Hey guys- I’m looking for a way to make Kodi hide all controls for presentation purposes.
I occasionally set up projectors at small events to present slide shows, short movies, etc.
I usually run the content off my laptop, but I try really hard to hide any signs of a recognizable computer OS appearing on the screen. I had to sit through a presentation once where the presenter didn’t know how to make windows media player full screen, so I can tell you first hand how much it detracts from the experience! And when a video finishes playing and you are dumped back out to a desktop GUI with a file explorer, it just reeks of amateur.
On the last event I set up, I put a cap in front of the projector’s lens whenever I had to muck about in the OS or bring up the next file, etc, then remove the cap once I hit play and all the controls in WMP were already hidden. I’ve actually been wondering if Kodi could somehow be a better interface for this, especially when running multiple screens for large auditoriums (where I can’t quickly cover them up and uncover them!).
I was mucking around in Kodi, and if anything by default it seems worse- simply pausing and playing brings the controls on screen and it has to play for a few seconds before the controls go away. But, I know this is a very customizable open source program, so perhaps there is a way to make it act the way I’m looking for? I’d love for all on-screen controls to be hidden all the time, and just interface with keyboard commands and/or remote. It would be awesome if there could be a playlist that loops until I give the command to move on to the next item. For example, a company logo with subtle background could be video #1, looping all along, then when ready I hit the keyboard shortcut for next track and it will play the presentation. Right now, whenever I change tracks in a playlist it shows the controls temporarily, along with the file name, and I can’t find a way to make a playlist loop individual videos- only the whole playlist (which starts over when finishing the whole list). Is this something that Kodi can help with?