Your actual video player app is built on a UI library that just uses the same thing this video player app does.
Sure, you could skip a layer and make your video player talk directly to X11, but it wouldn't be cross-platform.
The browser is both an HTTP client and a UI kit, and some people are starting to skip the HTTP client part, and use it as a UI framework, essentially a competitor to Qt or GTK. That includes editors such as Brackets, Light Table or Atom, video viewers such as the infamous Popcorn Time, and games such as Game Dev Tycoon.
Picking a UI library is always about finding the right balance between cross-platform, ease of development and memory usage. Kits such as node-webkit and the Atom Shell (used here) give access to one more choice, albeit one which may consume more memory (for now) than many other options.
Sure, you could skip a layer and make your video player talk directly to X11, but it wouldn't be cross-platform.
The browser is both an HTTP client and a UI kit, and some people are starting to skip the HTTP client part, and use it as a UI framework, essentially a competitor to Qt or GTK. That includes editors such as Brackets, Light Table or Atom, video viewers such as the infamous Popcorn Time, and games such as Game Dev Tycoon.
Picking a UI library is always about finding the right balance between cross-platform, ease of development and memory usage. Kits such as node-webkit and the Atom Shell (used here) give access to one more choice, albeit one which may consume more memory (for now) than many other options.