More than one instance of Zoom Player - slightly erratic

[Mastiff]

I am going to use two instances of Zoom for my carputer (those who knows that I have two kids and still wonder why I wanna use two instances hasn't tried to get a ten year old boy and an eight year old girl to agree on what movie they should see!), but there seems to be a big quirk. If the TCP control port is activated on both (different ports, of course - I'm dumb, but I'm not that dumb!) starting playback from on instance when the other one's playing will make the video on the already playing instance jump to the exact same place as on the one that starts playback! This doesn't happen when NetRemote isn't running. And if I start NetRemote while the two instances of ZoomPlayer is running, it's even more ridiculous! NetRemote synchronizes playback, so one of the Zoom Players jumps to whereever the other one is in what it's playing It seems to be to the same minutes/seconds it seems, but I'm not totally sure.

And if you want to get even more stupid, this even happens with a CCF with no Zoom Player actions or feedback at all! It's NetRemote itself that does it. I would appreciate if this could be fixed...

Edit: This is with the latest NR, perhaps it should have been in the 2.0 forum, but I can't seem to delete the message.

[avid]

OK - let me think about that one. It's going to be a busy weekend, but I will do what I can.

Brian

[Mastiff]

Thanks, mate! Damn, I gotta get these forum settings straight! I never get E-mails when new answers comes around! And I have it set to instant notification.

[avid]

Tor,

This is indeed very weird. I haven't managed to work out myself how to get Zoom to run two instances - is this a ZP 5 thing?

Anyway, my current theory is that it is a Zoom TCP interface problem, but I'm going to have to ask you to run an experiment to verify (or disprove) that.

Can you get two instances running (without NR). Then use a cmd box (Start/Run/"cmd") to issue the command "telnet <carputer name or address> <Zoom TCP port>" (e.g. "telnet 127.0.0.1 4769") and see what happens. Does this cause any strange symptoms? Then enter (into telnet) the command "5110 exSeekAhead,10" which should skip forward 10 seconds. Does that work for just one instance?

Cheers

Brian

[Mastiff]

Just logging in doesn't do anything wrong, the seconds starts flowing. Neither does entering the skip command. I tried both instances, and none of them game me any trouble with Telnet. Had to pause them to do the seek, since the beforementioned seconds were flowing. Btw what are you doing up at this hour?

Edit: To run two instances, make a copy of the Zoom Player install directory, like "Zoom PLayer 2". Then create a file called zplayer.regpath in that directory. In that file you can type for instance HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VirtuaMedia\ZoomPlayer 2 And the registry settings will be saved there. Finally you need to go into the options/settings/other and tick "Allow Multiple Instances". Do that on both zoom player instances. That should do it, and it works with 4x as well.

[avid]

Hmmm - so it's not that.

Ah - I think I've got it!!

There is only only set of ZP.xxx variables. Changes in Zoom will set these variables, but also changing the variables will update Zoom. That is not going to be easy to fix - not somthing I can do this weekend as it will need a significant redesign of the variables mechanism - especially if I want to remain backwardly compatible.

Brian

[Ben S]

Brian - In my plugins if a variable change comes in (say from MediaBridge), it won't send it back out via the same change (IE: Back to MediaBridge). If it comes from Girder, say, then it will sent it to MediaBridge. Is yours setup the same way?

Also regarding multi-zone, this is something I have to work with for true multizone mediabridge (showing multiple zones at once). I have an idea and I'm -not sure- if it's hokey or not. I've sent you a PM about it.

[Mastiff]

Sounds interesting, Ben! Brian, how about a "castrated" version that just doesn't treat feedback, or even an option to turn off feedback just as a preliminary fix? Then I can start and stop playback for the kids without messing up anything. Would that be easier to do in a jiffy?

[avid]

What I will do in the short term (in a couple of days - busy weekend) is to add a new action to set the "current" active instance. Only that instance will monitor or set ZP variables. That should be easy and backwardly compatible. Later down the line I like the more generic idea that Ben has proposed.

I never even considered controlling multiple Zoom instances when I started it!

Brian

[Mastiff]

Hey, if you can get it by next weekend, I'll be a happy dog! We're taking this year's first trip to the cabin then (the main reason I have bought the monitor setup for the back seat to stop the kids from quarreling is the two hour drive almost every weekend in the summer). And this can be used for a primitive multi-zone system as well, but I don't see why anybody would want to do that instead of go the full library version with JRMC.