Improve VLC to be a "theater player"

[mckenzie]

Hi everyone!

I'd like some improvements which would make VLC just the perfect player for presentations or even theaters (or think about your personal movie presentation among friends). It's about the starting and ending of a video: VLC doesn't cover these parts of a multimedia presentation: It doesn't show anything before or after "the show" - except the annoying Windows Desktop crowded with more or less ordered icons.

I'd like to have some type of "background picture" feature. So VLC in a special mode, lets call it "presentation mode", would present the picture and waits for a key press or something to start the actual video. The background picture would e.g. fade black and the video would start. At the end of the video the background picture would be presented again (maybe with a nice fade-in), instead of quiting VLC back to desktop. One cloud even imagine to present the picture when the main video is paused.
Maybe the default picture would be the VLC logo.

When I imagine further, there should be some type of audio-playlist which plays while showing the picture (like in a movie theater, with lowered volume and again a nice fade-in).
Or you could allow looped videos instead of the background picture, like e.g. an animation of your logo.

A short-term approach would be just a black screen in front and behind the video, allowing you to go fullscreen and start your beamer. And VLC wouldn't drop back to desktop in front of the audience when the video reaches its end (MS PowerPoint e.g. stops at the presentations end with a final black sheet in full screen mode).

[BugsB]

yes, I totally agree, great suggestions

[DGMurdockIII]

and a good audio player

[MegaMikeMan]

Just giving this a bump. This feature would not only be beneficial for users wanting to give presentations with VLC but also for users that have low-end computers. Since VLC starts playing immediately upon opening the desired file usually the audio gets ahead of the video and causes the player to skip frames (I know this can be disabled) and cause artifacts to appear. With this feature I would think my audio and video would begin at the same time. Also, holding the window size at the end of playback would be nice as well. Even if it's only a blank screen. This would prevent the player from having to change size again if the same video was played a second time.

Notes:
This seems to be the case with HD video and not SD video but I still believe it's a performance issue.
I may be missing a setting that prevents the video playing immediately at start-up, if so I apologize.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Just giving this a bump. This feature would not only be beneficial for users wanting to give presentations with VLC but also for users that have low-end computers. Since VLC starts playing immediately upon opening the desired file usually the audio gets ahead of the video and causes the player to skip frames (I know this can be disabled) and cause artifacts to appear. With this feature I would think my audio and video would begin at the same time. Also, holding the window size at the end of playback would be nice as well. Even if it's only a blank screen. This would prevent the player from having to change size again if the same video was played a second time.

Notes:
This seems to be the case with HD video and not SD video but I still believe it's a performance issue.
I may be missing a setting that prevents the video playing immediately at start-up, if so I apologize.

Use VLC 1.0.0 and use the complete display mode in prefs.

[MegaMikeMan]

Thanks for the quick reply. I assume the date for 1.0 has been pushed back slightly from it March release window?

[z32lex]

I also would like VLC to end in black full screen as it once did automatically.

You say, "Use VLC 1.0.0 and use the complete display mode in prefs."

But I cannot find "Complete Display Mode" anywhere??