Normal behavior regarding screen going off?

Hello all,

I have my PC set to let the screen go off after 10 minutes of inactivity. However, I noticed that this also happens when I'm watching a YouTube video of >10 min if I'm not giving any input. Shouldn't YouTube videos prevent the screen from going off even when it's set to do that after a specific duration of inactivity? Or is this normal behavior for Windows 8.1 Pro?

JohnnyGui

No, it's not normal for 8.1 or any other OS. Check your Advanced power settings in your Power saving plan. At the bottom there should be Multimedia settings > when playing video and choose "Optimize video quality".

I just checked and it's already set to that option. Could it have to do something with YouTube videos being converted to HTML5? Maybe when YouTube videos were in Flash format back then Windows was able to recognize that there was something running to prevent the screen from going off. Did you verify this on your own system?

JohnnyGui said:

I just checked and it's already set to that option. Could it have to do something with YouTube videos being converted to HTML5? Maybe when YouTube videos were in Flash format back then Windows was able to recognize that there was something running to prevent the screen from going off. Did you verify this on your own system?

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No, it's not happening on my system with Flash or HTML5 with IE or Firefox. Maybe you should also check your GPU drivers. I haven't had Nvida lately but in AMD control panel there are corresponding power settings.

I just noticed that after deleting my web history the screen doesn't go off anymore but only when I view the YouTube video in fullscreen. When it's played in a window in IE the screen still goes off if there's no input. Setting the power settings to "Optimal performance" in the nVidia Control Panel doesn't fix this.

I'm not getting this...

Ok, I just noticed something weird.

I tried 5 different video websites and so far only vimeo and YouTube are giving me this problem.
Maybe there's something different with these websites that cause this? Note that this only happens when the video is not in fullscreen.

UPDATE: This seems to have something to do with HTML5. When playing videos in Flash format the screen won't go off. However, YouTube is using HTML5 (maybe Vimeo as well) and that's when my screen goes off when the video is not in fullscreen. Compatibility view makes YouTube use Flash and thus fixing the problem indirectly.

Could anyone verify and test if the screen would go off when playing HTML5 videos without moving the mouse or anything? Just be sure that the video is not in fullscreen and set the screen sleep timer to 1 minute to spare time waiting for it.

Anyone?

Just found someone posting about this on Google groups:

"HTML5, on the other hand is simply a set of instructions running on a Internet web page annd interacting first hand with your web browser. It does not not have permission to interact directly with your Operating System and to allow it to interact directly with your Operating System would put your computer at great security risk. Even if YouTube were to try to implement direct Operating System Interaction ( considering it's even legal ) then chances are that your Browser, Firewall, Antivirus, and Operating System would reject it because of the security risks - because if to do so, you granting access to your computer from any given stranger on the Internet"

So can I assume now that it's normal that the screen would go to sleep even when a HTML5 video is playing?

Flash is a hole n the security, it's demise was professed since few years ago put still it survives.

CountMike said:

Flash is a hole n the security, it's demise was professed since few years ago put still it survives.

Click to expand...

That's not really what I wanted to know. My question here is whether anyone could please verify if it's normal that the screen goes to sleep if a HTML5 video (e.g. YouTube) is running in non-fullscreen without moving the mouse or anything. The sleep timer can be set at 1 min to speed up the testing.

JohnnyGui said:

CountMike said:

Flash is a hole n the security, it's demise was professed since few years ago put still it survives.

Click to expand...

That's not really what I wanted to know. My question here is whether anyone could please verify if it's normal that the screen goes to sleep if a HTML5 video (e.g. YouTube) is running in non-fullscreen without moving the mouse or anything. The sleep timer can be set at 1 min to speed up the testing.

Click to expand...

Sorry, had to mention that too but I don't use anything associated with sleep, everything has been turned of and blasting full speed (including OC) 24/7.

CountMike said:

JohnnyGui said:

CountMike said:

Flash is a hole n the security, it's demise was professed since few years ago put still it survives.

Click to expand...

That's not really what I wanted to know. My question here is whether anyone could please verify if it's normal that the screen goes to sleep if a HTML5 video (e.g. YouTube) is running in non-fullscreen without moving the mouse or anything. The sleep timer can be set at 1 min to speed up the testing.

Click to expand...

Sorry, had to mention that too but I don't use anything associated with sleep, everything has been turned of and blasting full speed (including OC) 24/7.

Click to expand...

Is it possible for you to enable the screen timer for 1 minute to verify this? Also, the PC won't go to sleep but it's just the screen turning off automatically.

Ok, I turned on screen timer to shut down in one minute, verified it would and watched same video on youtube from Firefox and IE. FF stayed on but in IE screen turned off after a minute. I don't use IE much and so never noticed that stuff going on. IE was desktop model.

I thank you very much for your effort, sir. I guess it's something with IE in general then.

JohnnyGui said:

I thank you very much for your effort, sir. I guess it's something with IE in general then.

Click to expand...

I guess so, it happens only in full screen mode, windowed it didn't shut screen off. FF worked ok in both modes. I have couple of other browsers, can try with them too.

CountMike said:

JohnnyGui said:

I thank you very much for your effort, sir. I guess it's something with IE in general then.

Click to expand...

I guess so, it happens only in full screen mode, windowed it didn't shut screen off. FF worked ok in both modes. I have couple of other browsers, can try with them too.

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That's weird. For me it's exactly the other way around; it goes to sleep when it's windowed but not when it's in fullscreen.

Maybe anyone else could verify this as well?