The VideoLAN Forums

when i play a movie, my desktop is dimmed after 2-3 seconds.
the brightness is restored when i take to focus out of VLC video window.

Even if the focus moves to VLC's own dialogs, (e.g. preferences), the brightness returns to the desktop.
when i click VLC's main window, the screen is dimmed again.

this drives me nuts.
usually it does happen. sometimes it doesn't happen.
i can't figure out when or why it happens.

i'm on Windows XP SP3, VLC 1.1.4

So VLC stays on screen but everything else goes dark?

everything goes darker.

it's more obvious when not in full screen:
when i bring VLC to focus, all the screen becomes gradually (in 2-3 seconds) darker: background windows, vlc, task-bar..

Does it help if you disable VLC's screensaver option?