Zoom Player - the all-in-one media player!

[mouser]

welcome to the site, Blight!
always really nice to hear from a developer here, and especially one who is actively improving the program 

ps. for anyone interested, the discounts and donated copies of zoomplayer will be available in august.

[Josh]

Blight, let me welcome you to the forum and again, thank you for your donations to the site. I appreciate your posting here and would like to say I do agree with you on what makes a piece of software "perfect" and it being relative to the users need.

In my opinion, I consider ZP to be the best for the sheer fact that it works and it does what it does well.

Also, in regards to the saving bug, yes, there was a problem on my pc. I have been losing settings for various apps due to a registry issue (powerarchiver, putty, ps tray factory are a few of the programs affected). But it has been resolved and that is no longer an issue.

I also intended to post that nvidia's drivers were responsible, however i guess i forgot to.

Anyways, good to see you here and thanks again for making such a versatile player!

[jgpaiva]

Hi Blight! Thank you so much for contributing to our site.
I'm one of those who most appreciates when software authors participate in our forums, it shows they are commited to help their users.
Also, thanks for the donated licenses and discount! 

[JavaJones]

Another welcome from me! It's great to see more software authors who make a point of listening to and keeping in touch with their users (or even potential users). It sounds like some very cool things are coming for Zoom in the future and I'll be sure to give it some time soon and, at the least, continue to keep an eye on it.

- Oshyan

[chrisa52]

Anyone out there tried out GOM Player?

http://www.gomplayer.com/main.html

I've been looking around for a while for something that handled Winmedia/quicktime/rss and have not liked either WinAmp or VLC.  This one seems to be pretty good, not a lot of great skins but seems to do the job.

[Josh]

Actually, Ken recommended that to me. However, I love the customizability of ZP. Gom is great, and does work really really well, but I am a tinkerer, and as such, love a plethora of options.

[nudone]

thanks for mentioning GOM Player, chrisa52.

i'd been using KMPlayer (after being a fan of mpc and vlc) but GOM looks like a very polished piece of software - i can see me using it as my default player.

so far it's played everything i've thrown at it and it seems to have pretty much every feature i could ask for - it really does look like they've taken out all the good bits from the other power media players and combined them altogether.

i'm still playing with it but i'm really pleased with what i've seen so far - it's got hotkeys, buttons, EVERYTHING. anyone curious i really do recommend you giving GOM a try.

here are a few more skins: http://www.gomplayer.jp/skin/index.html

[nudone]

okay, i was getting a little excited there. KMPlayer still has the most power/options that i can see - things like being able to capture 'live' what you are watching and save out to another video file - i've not seen that done with any other player.

[KenR]

okay, i was getting a little excited there. KMPlayer still has the most power/options that i can see - things like being able to capture 'live' what you are watching and save out to another video file - i've not seen that done with any other player.

-nudone (September 15, 2006, 04:15 PM)

If something is better than Zoom Player, I want to see it. Are you saying that it just has that one unique option, or is a better player overall?

Ken

[nudone]

well, as mentioned earlier, javajones introduced this thread to KMPlayer and we know he doesn't just accept a piece of software without checking all its features. i was sceptical, at first, that a media player i had never heard of could be of any worth but it's the player that i keep returning to now - i've still got vlc and mpc installed but i really don't know why i just don't stick with KMPlayer.

i'm sure there is little wrong with Zoom Player. it just depends on the arbitrary nature of codecs and files that you are likely to use. i used Zoom Player for quite a while but it honestly would cough and splutter at certain things i tried to play - so i gave up with it.

i honestly don't know of all the features that Zoom Player has, nor have i really looked at everything that KMPlayer will do, but from what i've seen so far KMPlayer is more powerful. of course, it just depends on what you are trying to do as to what you define as 'powerful'.

i mainly want a player that is near 100% going to play any file i throw at it but i also need features that are useful when playing back through a CRT television set. it certainly won't be to everyones requirements but i need full mouse/button control of things like aspect ratio and large sized font navigation. KMPLayer seems best equipped for this. i was happy with Zoom Player on my TV but i had to scrap it when it started to misbehave when going in and out of full screen mode.

it would be nice to have a media player shootout as there appears to be plenty of overlap with all these super players, i'm guessing that they all have their own little niche feature set that puts them apart from each other but it's hard to know what they are without spending days figuring it all out.

i'm still getting to know KMPlayer. i haven't gone to great lengths to find what it can do because at the moment it has just worked every time - so i just get on with watching the vids.

i'll try and check it over later and if i find anything remarkable i'll report back maybe.

[KenR]

Ok, well when you're right, you're right. I downloaded a copy of KMPlayer from the homepage. Although I find the homepage very annoying, it media player is absolutley top notch. It's astounding this media player is not better known. If I had used it before I bought Zoom Player, I'm not certain that I would have purchased ZP.

Having said that however, I am not certain which I'll like in the long term better. Both put giants like WinDVD to shame. Both are incredibly powerful and versatile. I had just started really using Zoom Player in the last few days so I don't know it well yet.

Many of Zoom Player's features do not come in the free version. You have to buy the player to get these features in one of the Pro versions, so I suspect you would have to buy Zoom Player to get something that comes close to a KMPlayer, which is completely free.

At this point, that is about what I do know about it. It will take considerable time and tinkering to really get to know both of these players well. Any additional thoughts on these comparing these two players (KMPlayer and Zoom Player [WMV] Pro) would be VERY welcome.

Ken

[superboyac]

OK, you guys have successfully intrigued me about KMPlayer.  However, how do you install the thing?!  If it's such a great player, shouldn't it have some install file somewhere?  I'm sure I can figure it out eventually, but I don't have the time right now.

It's astounding this media player is not better known.

It's not that surprising.  If you don't make a program easy to install, how popular do you think it's going to be?  Don't you think the average user just wants to double-click an install file, and then run the program?

[nudone]

not sure what you've downloaded there, superboyac.

the file i've got works how you would expect - click on it and it installs - there's only one file so you must have something strange there.

[superboyac]

The KMPlayer (not to be confused with the KDE "KMPlayer")

Whoops!  Looks like I did get it confused!

[Black Mamba]

Guys, be careful! AFAIK Gom and KM Player also install come codecs that could easily mess your system. That's why I didn't even bother to try them although I've heard they are good.

[nudone]

Guys, be careful! AFAIK Gom and KM Player also install come codecs that could easily mess your system. That's why I didn't even bother to try them although I've heard they are good.

-Black Mamba (September 17, 2006, 03:55 AM)

i haven't yet found a way codecs finally messing things up one or another - just seems to be part of the nonsense of having all these varying encoders/decoders.

GOM and KMPlayer are trying to resolve the messed up codec problem but i accept that they may still mess up the rest of your system - just depends on how and what you use i guess.

[kimmchii]

get the zip version of kmplayer
http://www.kmplayer.com/kbbs/

no installation needed.

[nudone]

well, i eat my words yet again...

GOM is currently working better with an mpeg file i recorded last night - KMPlayer will play it when it feels like it, won't fast forward properly, etc.