Top-level Window Overlay

[RyanIsTheRyan]

Ati's multimedia suite that came with my AIW 9800 from back in the day had an option to display video over the entire screen, while allowing you to interact with the desktop, any programs running, the such. It would allow you to truly watch tv and work at the same time.
I believe most of it was based on the software, so I guess I should ask are there any recommended media players that can support this through a plugin or just included?
I like the players included with the combined community codec pack, such as media player classic and zoom(preferably media player classic), though I use VLC and Windows Media player. VLC doesn't seem to handle matroska at 1080 with surround sound well.

Also I doubt this matters, but the computer in question has a 790i ftw with two gtx260's in sli.

 

[Joe Average]

You mean a video desktop? Media players have been doing this for a long long time now. I still prefer to use WinDVD 5 which came out nearly 7 years ago, and it has such a feature so it sure as hell ain't "new." When Vista started getting a lot of hype because of Dreamscene in Ultimate, I just laughed because I'd been using WinDVD 5 to do almost exactly that thing - playing video as "wallpaper" - for many years prior to Vista's release. It's not that difficult to do, and with today's hyper-powered video cards, it's nothing at all.

Because of how Vista handles the video display now, however, might be a reason some older players can't do it. I haven't tested the functionality of the video desktop with WinDVD 5 and Vista, guess I should look into it at some point.

 

[RyanIsTheRyan]

Thanks for your reply.

Not a video desktop, in the sense that it replaces your wallpaper, but in the sense that it overlays the entire screen.

This allows me to write a term paper, while watching Movies.
I dislike video wallpapers because if I am not going to have anything else up I might as well as jus maximize the video and skip the whole icons right over the face situation.

Unless you can tweak the settings in WinDVD to do this?

 

[Joe Average]

I sorta-kinda understand what you mean, but I can't honestly say I've ever seen any such thing in action. Considering that Windows treats 'windows' as entities, the only way something like that would be workable would be to have the top-level window layered (yes, I get that) on top of all other windows, while allowing other windows to steal the focus from that top-level one - which has transparency happening or else you can't see the other work you're doing.

I know in the past when I owned WinTV cards I'd be watching TV in a window off to one side and doing whatever I was doing in others, but... I'm still trying to get a visual image in my imagination of what you're talking about, and it's just not happening. If a window is full screen that means it'll cover up everything "underneath" and the only way to see anything "underneath" would be to have the top-level window set for some degree of transparency as already noted.

Hmmm... I just can't get the idea that you have a window covering the whole screen (fullscreen) and it's on top of other windows, yet you can interact with the other windows. If you're playing a movie full screen you can't see what's going on underneath it, that's my thinking... unless transparency is involved, which kinda defeats the purpose.

 

[RyanIsTheRyan]

Alright well I kinda lied, it didnt come with my purchase of the 9600 AIW, but its part of the Ati media center stuff.

If you want i can get a video of my computer tommorow. (check youtube first)
I installed the software on this computer, the option is now named Thruview,
and pretty much it works by 'minimizing' the window, but then overlay the video ontop of everything, and pretty much overlays whatever state the window was before you turn on thruview.
So i could jus have a small box, or i could do the entire screen, depending on if i had a regular sized window or maximized window before expanding, it displays that same window with transparency and possible to interact with everything below it.

now that I know the name of the feature, i'll have to do some research to see if it is available with anything else, which is a doubt, but sucks cuz the feature is so useful.

 

[RyanIsTheRyan]

apparently there is something similar in vista/media center..... Idk what the new name is and if it can do exactly the same thing, or if its anotheer wall paper thing. anyone know of this?