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I found an application that can be used to edit the skins that come with Powerdvd 7.
I had wanted to change the default background to something of my own and after spending hours googling the subject, only found some old info on the cyberlink website that dated back to Powerdvd 3 when they still used .zip files to store the skins.
Then I realized that what I needed was a resource decompiler and found one called PE Explorer that worked like a charm.
http://www.heaventools.com/overview.htm
There's a trial version that's good for 30 days.
I don't know the low level details of the powerdvd xml tags, but using the PE explorer, you can view the skin xml, the graphics resources and if you have some familiarity with markup languages, should be able to figure out what's what.
So, basically, to change the background image, here's what I did:
1. Download PE Explorer from the above site.
2. Make a duplicate of the Mercury skin (in your Powerdvd skins directory)
3. Start up PE Explorer and open the skin.
4. Go to View/Resources (ctrl-r)
5. Using the tree view on the left, you can expand XML and IMAGE.
6. Under IMAGE, find INITIAL\\POWERDVD7_1280x1024.PNG. Right click on it and edit the resource (shift-ctrl-e). Now click the file icon in the lower half of the screen and pick a new 1280x1024 PNG format file to use. Hit "ok".
7. Do something similar, but this time look for INITIAL\\POWERDVD7_1280x720.PNG and this time replace it with a 1280x720 PNG format file.
(For testing purposes, I had used photoshop to create two black images).
8. Save out the skin using File\\Save As. Write it out as a .dll.
Now you should be able to load up Powerdvd and select your new skin.
Here's what I ended up with:
![]()
Using PE Editor, you can take a look through the resources and customize a lot more. I just did the above as a proof of concept.
The reason the word "Powerdvd" is still there is because there's an animation overlay that's drawn on top of the background. I left this alone for now, but this can be customized too.
Hope someone found that helpful. I spent a lot of time looking for info on how to customize the skin and only found a lot of old info and I figured I couldn't be the only one who wanted to do something like this.
I had wanted to change the default background to something of my own and after spending hours googling the subject, only found some old info on the cyberlink website that dated back to Powerdvd 3 when they still used .zip files to store the skins.
Then I realized that what I needed was a resource decompiler and found one called PE Explorer that worked like a charm.
http://www.heaventools.com/overview.htm
There's a trial version that's good for 30 days.
I don't know the low level details of the powerdvd xml tags, but using the PE explorer, you can view the skin xml, the graphics resources and if you have some familiarity with markup languages, should be able to figure out what's what.
So, basically, to change the background image, here's what I did:
1. Download PE Explorer from the above site.
2. Make a duplicate of the Mercury skin (in your Powerdvd skins directory)
3. Start up PE Explorer and open the skin.
4. Go to View/Resources (ctrl-r)
5. Using the tree view on the left, you can expand XML and IMAGE.
6. Under IMAGE, find INITIAL\\POWERDVD7_1280x1024.PNG. Right click on it and edit the resource (shift-ctrl-e). Now click the file icon in the lower half of the screen and pick a new 1280x1024 PNG format file to use. Hit "ok".
7. Do something similar, but this time look for INITIAL\\POWERDVD7_1280x720.PNG and this time replace it with a 1280x720 PNG format file.
(For testing purposes, I had used photoshop to create two black images).
8. Save out the skin using File\\Save As. Write it out as a .dll.
Now you should be able to load up Powerdvd and select your new skin.
Here's what I ended up with:
Using PE Editor, you can take a look through the resources and customize a lot more. I just did the above as a proof of concept.
The reason the word "Powerdvd" is still there is because there's an animation overlay that's drawn on top of the background. I left this alone for now, but this can be customized too.
Hope someone found that helpful. I spent a lot of time looking for info on how to customize the skin and only found a lot of old info and I figured I couldn't be the only one who wanted to do something like this.
