Although it appears simple, Zoom Player Max 6.0 is a media player that also , supports DVD playback. It is packed with loads of features ranging from customising skins and even setting up advanced features like EVR. The Zoom Player has different modes to play different formats such as DVD Mode, Media Mode and even a separate Audio Mode.

Customising Zoom player skins and colour schemes

The first thing you will notice about Zoom Player is its simplistic layout - only the video screen is seen along with the multimedia controls. There is no menu bar of any sort visible by default. Even if you try to press the [Alt] key to reveal the menu bar it won't show up. Zoom Player has a different sort of tool bar called the Top Bar.

To reveal this Top Bar, click on the circular icon (Show Top Bar) located on the right side of the multimedia controls. Once that is done, click on the first option - Skin Selector. Alternatively, you can enter the Skin Selector mode by right clicking on the Zoom Player screen and selecting the Skin Selector option from the contextual menu.

The window that is now open is where you can select and configure the theme of the Zoom Player. By default, you can select between two skins - Default and Fusion. There are many tint presets that will change the basic colour scheme of the player. You can further customise these presets by adjusting the red, green and blue tint with drag controls.

Fixing missing formats

When you initially install Zoom Player, it scans your system for missing add-ons or plug-ins that are needed to support certain file formats.

To find out which formats are missing, go to the Options menu by using the shortcut [Ctrl] + [O].Click on the arrow next to System &: Files and select Missing Formats. This window will show you two tabs: Important and All. In the Important tab, the formats that are used often and are missing from your system are displayed. Similarly, under the All tab, all the formats that are missing from the system are displayed. A button will be present at the bottom of this screen that says 'Click here to run the Install Center and install missing components'. Once you click here, you will be asked permission to connect to the internet. Next the Install Center opens where the missing components are checked. This window also gives you information regarding total download size and also the licenses of the missing codecs and addons that you are about to download.

Setting up EVR

EVR is the acronym for Enhanced Video Renderer which basically allows you to play a single video spanning over several monitors. This is a useful feature especially if you have multiple monitors and want to setup a nice panoramic view to watch movies using Zoom Player. Unfortunately, this feature is limited to Windows Vista and not WindowsXP.

Initialise Zoom Player and select Options from the top bar. If it is hidden, you need to click on the small circular icon (Show Top Bar) next to the multimedia controls on the player or use the shortcut- [Ctr1] + [0]. Make sure you are in the Advanced mode, or else click on the Switch to Advanced Mode button. Click on the arrow next to Playback to expand that menu list and then click on Videos and Subtitles. Once here select EVR (Requires Windows Vista or .NET3 installed) option from the drop down menu. Also remember to check 'Allow EVR to span videos across multiple monitors' which falls under the Video Renderer Settings on the same Options screen and then click on Apply and then OK Now you would also need to get rid of the entire Zoom user interface so that you get only the video playing across your monitors. For this just press [F7] and you are set. If you want to restore the user interface press [F4].

For EVR to work properly with Zoom, you will also require to set the Zoom Player to play across all screens. To achieve this, a shortcut needs to be created on the desktop, so right-click on the desktop, go to New and then select Shortcut. Select zplayer. exe from the path which will be located in Program Files under Zoom Player by default. Right-click on the shortcut and select Properties. You will need to the add the X, Y, W and H, where X and Y set the top left position of the total video window and Wand H are the total Width and Height of the monitors.



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