Gallery: Play video as your Desktop

We’re going to use a program called VLC to create video wallpaper in Windows. Note that this software only works with Windows XP and Vista, but older computers might struggle to keep video clips running smoothly anyway. The latest version of VLC is available to download free of charge from our own website. Visit www.computeractive.co.uk/2144343 and click the Free download link. When prompted, opt to save the file to the Windows Desktop: the download process should take less than a minute with a broadband connection. Locate the downloaded file (called ‘vlc-0.8.6b-win32.exe’ or similar) and double-click it to start the installation. Follow the displayed prompts to complete the job. Note that if you don’t wish to have VLC set as the default player for most media types, be sure to remove the ticks from the relevant checkboxes during setup.

Once the installation process is complete, you’ll see a shortcut icon for VLC on the Windows Desktop (it looks like a stripy traffic cone for some reason). Double click on it to launch the program, then use the Open command in the File menu to locate the video clip you want. We’ve dropped a video clip onto the Desktop for convenience. We’re currently playing the new Rufus Wainright album to death, so we chose one of his music videos as an example.

There’s a quick way to turn this clip into a video wallpaper – just go to the Video menu and select the Wallpaper command. While you’re at it, take a look at some of the other options in this menu – particularly the ‘aspect ratio’ sub-menu. This refers to the size and shape of the video image – whether it’s widescreen 16:9 ratio or the traditional 4:3 ratio of older computer monitors. You may need to experiment with this setting to make sure that the video clip fits properly onto your computer screen.

Once the Wallpaper command has been selected, use the Minimise command to hide the VLC window so that you can see the entire Desktop, complete with icons for things such as Internet Explorer. Notice that VLC is listed in the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen, so you can open the original VLC window again whenever you want. The only problem is that this video clip only lasts for about four minutes, and you probably don’t want to keep stopping every few minutes to select a new clip.

Click on the VLC icon in the Taskbar to recall the program’s main control window. Go to the View menu and select the Playlist option. The Playlist window shows the video clips we’re currently playing – just that single Rufus clip right now. In the menu bar immediately above the playlist (below the word ‘Manage’) are three small icons. These are the ‘loop’ controls: use them to loop a single video clip so that it plays over and over, giving a never-ending video wallpaper.

We like old Rufus, but not to the point where we want to keep watching the same video the whole time we’re working. A better idea is to create a kind of video jukebox by adding a few more clips to the playlist. This is easy, as you can just drag and drop video clips from any folder into the Playlist window. You can also use the loop controls once more to loop through the playlist, or set the controls to ‘shuffle’ randomly through it.

We’ve now got VLC set up to play a series of video clips as a continuous video wallpaper. However, the Wallpaper command we chose from the Video menu (step three) isn’t permanent. The next time VLC is launched, you’ll have to select the Wallpaper command again to switch back into wallpaper mode. That’s not necessarily a problem – after all, continuous video wallpaper can be a bit distracting if you’re trying to do some real work. However, it’s also possible to put VLC into permanent wallpaper mode if you want.

Go to the VLC settings menu and select Preferences. When the Preferences dialogue box appears, click on the Advanced Options box in the right-hand corner. Now double-click on the word Video in the list on the left-hand panel to display the various video controls. Double-click the Output Modules entry in the list, then click once on DirectX (this is the software within Windows that controls video playback). Click the option labelled ‘Enable wallpaper mode’, then Save.

Activating wallpaper mode ensures that VLC will automatically play video clips as wallpaper whenever the program is launched. But before finishing here, there’s one other option to investigate. Go to the list in the left-hand panel again and double-click on Interface. Next, double-click on the Main interfaces entry. Click just once on wxWidgets, then select the option marked ‘Systray icon’. This puts a VLC icon into the Windows Notification Area (at the bottom of the right-hand side of the Taskbar), so that video playback can be controlled from here.

Just right-click on the VLC icon in the Windows Notification Area to control playback of video clips, without having to return to the main VLC window. You can do other things with VLC, too. It can play DVDs, so we put on Hot Fuzz and turned that into video wallpaper. VLC can also play streaming video from the internet or capture the video signal from a webcam or camcorder.

Just right-click on the VLC icon in the Windows Notification Area to control playback of video clips, without having to return to the main VLC window. You can do other things with VLC, too. It can play DVDs, so we put on Hot Fuzz and turned that into video wallpaper. VLC can also play streaming video from the internet or capture the video signal from a webcam or camcorder.