I usually play videos in fullscreen, so that there are no distractions (anything outside of my viewing rectangle) But sometimes the videos i have are such low resolution that I cant go fullscreen, and i can't focus on the video being played as clearly.
I recently came across a feature in the divx web player that allows the user to control a "desktop dimmer" that dims everything except the video being played. The result is amazing; all your attention is on the video and it is also an illusion of better quality video.
It would be great if VLC had a desktop dimmer feature. And if you could get it out even sooner, maybe just a toggle able feature that you can choose to black out everything except the video etc.