Picture-in-Picture is a relatively newer feature in the modern web browsers that allows you to watch videos in a small floating window that always stays on top. This feature is very useful if you want to watch a video or a livestream broadcast while working on other things or applications.
In Chrome web browser, you can use the Picture-in-Picture extension (authored by Google developers themselves) to enable this feature for any video on any website. It can also be used to watch the videos stored on your local hard drive.
After the installation of the Picture-in-Picture extension, you will see a new icon in the Chrome toolbar. First you have to visit a video website where a video starts to play. Then you can click on this toolbar icon to switch that video in the Picture-in-Picture mode. You can also use Alt+P hotkey for the same effect.
Once a video has started to play a video in the Picture-in-Picture window, you will see the words “Playing in picture-in-picture” written in the main video frame. The floating Picture-in-Picture window will be playing the actual window.
The small floating window can be dragged around anywhere on your desktop. You can resize this window to any size you want. Personally, I keep this floating window near the bottom-right corner of the screen as I work with other applications like WordPress or Microsoft Word.
The same extension that can make the online videos play in the Picture-in-Picture mode, can be used to play offline videos stored on your hard drive. For this, you have to make changes in the extension properties. In the extension properties, you have to enable Allow access to file URLs.
After this, you can simply enter the video path in the Chrome address bar and when the video starts to play, you can click on the Picture-in-Picture icon in the Chrome toolbar. For example, if the video is stored at a location “C:\Videos\Hello.mp4” then you can enter this full path in the Chrome address bar and take it from there.
You can get the Picture-in-Picture extension for Chrome browser from https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/picture-in-picture-extens/hkgfoiooedgoejojocmhlaklaeopbecg.