The VideoLAN Forums

This feature request provides a mechanism to allow the screensaver to kick in when a video is paused or when a video has completed.

Currently when the disable_screensaver flag is set (adminstrable under preferences video show all settings), the screensaver application
is occassionally poked by vlc and thus the screensaver does not kick in. This behavior occurs regardless of whether
a video has completed or has been paused.

A natural assumption seems to be that when vlc is playing a video, that there is a user watching the video.
Thus the current behavior is correct, that screensaver should be poked when a video is playing.

This contrasts with the situation where a user has finished a video but left the window open or has paused a video.
In that situation vlc should not be poking the screensaver.

There are several ways to address this:

a) vlc shall interpret disable_screensaver=Yes to mean only poke screensaver when a movie is playing

b) Keep disable_screensaver as is but add a new flag disable_screensaver_when_vlc_active

a) seems to be the way to go but maybe there is a reason to be backward compatible in which case b) would do the job.

I'll second this. Currently I need to quit VLC to allow my HTPC to go to sleep.

I too would find it wonderfull if the screensaver would kick in when vlc is on pause or playback is stopped. This would make VLC a first choice on a project I'm working on for computer base home theater...

Regards.

Dominic