accessible through the keyboard or remote control devices. Two additional buttons (ESC and Back {Backspace}) are available for faster navigation.

The fullscreen navigation is ideally suited to Convert any PC into a Home Theater media center or when used with touch screen devices.

Customizable

Use the advanced options dialog (Ctrl+"O" keyboard shortcut) to control which of Zoom Player's many Home Theater interfaces are accessible from the Main menu along with many setting to control the overall Home Theater look and feel, including a custom background image with supported skins.

Media Library

The Media Library groups content from different locations on your computer, local network or online sources as virtual folders divided into one or more categories.

Categories and their associated folders and online sources are specified through the Media Library Editor (Shift+"M") or by using the Media Scanner (not recommended).

Special Keys:

Insert

If a folder is selected, plays the contents of the selected folder. If a file/URL is selected, all media entries within the same folder are played.

Del

Delete the currently highlighted file or folder (with confirmation).

Backspace

Go up a folder.

File Browser

The File Browser is a smart way to navigate your file system using only the arrow and enter keys. The initial dialog lists your drives (Hard Disks/CD/DVD/USB/etc) and custom network shares specified in the advanced options dialog.

Pressing ENTER with a drive highlighted opens the drive at its root (top most) folder.

Pressing RIGHT with a drive highlighted opens the drive in the previously navigated folder.

Pressing RIGHT while in the file listing area brings up the function list, allowing you to copy/move files, sort the file list, etc.

Special Keys:

Insert

If a folder is selected, plays the contents of the selected folder.

If a file is selected, all files within the same folder are played.

If used while in the Drive list dialog, contents of the entire drive is played (use with caution).

Del

Delete the currently highlighted file or folder (with confirmation).

Backspace

Go up a folder.

Video Streaming

The Video Streaming Home Theater interface is used to browse through Live streams and TV Series / Movies VOD content from a Video Streaming content provider of your choice

Trying to use Video Streaming interface requires that you first enter the subscription credentials or M3U playlist and XML episode guide links supplied by your Video Streaming content provider of choice.

Remember that Backspace takes you back.

Playlist

The Playlist is used to play and edit the content of the current play list.  Clicking RIGHT brings up the function list, allowing you to sort the file list, clear the play list, etc.

Special Keys:

Insert

Select the currently highlighted entry, allowing functions to perform on multiple entries at once.

Del

Remove the currently highlighted file from the playlist (the original file is not deleted).

Play History

The play history interface provides an easy way to list previously viewed media and to quickly switch between previously played media tracks.

Favorites

Using the media library and file browsing Home Theater interfaces, you can add media to the favorites list. Any media added is listed within the favorites Home Theater interface.

Go To Time

The Go To Home Theater interface is used to easily access any position in the media timeline. Use the Left/Right arrow keys to switch between the Hour/Minute/Second fields, and Up/Down arrow keys to modify each field. Press select (enter) to seek to the newly specified timeline position.

Stream Selection

Using the stream selection Home Theater interface, you can switch the active Audio and Subtitle track on the currently playing media.

Color Control

Graphic cards can control various aspects of the video image (Brightness, Contrast, Hue, Saturation, Gamma, etc). The color control interface is used to adjust these video color properties.

Equalizer

The Equalizer Home Theater interface is used to adjust the built-in Equalizer and PreAmp (digital amplification) values.

Information

The information Home Theater interface provides information on the currently playing media along with its folder image (if one exists).

Chapter/Bookmark Browser

The chapter/bookmark Home Theater interface is used to quickly browse through DVD bookmarks (in DVD mode) and media chapters (in Media mode).

Media Scanner

The media scanner interface scans your entire computer for media files. Folders containing playable media can be browsed, added to an existing media library category or form the basis of a new media library category. This interface is incomplete and should not be used, use the media library category editor instead.

Adjust Image

The Adjust Image Home Theater interface is used to position the video in Fullscreen/Zoom modes..

Streaming Audio

The streaming audio Home Theater interface is used to easily navigate through favorite streaming audio station entries created using the Station Editor and to navigate the SHOUTcast internet streaming radio station index, covering radio content from the across the world.

Download Manager

The Download Manager tracks active qBitTorrent/uTorrent/eMule downloads (Once you correctly specify the paths/passwords in the Advanced Options Dialog).

Image Blanking

Image Blanking is the process of covering a section of the video area with a black rectangle in order to hide unwanted video content. Blanking is mostly used in cases where the widescreen video area may contain gray video (rather than black) which can be distracting.

Mouse Wheel

Zoom Player can assign different functions to the Mouse Wheel. You can select which functions are active/accessible through the "Advanced Options/Interface/Mouse/Wheel" dialog.

You can assign the middle mouse button to open the mouse wheel navigation interface (Advanced Options/Interface/Mouse), and then use the mouse wheel to scroll through entries. Clicking the mouse wheel activates the new functionality.

Navigation Style

Zoom Player ships with a default navigation style (skin). Many other navigation styles are available download on the skins section and once installed can be selected from the navigation style interface.

Extended Menu

The Extended Menu navigation interface is a flexible scripted interface, providing access to a customizable user-defined interface.

The extended menu navigation for DVD and Media modes is defined in the Menu file (see english.menu in the language folder). If you modify the menu file, make sure to assign it under "Advanced Options / Interface - Alternative context menu file".

Web Information

The Web URL interface is used to associate a DVD or Media file with either a Text or URL file (web page). By creating a file with the same base file name as the currently playing media file, opening the Web URL interface displays the content of the file.

For Example:
myvideo.avi
myvideo.url

Valid file extensions are "URL" for a URL file linking to a web page.  "htm/html" for local web pages and "nfo/txt" for local text files.  To associate a file with DVDs, you need to create a file called "VIDEO_TS" with the appropriate file extension (URL/HTML/TXT/etc) and place it in the DVD bookmark folder (when playing a DVD for the very first time, Zoom Player creates a folder for the DVD under the "Zoom Player\DVD-Bookmarks" folder).

System

The system navigation interface is used to perform certain system functions such as opening the options dialog, blanking secondary screens, starting the internal screen saver or exiting Zoom Player.