Windows DreamScene

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Windows DreamScene is a utility that allows videos and other optimized animations to be used as desktop wallpapers. It is one of the Windows Ultimate Extras^[1]. Prior to its official announcement, DreamScene was rumored to be in creation under the names Motion Desktop and Borealis.^[2][1] After several months of testing, the final version was released on September 25, 2007^[3]

Rendered content included with DreamScene (such as an animated realization of the Windows Aurora background) was produced by Stardock Design, while photographic content was provided by the Discovery Channel.^[4][5] Third-party video content in MPEG or WMV format may also be used.^[6]

One of the purported advantages of DreamScene over previous methods of desktop animation is that it makes use of the GPU for display instead of the CPU, leaving the latter free to perform user tasks.^[4] 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 and will use less GPU and CPU. The video can also be stopped manually. Content encoders need to strive for a balance between compression and file size; decompression requires the CPU, but larger files take up more memory and may cause the disk to be accessed more frequently.

Running a video in the background would have a significant effect on the battery life of mobile computers, whether or not it were rendered by the GPU, so DreamScene may display a static background when a computer is running on batteries.^[6] The software relies heavily on the Desktop Window Manager (or DWM, part of Windows Aero).

Stardock offers a free add-on for Windows DreamScene, called Stardock DeskScapes. This software allows the implementation of dynamic wallpapers (".dream" files). They plan to release a new version (2.0) in February 2008, which will make the program compatible with non-Ultimate editions of Vista.^[7]