2 wolly_a I have the same problem! VLC stops playing in VB after 4-6 hours in dshow mode and the last played picture (frame) is still visible. There is no way to unload ActiveX and to load it again in runtime. ActiveX just is a point where main VLC plugins are attached to your app. To reload ActiveX...
I tried to get rid of the cone hat, borders and unchangable background color by diferent ways. Using some ResHackers utilits I only removed the cone hat and made background color black. But some white borders remained. It looked horrobly. Well, then I wrote an OCX (I was really afraid of changing or...