[mossywell]

Hi, I've read a few posts about the screensaver kicking in when audio is playing and I have exactly the opposite problem: I can't get it to work when audio is playing. All I want to do is have it dim after 3 minutes when audio is playing. I have the DirectX Spectrum running as the visualization. The screen saver is set to dim after 3 minutes. If I leave it on the home screen for 3 minutes. it dims as expected. But not when audio is playing. I have tried both the "Use visualization if playing audio" both on and off and it doesn't make any difference. (In fact, I'm struggling to see what that option does.)
XBMC 11.0
W7 x64 SP1 all the driver updates
Any ideas?

EDIT: Setting music visualizations to None --> the dim kicks in as it should, so I guess visualizations disable the screen saver?

[mossywell]

No one? Should visualizations disable the screen saver?

[PatK]

As long as there is activity... playing a movie, displaying photo's, using the music visualizations etc.. all count as activity. You've done some testing, so I guess that's expected behaviour. Under settings appearance screen saver you can adjust the dim level, not sure if that's sometime you saw or not.

[artrafael]

No one? Should visualizations disable the screen saver?

I guess the way to look at it is that visualization is the screensaver for audio playback mode. After all, the screensaver settings page has an option for using this in lieu of the regular screensaver when playing audio. The screensaver function itself is not disabled since, after the specified time interval, some type of fullscreen imagery (which includes options such as black/dimmed screen and music visualization) is displayed.

[mossywell]

No one? Should visualizations disable the screen saver?

the screensaver settings page has an option for using this in lieu of the regular screensaver when playing audio.

Only it doesn't make any difference: either way, the regular screen saver never kicks in whether you tell XBMC to use the visualistion in lieu of the regular screensaver or not. No big deal for me: the visualisations are unnecessary frippery anyway, so I just set it to "None" and the regular screen saver kicks in just fine.

[artrafael]

I'm not seeing that. My expected screensaver kicks in at the specified elapsed time even when I'm playing music (local files):

• Screensaver = Dim; Don't show viz while playing audio; Viz = OpenGL Spectrum > Display dims after elapsed time (the behavior you wanted in your first post)
  
• Screensver = Euphoria; Don't show viz while playing audio; Viz = OpenGL Spectrum > Euphoria screensaver displays after elapsed time
  
• Screensaver = Dim; Do show viz while playing audio; Viz = OpenGL Spectrum > OpenGL Spectrum viz displays after elapsed time
  
• Screensaver = Euphoria; Do show viz while playing audio; Viz = OpenGL Spectrum > OpenGL Spectrum viz displays after elapsed time
  

[mossywell]

I see I haven't explained myself properly. When running audio, I like to run it full screen with visualisation (e.g. DX Spectrum). But, after a few minutes, I want the screen to dim. Why? Because the high intensity characters and images can cause screen burn if the viz is used as the screensaver. But, I still like the visualisations.

Now I get what you're saying: the "use visualisation when playing audio" I interpreted to mean "use visualisation when playing audio", but it actually means ""use visualisation as a substitute for the screensaver when playing audio". (Might be worth changing the text in XBMC to make that clearer?) In which case, yes, I see why I'm effectively asking it to change from Viz --> Dim after 3 minutes which I guess it can't do.

It also explains why I was saying the "use visualisation when playing audio" doesn't make any difference: it's because I switch audio to full screen which immediately fires up the viz. The penny dropped (i.e. I got it) when you said "OpenGL Spectrum viz displays after elapsed time" and I thought, "no, it shows immediately". One cup of tea later, and it all made sense.

Many thanks