Steam Desktop Startup Movies
A Millennium plugin that plays a custom startup movie on Steam desktop launch — just like the Steam Deck startup animation, but for your PC.
Why This Plugin?
Steam only supports startup movies in Big Picture mode. This plugin brings that experience to the regular desktop Steam client. Drop in a video, restart Steam, and enjoy your custom intro every time.
Installation
- Install Millennium (v3+)
- Clone or download this repository into your Millennium plugins directory (
~/.local/share/millennium/plugins/)
- Place
.webm or .mp4 video files in the plugin's movies/ folder
- Restart Steam
Features
- Automatic playback — video plays on Steam startup, dismissible by clicking
- Movie selector — choose which movie to play from the config panel
- Video fit modes — Contain (letterbox), Cover (crop), or Fill (stretch)
- Thumbnail previews — auto-generated preview images in the config panel (requires ffmpeg)
- Plugin-local videos — movies are stored inside the plugin folder, not Steam's config directory
- Configurable transition — choose between smooth fade or instant cut
- Shuffle mode — randomly pick a different movie each startup
- Resilient server — auto-detects port conflicts and restarts if the HTTP server crashes
- Diagnostics — status messages in the config panel when dependencies are missing
Adding Movies
Drop any .webm or .mp4 file into the movies/ folder. The plugin will detect it automatically on next startup.
Configuration
Open the plugin panel from Millennium's plugin settings:
- Movie — select which video to play at startup (shows file size and thumbnail)
- Video Fit — how the video scales to fill the screen (contain, cover, or fill)
- Transition — fade out or instant cut when dismissing the video
- Playback Mode — static (always plays the selected movie) or shuffle (random pick each startup)
- Audio — toggle sound on/off for startup movies (off by default)
Requirements
- Millennium v3+
- Python 3 (for the local HTTP server that serves video files)
- ffmpeg (optional, for thumbnail generation)
If either dependency is missing, the plugin will show a status message in the config panel explaining what's unavailable.
Troubleshooting
- No movies appear — Make sure
.webm or .mp4 files are in the movies/ folder inside the plugin directory
- Video doesn't play — Check that Python 3 is installed and available on your PATH
- Thumbnails missing — Install ffmpeg for automatic thumbnail generation
License
MIT