Another question about turning the screen off. (searched and googled in beforehand)

[DanielC]

Hi guys, I'm new to this forum, and posting this question after extensive searching for an answer;

This is my scenario:
I want to sometimes connect my Surface to my bedroom TV to watch Netflix, for example. The TV is then mirroring the Surface's screen, and the video looks fine. However, alot of video players (good video players, anyway) will prevent Windows from turning off the screen while the video is playing.
So because of this, the Surface's display needs to be turned on while I watch videos on the TV, which is obviously both unnecessary and unwanted.

So how do you guys handle this situation? There are alot of threads on the internet asking similar questions, but there are really no answers. I'm using a "screen off"-application pinned to the task bar in the desktop environment, but this is of no help while I'm inside a fullscreen-application. My ideal solution would be to map the power button on the Surface to "screen off" instead of the default choices (Sleep, Hibernate, Do nothing) but googling this like crazy tells me this is impossible.

What are my options here? It would be so convenient to just plug in the hdmi-cable, start playback and turn off the screen. There must be a way to achieve this?

Thanks!
Daniel, Sweden

 

[dlacaba]

What I do is just set the "Project to connected Screen" setting to "Second Screen Only". I then just use a bluetooth mouse to control it, basically using the tv as a monitor.

I do like your ideal solution better and was looking for the same thing, but never found a solution to it.

 

[DanielC]

What I do is just set the "Project to connected Screen" setting to "Second Screen Only". I then just use a bluetooth mouse to control it, basically using the tv as a monitor.

I do like your ideal solution better and was looking for the same thing, but never found a solution to it.

Hi dlacaba,

Thanks for your reply. Yeah, I know it's possible to only use the second screen, but unfortunately, just like you say, you need to use external peripherals like a mouse, and that takes away the entire "convenience" part of it. Really too bad.

Since this is Windows, after all, I still think that there must be a solution to this. I was even looking for the possibility to add a custom button to the charms menu (that appears when you slide in from the right edge) but it seems equally locked down.

I can't help but think of this as a mayor design flaw, not allowing the power button to just turn off the screen, instead of sleeping or hibernating

 

[DanielC]

I noticed that when you set the "Project to connected Screen" setting to "Second Screen Only", even though the Surface's screen turns off, it still recieves touch input (so you can still tap it and controll Windows, tho you don't see what you are doing).

I'm wondering if this could make it possible to somehow use the screen as a touchpad while only the second screen is active. Any ideas?