Video playback as minimalist overlay in corner of screen

videovlc-media-player

I only have 1 monitor atm. I want to be able to playback video while I use the rest of the monitor to do work. Using the traditional method of windowskeyarrowkey does not leave enough space to work as the monitor is only 1080p native. SO ideally I'd want something like you see below using vlc player. However I'd want something even better and more minimalist, ideally the removal of the top bar to maximize display space. If there's a method to achieve this for streaming sites like youtube I'd be interested as well.

ex. VLC

VLC Example - Screenshot

Best Answer

I'd want something even better and more minimalist, ideally the removal of the top bar to maximize display space.

As a comment, I don't believe that removing the title bar increases the video size in any way. That said, you can achieve the removal of the window title bar with some of the command line options for VLC.

Borderless

To remove all the window elements from VLC, you will likely want to use the --no-video-deco and --no-embedded-video command line options:

vlc --no-video-deco --no-embedded-video example.mp4

Note that --no-video-deco and --no-embedded-video will likely only have a noticeable effect when a media source is specified (ex. example.mp4).

Be aware that using these options may remove the ability to move the window with click/hold/drag.

Placement

You can use the --video-x and --video-y options respectively to specify where you want your playback window to initially appear (starting from the uppermost left corner of the screen):

vlc --video-x=100 --video-y=100 --no-video-deco --no-embedded-video example.mp4

Size

If you want to change the size of the video, you can adjust the --zoom factor of the video:

vlc --zoom 2 --video-x=100 --video-y=100 --no-video-deco --no-embedded-video example.mp4

  • --zoom can take whole as well as decimal numbers (e.g. 0.25, 1.5, 2, etc.).

  • A --zoom under one reduces video size and a --zoom over one enlarges it.

If there's a method to achieve this for streaming sites like youtube I'd be interested as well.

example.mp4 is used as a video source above, but this could be e.g. a YouTube URL as well:

vlc --no-video-deco --no-embedded-video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnEMOQTh27s

Caveats

Windows

  • Using --no-video-deco and --no-embedded-video with vlc will create two VLC windows — a "main" window with all the normal controls and separate borderless "playback" window. You can automatically minimize the "main" window by using the Windows start command with VLC i.e.:

    start "" /min vlc --no-video-deco --no-embedded-video example.mp4

  • Any borderless playback window for a source started from the command line will close automatically once the file is finished.

  • The path to vlc needs to be in your environment variables to use vlc at the command line. Otherwise, you will likely need to specify the full path to vlc.exe in your commands.

Streaming

One thing to keep in mind about streaming sites in general (and YouTube in particular) is that there are multiple ways to stream data. For instance, the example YouTube link above (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnEMOQTh27s) works in VLC. However, the one below (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o0r9unT4L4) does not:

vlc --no-video-deco --no-embedded-video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o0r9unT4L4

In cases like this, you might have to find alternative software such as mpv combined with youtube-dl if you really want to watch a given stream.

Sources

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