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[jb82]

Limited offline backdrop support is possible by selecting 'show online media slideshow' and deselecting all web options (Google images etc.) in Options/Theatre View/Themes. This results in any pictures contained in music album getting displayed as a backdrop in theatre view.

However...
- There is no way to distinguish between images intended to be backdrops and those that are not. So, for example, Folder.jpg is also used, which often looks pretty bad as a backdrop.
- The backdrop also only changes when moving between albums from different artists (not good if you want a specific backdrop for a specific album, esp if you sort by artist)
- Offline video backdrops do not work at all.
- Enabling 'show online media slideshow' results in a fade-out/in  when navigating to media that does not use or have backdrops - such as TV, Photos etc. So if you only have one wallpaper for a Skin (e.g. I just use Bing picture of the day) you get a weird fade out/in of the same picture.

Feature requests:
(1) Only use images named Backdrop.jpg (or allow some naming convention) for offline backdrops
(2) Fix offline backdrops for video files/BR/DVD folders (very longstanding bug???!!!)
(3) Make the backdrop change when navigating from album to album, even if the artists is unchanged
(4) Only fade-out/in if a backdrop is actually going to change (or allow it to be disabled for different media types)

[tij]

been waiting for this long time 

... final frontier for Theatre View lol

[jb82]

Me too. And more than a little frustrating when there have been multiple threads over the years asking for ideas for Theatre View GUI changes and more or less nothing is implemented.

I don't think this is a big ask but it would make a huge difference to the appearance.

Even better, IMHO, would be built-in support for the blur effect background (not sure if it has a more formal name). A lot of music players are now using it for playing now screens (even the latest version of Windows 10 uses it for the taskbar based on a 'heavy' blur of the desktop wallpaper) as it’s a great way of colour coordinating backgrounds in a completely un-distracting way. Cleaver bit of graphic design that’s dead easy to do and works well no matter what the foreground material is.