The VideoLAN Forums

I use 2.0.0 rcc-1 and wondered if there was a way to start videos with nothing but the video; that is, to not see anything at all first. With the native skin, of course, you see the cone for just a moment. I tried downloading the plainest skins available but they all show a flash of something first well. Is this an issue that's just built in and not resolvable? (I show a lot of videos in my work and the opening cone is distracting and seems a bit unprofessional.)

The cone image is embedded in the executable or dll library files unfortunately there is no easy way of removing it (perhaps compile VLC yourself?) or switch to Mplayer.
You can probably get around this by manipulating your graphics card settings most have colour controls for Desktop and colour controls for Overlay.
When playing videos with hardware acceleration this uses video overlay so basically you darken your desktop so the cone appears hidden.
Unfortunately this would also hide the video controls too so I guess it depends on how desperate you want to uncone your presentation.

Richard S.

You can remove the cone, of course, and have a pure black background. Do that in preferences...

Where do I find the control to turn off the cone in preferences. I've been looking for an hour and can find nothing that turns off the cone. It would be great to have just a black screen during audio only (mp3) file playback.

Thank you

Menu Tools -> Preferences (Show Settings = ALL) -> Interface -> Main interfaces -> Qt
The option on the right panel is named "Display background cone or art"
Untick it then save, exit and restart VLC.