[MPlayer-users] Re: OSX: disable "auto-sleep" while playing a video?

[The Wanderer]

gabor wrote:

> The Wanderer wrote:
> 
>> gabor wrote:
>> 
>>> hi,
>>> 
>>> i use mac osx.
>>> 
>>> the problem is that when i'm watching something in mplayer, the
>>> system seems to interpret it as 'nothing is happening', and acts
>>> accordingly:
>>> 
>>> 1. lowers the brightness of the screen after some time
>>> 2. probably would later turn off the display, but i never wait so
>>> long.
>> 
>> I've observed the same type of behaviour, in Linux (with various VO
>>  methods). The problem did not always occur, but it's been around
>> for quite some while, and I've got no idea when it first cropped up
>> - or, for that matter, even whether the cause was a change in
>> MPlayer or in my own system.
>> 
>> In my case, the "blank screen when idle" functionality is handled
>> by (apparently) xscreensaver; I just work around it by using 'xset
>> s off' and 'xset s on' before and after every video-watching
>> session I expect to last longer than about ten minutes, that being
>> the trigger time.
>> 
>> I'd be interested in seeing a proper solution provided; if there's
>> anything I can do to help in that (testing, etc.), short of
>> attempting regression testing over the past three years to see if
>> it actually *was* a change in MPlayer that caused the problem to
>> start appearing, just let me know.
> 
> unfortunately i also have no idea when this started and how, plus i
> switched to mac-osx last year from linux, so i have total chaos about
> this problem in my head :)

Yes, I know - I was directing the last comment above at any developers
who may be in a position to look at the problem.

> right now i am trying out the patch mr Strange sent to
> mplayer-dev-eng (always good to find an excuse to watch more anime
> ;), which should help me on macosx.
> 
> about linux+xscreensaver. what about the "-stop-xscreensaver" switch?
> shouldn't it work in this situation?

I'm not sure... but from a quick glance at the man page, I'm not 100%
certain that it is supposed to work with any VO other than 'x11'. (The
alternative would be that the '(X11 only)' comment means nothing more
than that it works only when you're running X, but it is not absolutely
clear which.)

It's also possible that what is affected by "xset" is not the same thing
as what is called "xscreensaver", in which case I wouldn't expect
-stop-xscreensaver to affect matters.

Next time I'm watching something for which it wouldn't be particularly
catastrophic if the screen shut down in the middle and I had to seek
backwards, I'll try it out. If it does work with other VO methods, I'll
try to update the documentation to make it more clear; if it does *not*,
then I'll try to update the documentation to make *that* clear.

-- 
       The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.