ExtremeTech is running a how-to on hacking OSX Tiger. The article shows how Video Desktop works and how you can display a video camera’s output in a view using QuickTime’s Sequence Grabbers.
Hacking Mac OS X Tiger’s Video Desktop
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Sounds like Desktop Movie Player ( http://www.monkeybreadsoftware.de/Freeware/DesktopMoviePlayer.shtml ) or Trans Lucy ( http://www.cesoft.com/products/tl.html ).
It’s great to ‘wow’ people even when it’s a bit impractical, after all who wants their icons obscuring their movies ? I get mad enough at the tall guy who sits in front of me at the theater.
Put an iSight on your PowerBook facing backwards and you’ll have a real transparent desktop
The fun of a video desktop lasts about 5 minutes. The idea was implemented by Microsoft in Windows over 10 years ago.
The Amiga did it first, ~20 years ago.
You know, interlaced display doesn’t count 😉
ATI got builtin Videodesktop support in their AIW software (MMC).
What would have been neat and more pertinent would have been to explore Hacking Mac OS X Tiger’s Video Desktop through the snazzy new Core API rather than the old and soon to be discontinued quickdraw API.
But its a good article.