Windows DreamScene is a utility that allows videos and

.gif The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987 ...

and other optimized

animations Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...

to be used as desktop wallpapers. It is one of the

Windows Ultimate Extras Windows Ultimate Extras were optional features offered by Microsoft to users of the Ultimate edition of Windows Vista and are accessible via Windows Update. Ultimate Extras replaced the market role of Microsoft Plus!, a product sold for prior con ...

for

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

. Prior to its official announcement, DreamScene was rumored to be in creation under the names ''Motion Desktop'' and ''Borealis''. After several months of testing, the final version was released on September 25, 2007. Rendered content included with DreamScene (such as an animated realization of the Windows Aurora background) was produced by

Stardock Stardock Corporation is a software development company founded in 1991 and incorporated in 1993 as Stardock Systems. Stardock initially developed for the OS/2 platform, but was forced to switch to Microsoft Windows due to the collapse of the OS ...

, while photographic content was provided by the Discovery Channel. Third-party video content in

MPEG The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by ISO and IEC that sets standards for media coding, including compression coding of audio, video, graphics, and genomic data; and transmission and f ...

WMV Windows Media Video (WMV) is a series of video codecs and their corresponding video coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows Media framework. WMV consists of three distinct codecs: The original video compression technology ...

format may also be used. In addition, AVI files can be played by altering the file extension. Additionally, in partnership with Dell, Microsoft released a separate DreamScene alongside its

Product Red Product Red, stylized as (PRODUCT) or (PRODUCT)RED, is a licensed brand by the company Red, stylized as (RED), that seeks to engage the private sector in raising awareness and funds to help eliminate HIV/AIDS in eight African countries, namely E ...

version of the Ultimate edition of Windows Vista. One of the purported advantages of DreamScene over previous methods of desktop animation is that it makes use of the

GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...

for display instead of the CPU, leaving the latter free to perform user tasks. To what extent this is achieved is not specified. When a full-screen program is run, such as a game or any window that is maximized, the video will automatically stop since the video will not be seen; this means it uses less GPU and CPU. The video can also be stopped manually. Content encoders need to strive for a balance between

compression Compression may refer to: Physical science *Compression (physics), size reduction due to forces *Compression member, a structural element such as a column *Compressibility, susceptibility to compression * Gas compression *Compression ratio, of a ...

and file size; decompression requires the CPU, but larger files take up more

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered ...

and may cause the disk to be accessed more frequently. Running a video in the background would have a significant impact on the battery life of

mobile computer Mobile computing is human–computer interaction in which a computer is expected to be transported during normal usage, which allows for the transmission of data, voice, and video. Mobile computing involves mobile communication, mobile hardware ...

s, whether or not it were rendered by the GPU, so DreamScene may display a static background when a computer is running on batteries. The software relies heavily on the

Desktop Window Manager Desktop Window Manager (DWM, previously Desktop Compositing Engine or DCE) is the compositing window manager in Microsoft Windows since Windows Vista that enables the use of hardware acceleration to render the graphical user interface of Windows ...

(or DWM, part of

Windows Aero Windows Aero (a backronym for ''Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open'') is a design language introduced in the Windows Vista operating system. The changes made in the Aero interface affected many elements of the Windows interface, includin ...

offers a chargeable add-on for Windows DreamScene, called ''DeskScapes''. This software allows the implementation of dynamic wallpapers (".dream" files). They have released a new version (3.5), which makes the program compatible with non-Ultimate editions of Vista and newer versions of Windows (7, 8, 10, 11). In

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...

, DreamScene was replaced by a "Desktop Slideshow" feature which produces slideshow background wallpapers, but does not support videos. However, it can still be enabled via third-party tools.

References

External links

About Windows DreamScene

Activate DreamScene In All Editions Of Windows 7 & Vista Without Desktop Text Bug
{{Windows Components

DreamScene Windows DreamScene is a utility that allows videos and .gif and other optimized animations to be used as desktop wallpapers. It is one of the Windows Ultimate Extras for Windows Vista. Prior to its official announcement, DreamScene was rumored to ...

Windows Ultimate Extras sv:Windows Vista#Nyheter

See also

References

External links