How to disable all window borders from the VLC playback window

Is there a way to make the VLC playback window completely borderless (no title bar, no other borders)?

Ideally, I would like the playback window to be completely borderless and then a separate window that has the controls (play, pause, timeline control, etc).

UPDATES:
I cannot use full screen mode, I would like playback window to be sized the same as the video, which is usually about 300x300 px. Also, I need to be able to position the window anywhere on the desktop.

I'm using the Windows version of VLC.

vlc-media-player

Rob Thomas

Posted 2010-10-20T20:24:07.833

Reputation: 241

Answers

This would do it :

vlc --no-video-deco --no-embedded-video

Video will stay on top-left on Windows. Add this for aligning:

--video-x=X --video-y=Y

e.g.

--video-x=120 --video-y=300

For command lines : VLC command-line help

Pradip

Posted 2010-10-20T20:24:07.833

Reputation: 171

Open VLC preferences, goto Video Options --> disable the checkbox 'Window Decorations' Next go to the "Interface options" --> disable the "embed video in interface".

This will play the video in a borderless window (works on Windows as well) the only thing I haven't figured out is how to set the size of that window).

Update: You can force the width and height of the playback window by adding "width=640 height=480" to the shortcut properties in windows (or the command line on other systems for example).

TimothyP

Posted 2010-10-20T20:24:07.833

Reputation: 933

For me, this is what the OP is asking for, the easiest to implement, and is 100% compatible with the latest version of VLC on all platforms. – Benjamin R – 2015-12-23T00:20:27.973

1Why is there no keyboard shortcut for this? And the fact that there isn't even any playback controls on hover is quite stupid. – Wesley – 2017-04-22T16:03:19.603

1The desired shortcut is CTRL+H – Jonathan – 2017-11-04T22:25:23.383

use this to play your borderless video @ 100:100 of screen with size = 500x400

vlc -I dummy --width=500 --height=400 --video-x=100 --video-y=100 --no-video-deco --no-embedded-video test.avi

Bakhshi

Posted 2010-10-20T20:24:07.833

Reputation: 151

"View" menu > "Minimal View".

That hides all the buttons and menus, but leaves the window border and windows minimize/maximize/close buttons.

May I ask what you're trying to accomplish with this?

Force Flow

Posted 2010-10-20T20:24:07.833

Reputation: 3 850

Rob, you may consider streaming the digital content, as with your desired approach the process walks through all (OSI-) layers, requires more resources and is more likely to lag or fail. VLC is extremely powerful and offers streaming with its default tools with many protocols and decodings. – Jonathan – 2017-11-04T22:29:42.850

1I really need to have the window completely without borders or other decorations. I'm capturing part of the screen to send to another device, and due to limitations with how that device can capture the screen, I need to be able to position my video window exactly. For example, if I position the video window at x=1600, y=0, I need the video to start exactly there, not have the window border get in the way... otherwise it will be captured and sent to the external device. – Rob Thomas – 2010-10-20T21:49:07.583

1You could convert the source video to the resolution you need, instead of trying to resize the window. – Force Flow – 2010-10-21T06:02:26.043

Window borders and title bar are drawn by your window manager. Maybe you could use a tiling window manager like awesome which doesn't draw any borders.

I was able to run borderless vlc window containing only the movie played with command:

alltray --borderless vlc --qt-minimal-view movie.avi

This was tested under Ubuntu 10.10. You will need to install alltray which isn't available by default:

sudo apt-get install alltray

Paweł Nadolski

Posted 2010-10-20T20:24:07.833

Reputation: 966

Sorry, I should have been more specific, i cannot use full-screen mode. – Rob Thomas – 2010-10-20T20:49:36.647

maybe you can try using

vlc -I dummy <video.avi>

Facundo Garat

Posted 2010-10-20T20:24:07.833

Reputation: 9

-1

double left click in the video window for full screen for windows or linux

alan harris

Posted 2010-10-20T20:24:07.833

Reputation: 1

Sorry, I should have been more specific, i cannot use full-screen mode. – Rob Thomas – 2010-10-20T20:50:04.057