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Zoom Player MAX is a highly customisable media player for Windows by indie developer Inmatrix, pairing a desktop player with a remote-friendly Home Theater mode and media library, sold as a paid licence after a free trial.
Zoom Player MAX is a Windows media player built for people who want to shape every part of how their player looks and behaves.
It is paid software from indie developer Inmatrix, and you can try it free before buying a one-year or lifetime licence.
If you only need something that plays everything for free, VLC or MPC-BE will do that - Zoom Player earns its price on customisation and the living-room setup.
What Zoom Player Actually Does
Zoom Player has two faces. On the desktop it is a normal windowed player; switch to the Home Theater interface and it becomes a fullscreen menu system you can drive with a remote, an Xbox controller or the keyboard.
- Deep customisation. Skins, key bindings, mouse actions and on-screen controls can all be changed.
- A media library. It scans your movies, TV shows and music and fetches posters and details.
- Media server browsing. Plex, Emby and Jellyfin libraries appear alongside your local files, plus YouTube and SHOUTcast radio.
- A choice of playback engines. DirectShow, libVLC or Chromium, so a file that fails in one can often play in another.
- Smart Play. Picks DirectShow decoders automatically to avoid the filter conflicts that break many Windows players.
- Hardware-accelerated decoding for 4K HDR video on graphics cards that support it.
Free Trial, Then Paid: What You Get
Inmatrix sells two editions. MAX is the full player with local files, streaming and the media library, available as a one-year licence or a lifetime licence with free upgrades.
STREAM is a cheaper streaming-only edition. It does not play files from your own drives, so it only suits people whose media lives entirely on a server.
About the old free edition.
Zoom Player Free 17.2 is still on our download page, but Inmatrix no longer offers or updates it. It works as a basic player, without the current features or fixes described here.
Prices and licence terms are on the Inmatrix shop. All sales are final there, so use the trial properly before you buy.
What's New in Zoom Player 22.5
- Windows media controls. The volume fly-out card and keyboard media keys now show and control what Zoom Player is playing.
- OpenSubtitles.com support after the subtitle site moved to its new service.
- Richer playlists, with artist, album, year and genre columns.
- Remote-friendly search. The media library search shows an on-screen keyboard in many languages, so you can search with only a remote.
- Snap-zone positioning, placing the playback window into Windows snap areas automatically.
One change to know about: control overlay button sizes now follow your display scaling rather than your screen resolution, so you may need to adjust them after updating.
Trying the Version 23 Beta
The version 23 beta moves playback into a separate engine process. In practice, the interface keeps responding while a stream loads or a damaged file stalls, and you can start another video without waiting.
The streaming Home Theater screens also get sharper text and colour emoji. The developer's longer-term plan is a 64-bit engine with AI upscaling and a multi-screen video wall, but those are not in this beta.
Betas can break things, so keep 22.5 if Zoom Player is your main player. The full list is on the Inmatrix what's new page.
Getting Better Playback From It
In DirectShow mode, Zoom Player uses the decoders installed on your PC. LAV Filters covers almost every modern format on its own, and the K-Lite Codec Pack bundles it with extras.
For the best picture on a big screen, pair it with madVR or the lighter MPC Video Renderer.
If a file refuses to play, open it in MediaInfo to see its codecs. Our Codec Checker shows what your PC can already decode.
The Codec Finder tells you what to install for a missing one.
Out-of-sync subtitles are easiest to fix in Subtitle Edit, and LosslessCut trims clips without re-encoding.
Who Should Look Elsewhere
If you never plan to change a skin or a key binding, you will be paying for the part of Zoom Player you won't use. The tell: you are happy with whatever your current player looks like.
| Player | Price | Pick it if |
|---|---|---|
| VLC media player | Free | You want one player that opens nearly anything, on any system |
| MPC-BE | Free | You want a light, fast Windows player with built-in decoders |
| PotPlayer | Free | You want lots of settings without paying |
| mpv | Free | You want a minimal player with excellent picture quality |
| Kodi | Free | You want a free living-room media centre with a library |
Prefer the classic look? MPC-HC and SMPlayer are both free.
If your library lives on a server, Jellyfin Server is a free way to host it.
Every option is in our Media Players category.
Quick questions
Is Zoom Player free?
Zoom Player MAX is paid, with a free trial first. The old Zoom Player Free 17.2 still runs, but it is no longer updated.
What is the difference between MAX and STREAM?
MAX plays your own files and streams. STREAM only streams from media servers and online sources, and cannot play files on your PC.
Should I install the version 23 beta?
Only if you want to test the new engine and report problems. For everyday use, stay on 22.5.
Does Zoom Player work with Plex, Emby and Jellyfin?
Yes. It can browse and play from all three alongside your local media library.
Why won't a video play in Zoom Player?
Usually a missing or conflicting decoder in DirectShow mode. Install LAV Filters, or switch that file to the libVLC engine.
Is there a Mac version?
No. Zoom Player is Windows only, so Mac users should look at VLC or mpv.
Download Zoom Player MAX 22.5 and try it before you buy, or tell us how you got on if you have used it before.
BI
Top media player!
UU
ZPM is the most flexible multimedia player you can get for Windows.
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. ;)
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. ;)
ZI
Zoom Player is a DirectShow 32 bit only (no 64 bit version yet..) Windows player; it's reliable, quite fast, with really few bugs, works perfectly with madVR (high quality video renderer) and MPC Wasapi Audio renderer.
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.
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.
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