Zoom Player : Steam Edition

Does not play normal Blu Ray movies. That is to say, you can't buy a Blu Ray movie, put it in your Blu Ray drive, and play it with this media player. A complete waste of money, as it just uses the FFMPEG codecs. VLC is an easy replacement for this.

Does not play blu-ray even though it says it does, "All popular formats are supported : H.264, XVID, DIVX, DVD, Blu-Ray, FLV, WMV, QuickTime, MPEG 1/2/4, MP3, AAC, DTS, Dolby Digital, FLAC and many more including the recent ones such as Dolby-TrueHD, WebM, OPUS, etc..." Either fix this or refund me!

Very capable media player for many uses. Very stable with minimal resource usage, lots of options and customizable aspects. I much prefer this to other more common free players as it is nicer to use, looks better and doesn't have issues with being slow or unresponsive. It works very well with all different types of modern networked media and so is my preferred way of content viewing now. It also has a long time dedicated active dev who responds to requests and updates regularly. Highly recommended!

For a Media player that replaces the use of multiple programs to handle a variety of formats, I am satisfied with this. I waited for the summer sale price to try it out and would recommend this. The only negative I came across is the menu system takes a bit to get use to, Also the ability to at lease have Visualizations while music is playing seems to be lost to me…. still playing around with it. 9/10 Great, got it to work thanks to romulous [developer]. Step by step for others in the same spot, • Ctrl+ O (or right click and select options/setup) • Select “switch to advanced mode” (if you're not in already in it) • From the drop menu on the left, select “playback”, “Audio”, and highlight “visualizations”. (Or just use the search feature at the bottom and input visualizations) • Hit “Add”, and find the plugins you have on our PC.

Zoom Player is a lazy geek's dreampipe media player that grabs the best worlds from popular media players like Kodi, MPC-HC, Tablet media apps like MC Player Pro, VLC and Winamp into one handy app that happly does everything you need to do regardless if you're on Windows desktop, or Win-HTPC or Win-Tablet. There no need to download multiple apps & codecs from various of websites when Zoom Player downloads all its components with a click of mouse inside the app. [h1]Pros[/h1] [list] [*]Ability to sort out the episode/playlist correctly when watching a TV series from a Blu-Ray disk - Which alot of media players can't do but Zoom Player has that feature ;) [*]Really nice customizable and scalable interface - I love the fact that I can set a wallpaper for the bootscreen of app & it's stands out well. Huge amount of customization options here too. [*]Using the touch screen on my hybrid laptop/tablet to watch videos feels great on dis app - Very well optimized for it [*]Official MadVR support & automatic updates - Use ur GPU to maximize your picture quality [*]Easily export & import settings for you other devices within the app. [*]Lock the interface - Disables keyboard & touch screen shortcuts. Pretty handly feature when you're watching on bus & ur HDD is on top of keyboard for example. [*]Can check for updates for all the codecs within a click of button [*]Outstanding customer support across the Steam forums - The developers are really nice people who're willing to give you a hand & open to opinions. Something you don't see everyday. [/list] [h1]Cons[/h1] [list] [*] Using Zoom Player as music player is kinda dull to use & it doesn't come with any visualization plugins out of the box. No Rainmetter support atm [*] Taking screenshots on steaming video doesn't work probably most of the time :( Not really a issue for me as I have Greenshot running in the background [*] Using the tablet profile messes up the UI in windowed mode - Can easily be fixed by setting it to other profiles. [*] Has significant learning curve overall when it's come to getting around this app & shotcut keys compared to other media player apps - It's kinda like getting used to Steam Controller and once you master it, it's feels refreshing for a change [*] Overpriced for this kind of media player in my opinion - I reckon it's should be no more then $10 USD, which is how much I paid for when it was on sale 2 years ago. If you hate the idea of paying $$ for media player, well you got your reasons & I'm not gonna object your opinions. [*] Needs a Blu-Ray decrypter like most other media players in order to watch retail blu-ray movies but it's reasonable for Zoom Player not being able to do it out of box considering the price of this product & licenses issues. No points taken off for this. Fortunately, I was lucky to get DVDlab Passkey for free via a giveaway. Region Free Blu-Ray FTW [/list] Overall it's kinda geared to a niche market who wants to mix things up a bit with their media experience. I've been using Zoom Player as my main media player for years now & I've no regrets jumping into this. Reinstalling Zoom Players & my settings is a breeze unlike other media players as I've done it countless amount of times. I really enjoy using this app as you can tell from X amount of hours I've spent on this app & it's probably one of the best media player to play Blu-Ray & HD DVD disks if you don't care about no Blu-Ray menu support & got Blu-Ray decrypter on hand. There's a 30 day demo on Steam if your neck is still itching if you know what I mean & it's also part of $3 Groupees: The Software Bundle 2 atm, just letting you know. Edit: The Groupees bundle offer is finished now

The most important thing about this media player is that it supports Xbox 360 controller for navigation and video playback. Otherwise, VLC player supports most of your needs. I wouldn't pay the full price, but I picked it up for less than $4 USD during Steam auction. Def worth it for the controller compatibility and rebind-able buttons for controller. !!!!!!!!!!!! 5/13/2015 EDIT: Now the "Controller Companion" app is on Steam for $2.99 that does what I wanted Zoom to do for me. I still recommend Zoom on sale.

What a nice refreshing attempt to grab the 'player who does everything' -title that has been floating around for quite some time. It doesn't achieve this objective but it sure tries and gets very close. My needs for a generic media player are not exactly heavy but diverse: living room pc. game rig. workshop pc. several laptops. preferably some type of dj/kiosk mode or settings that allow it to be used effectively during parties. This far no setup does a 10/10 job but this one appears to be a good replacement candidate for Winamp on windows machines. This far Winamp+VLC combo has been the best tools i have used since they 'just work' (good enough/always available/rarely fail or start crashing). Yes i have tried other players too but always return back to this ol' workhorse duo sooner or later. I especially liked the nice base interface and the fact that just about anything can be changed and settings can be exported to other machines. Gamepad can also be used for control which is good in living room. edit: forgot one thing. some reviews mention bad video support but after doing 'Advanced interface' -> 'Help' -> 'Check update' and installing some plugins i can play just about anything i have on my rig and all works. So this means VLC is under the loop now too. This one has a better interface though only time will tell if it's better since crashing is what i hate mosly about VLC. If this one works better then it will beat VLC.

I've been using ZP for 15 years, so I'm biased, but this is what I want in a player - capable. Simple. With lots of customization and advanced options if so desired.

For transparency, I've used Zoom via the Steam interface for 2 hours before using the DRM free shortcut provided by the software. In total, I've used the program for 7 hours as of this review. The Pros: - A slick interface with easy shortcuts on command such as right clicking to find where the track is located on a hard drive, memorizing what folder a song came from to quickly add another track from that same folder, and a more responsive time tracker than VLC media player for me. - Intuitive control panel to adjust settings with commonly desired information displayed first. For example, the Playback options are the second item in the Options Menu and displays 3 trees for video codecs to use for playing files, associating file types to specific codecs, and DVD playback instructions. Exactly what I want to see for ease of use. - An auto update for audio and video codecs - DRM Free! Requires a one time activation on Steam, then can be used without going through Steam. Makes it very useful due to some games using the exact Steam App being played first to determine if you are able to join another player's game. I have quite a few in my Library that do that, so this feature makes it a lifesaver on wanting to use this program while playing online without going through the hassle of starting a game up before launching Zoom - Comparing the default Windows Media Player, Zoom is slightly louder when at the same audio levels. Mostly the bass sounds louder. The Cons: - Uses about 60mb when playing audio files. VLC used 20mb on the same mp3 file. Expect about twice the ram used for videos as well compared to some lightweight media players. - The default video codec used is a little darker, but crisp compared to other players like WMPlayer. This is a potential problem since you might need to switch the default codec or adjust brightness settings. - Fairly expensive, but not too bad for the price range of what it is capable of doing OVERALL: I have tried other media players such MHC+, VLC, WMP and this pretty much does everything I want while sounding and looking better than what I've used. If you have the extra RAM on your system to use it, I recommend this easily. It feels like a modern day WinAmp for video and sound. Smooth perfection.

Пользуюсь этим плеером с 13 версии, т.е. больше пяти лет. С тех пор цена и набор функций существенно возросли, и я не уверен, что сейчас плеер стоит таких денег, учитывая, что у него есть бесплатная версия и существуют бесплатные аналоги. Тем не менее, это замечательная программа с тонной настроек и возможностей.