How can I prevent my screen from going black when watching movies in VLC with GNOME3?

Question

In the GNOME 3 options, I set the screen to go black after one hour. I want more – 2 hours, or even "never". Is this possible?

Alternatively, how could I set VLC Player so that the screen does not shut down due to inactivity while watching a movie?

Answer 1

Check VLC. Tools/Preferences/Advanced. There is an option that should be toggled on in order to do what you ask: 'Inhibit the power management daemon during playback'.

To turn the advanced preferences, you have to select 'All' at the bottom of the Preferences dialog (under 'Show settings').

Answer 2

I use a program called "caffeine", If you are like me on arch linux you can install it from AUR repository with a simple:

yaourt -S caffeine

If you are on another distribution try to find if caffeine is supported.

Caffeine will run in background, deactivating power-manager whenever it finds a flash video running (You have to check it in the preferences) or while specific application are running (you have to tell caffeine which ones to look for, I have it set for vlc, totem, xbmc and rhythmbox). Whenever one of this apps are running (or you just wachting a flash video on youtube for example) gnome 3 will NOT go on Suspend, Sleep, Black Screen etc as soon as you close those app, caffeine will re-enable the power-saving-mode. All without your interaction.

Answer 3

Run VLC. Tools->Preferences. Set "Show settings" to "All". Video>Disable Screensaver.