Zoom Player 19.5.2 / 20.0 rc1
Zoom Player is a media workstation providing extensive options and pleasing both basic and advanced users.
It plays almost any format you throw at it and its interface is extremely intuitive and easy to use.
Zoom Player’s primal purpose was to fill a gap in multimedia playback.
Novices found media players too complicated, while power users considered them too simple.
A good media player should find a way to please both categories; the interface must be user friendly and the main commands must be very intuitive, while the most advanced options need to be comprehensive and not causing confusion to beginners. And this is what Zoom Player strives to obtain.
Apart from versatility, Zoom Player distinguishes itself with a wide range of functionalities: creating and managing playlists, drag and drop file opening method, switching between various playing modes, basic editing tools etc.
Zoom Player is available in 2 versions: Zoom Player Free and Zoom Player MAX, each more complex than its predecessor.
The free version is more than enough to satisfy an average user. Zoom Player puts emphasis on easiness of use and makes things even more comfortable for you by offering the possibility of creating your own custom combinations of keys.
You can establish your own sound configurations or use the presets provided by the application. You can transform your audio as well as your video files, using color correction sliders that will completely transform your movies and video clips.
The last positive thing we are going to say about Zoom Player is that you can upgrade easily without the risk of conflicts and that you don’t need to uninstall the previous version before installing a new one.
All things considered, Zoom Player is an alternative worth considering due to its excellent functionality and extensive features.
Changes to Zoom Player 19.5:
- Zoom Player supports three different Xtream Codes modes to access the stream playlist and EPG (electronic program guide) information. The modes exist to offer a fallback solution in case your IPTV provider is only offering partial support for Xtream Codes' feature-set.
- 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.
- New IPTV global episode guide filter. The new global filter works across all streams, filtering out streams that do not contain a program title containing the filter text.
- Added support for H.266/VVC, AV1 and Opus detection and icons to the media library.
— Full list of changes.
If it doesn't suit you, then you are just unable to configure it. Best zooming, best time stretching, best filter stacking, best keyboard shortcutting... fast and without making any compromises.
I recommend the legacy install method to make it full portable and you are ready to go after a new OS installation. Ignore unmaintained language packs, this will confuse yourself and it's just making ZoomPlayer buggy - the almost only negative point plus it's not free (use a kg, try it, then to hell buy it or not...).
I hate commercials and just want to make you a little more clever than the mainstream.
I have about 30 other well known software players on disk and I try to be up to date with all of them but ZPM on my main PC has my love. XMPlay my heart. ;)
The menu is rich of options (in a positive way), in advanced mode it's probably one of the players with more possibilities of real custom settings (ex. Zoom Player can change the Pixel Aspect Ratio of the display in a very precise way, not many players have this function as for 2019).
IMHO the GUI (graphic user interface) could be a bit improved, but it's really a minor point. All in all a very good video player.
