Re: [Freevo-users] screensaver

[Eric J. <al...@xm...>]

On Thu, 30 Jan 2003 14:26:06 -0800 (PST)
skeeterskip <ske...@ya...> wrote:

> I think it is fine to have screen go blank after about
> an hour or two of inactivity. This would allow for
> movies to be watched uniterupted, but shut down screen
> if listening to mp3s after this time period.
> 
> How does "blanking" differ from power management?


	Blanking means the screen goes blank. That means no pixels lit, unless your
video is inverted as on black and white LCDs. 

	Some monitors support a form of power management where they recognize that
they're not doing much, and power down. Several do not. 

	Power management is where software sends a signal that tells the monitor to
power down. 

	So the two are subtly different. My old 15" nokia would literally switch itself
off after 20 minutes with an all-black screen. or at least it went down to
something like 500mW. My current 19" KDS needs a DPMS command to power down, and
then sits there with the power led switching between amber and green. my old 17"
FIC monitor would appear to turn off completely after a DPMS command - utterly
indistinguishable from being actually switched off. 

	Under X that's controlled by xset's dpms switches, on the console, I don't
really know. there's a kernel option to send a dpms command on blank, I'm not
sure if there are methods other than that. 

 - Eric