How does your cell phone screen distinguish that a video is being played and therefore the screen shouldn’t cut off? Especially since it can do it across various apps?

946 views

How does your cell phone screen distinguish that a video is being played and therefore the screen shouldn’t cut off? Especially since it can do it across various apps?

In: Other

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The screen isn’t really the one making the decision of turning on and off. As for most of everything else in your phone, the decisions come from the processor (your phone’s brain). Many tasks aren’t done by the processor directly but are still subcontracted by it.

The processor knows when it’s playing a video because it’s him that gets your input, understand what it means, then tells the storage to send the data up, the graphic card to decrypt it and the screen to display it. And stay on.

When the phone’s been idle for some times, it’s also the processor who’s looking at how long that’s been, checking what instructions you have in settings for auto screen off, checking if you’re not playing a video, then deciding it’s time for the screen to turn off, and telling it to do so.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The software playing the video is constantly sending updates to the screen to show. Leaving the screen on reddit, for instance, doesn’t do that.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Boils down to simple programming. Your smartphone is just that— smart. It has the software to play video files and knows that it’s playing one.