No fullscreen with stream not present

[thals]

I have a setup where I play a RTP stream with VLC in fullscreen mode, e.g. by calling vlc -f rtp://@224.0.0.1:1234. Important for the setup is that VLC goes into fullscreen mode as soon as it is called.

Now the problem is that my streaming source is unreliable, i.e. the video stream may not be present. In that case the VLC control interface remains visible, waiting for the stream. Is there an option to start VLC directly in fullscreen mode, even if no stream is present?

[VLC_help]

No. Fullscreen only works when VOUT is active.

[thals]

Well, VLC certainly stays in fullscreen even if a stream is interrupted (or the next stream in playlist is not present), that's why I thought there is a way to force VLC in that mode.
I really don't want to add a dummy video from hard disk as first item in playlist just to get VLC to go to fullscreen mode and stay in it...

[erwan10]

Though it is not available right out of the box, what you describe can be achieved very easily with a dedicated skin.

1- Create a vlc skin whose sole widget is a video widget sized to fill up the screen.
2- Optionally, create a fullscreen controller (or reuse the one shipped with the default skin) to be able to manage vlc.

It is not really fullscreen per se (in the vlc sense of fullscreen), but it is indeed fullscreen from a user's perspective. And this fullscreen won't be dependent on the availability of a video or not.

Erwan10

[thals]

Good idea, Erwan10.
Is it possible to create a skin that fills the screen regardless of the screen resolution, or does it always have a fixed size?

[erwan10]

For now, width and height must be hardcoded. It would indeed be a nice feature to have it independent of the screen resolution.

I should already have such a skin, if you are not that familiar with the skin development.

Erwan10

[thals]

Awesome, getting that skin would be very nice (I never created any skin for VLC).

[erwan10]

You can download the skin at http://www.2shared.com/file/NSg_JvYy/fu ... 4_768.html

The skin filename is fullscreen1024_768.vlt. As it is stated in the name, it is ready for a 1024x768 screen. If you have a different size, decompress the .vlt file (actually, it is a tar.gz format), edit theme.xml, and configure the video widget for your own screen size. Using an extra interface (rc, http, ... ) may help provide the best way for you to monitor vlc, yet force fullscreen to stay unaltered.

Have fun

Erwan10

[thals]

Works perfectly well, thank you.