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I want to make a kiosk-type setup that simply plays back video from a remote UDP source. The command line below does the trick and shows the video OK when there's an incoming signal to begin with. I set it up to execute as a startup app of a desktop user with auto-login:

vlc -f udp://@:PortNumber

But if there's no video when the machine starts, it shows the VLC screen with its window decorations and dashboard. Worse, it shows the Unity taskbar. I would like it to always show a black screen (or as close to featureless as possible), and I need the black screen to remain when there's no signal coming, and the video to come up when the signal comes back.

I'm kind of lost in VLC's infinitely many command-line options. Any help would be highly appreciated. I'm open to using a different video player if it will do the job better.

JCCyC
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If you want to make a kiosk, make a kiosk. Simply put, stop loading Unity and all that and just load VLC. I've been over this quite recently with another user. That should get you into a clean environment. Obviously they're loading a script as a user called thomas, but it shouldn't take too much imagination to customise that to your usage:

exec su -c "startx /etc/X11/Xsession /usr/bin/vlc -f udp://@:PortNumber --" jccyc

Or you could have a separate script that launched VLC and call that from the Upstart job. Either way, not a tough thing to do and aside from Unity being able to bother you, it also means it's a lighter, faster to load desktop.

As for the background cone, go to Tools → Preferences → All → Interface → Main interfaces → Qt and scroll right to the bottom and uncheck "Display background code or art". That should leave you with a blank screen. (Nabbed from the forums)

It might also be wise to call VLC with these arguments if you aren't already:

vlc --fullscreen --no-mouse-events --loop --no-osd udp://@:PortNumber
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Oli
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