Screen Automatically Dimming During Movies

The ones you need to change are in the battery settings. Depending on if you are running on the battery or power adapter open up "Energy Saver" which can be found under your batter icon. Once there, if you are running on the power adapter change the settings so that the monitor never dims or goes to sleep.
There should be no reason to reset the PRAM by the way. You can also set the battery settings to the same as the adapter but be aware that you will greatly shorten the time between charges. FYI.

I watch a lot of movies on my computer. My screen has
been dimming (even though it's on the highest bright
setting) after 5-10 minutes of no movement on the
trackpad/keyboard. I tried to change some settings,
but I'm not sure if I adjusted the right ones.

I've been having this problem with both movies
playing from the internet and actual DVDs.

Thanks!

Weird, I don't think the Mac should dim the screen when playing a DVD.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Did you reset PRAM???

William

I watch a lot of movies on my computer. My screen has
been dimming (even though it's on the highest bright
setting) after 5-10 minutes of no movement on the
trackpad/keyboard. I tried to change some settings,
but I'm not sure if I adjusted the right ones.

I've been having this problem with both movies
playing from the internet and actual DVDs.

Thanks!

Watching Forest Gump, no dim on mine... Run Forrest! Even in Clam Shell Mode on my 50" Vizio.

William

I am having this same problem. I have adjusted my energy saver setting to never dim and my keyboard lighting settings to never turn off (when in low light conditions) and I have turned off automatic monitor brightness adjustment. yet, my keyboard lights still go off after a few seconds of not being used and my montor dims around the same time. as soon as i touch a button or the track pad both light back up. i don't understand why my settings aren't working.

I have a brand new macbook pro, os x 10.4.10, and have downloaded all updates.

Check your power save settings. I had this happen to me in vlc, quicktime and dvd player. It has never happened to me in windows so it has to be something to do with your power save settings on the mac under osx.

William -- I was of that understanding as well. Perhaps Apple changed something with an update or something.

I have noticed the screen dimming while watching a QT file, but haven't tried watching a DVD on my MBP in a loooong while.

I watch a lot of movies as well. What I do is go into power settings, and click on custom from the drop down menu. Then slide the 2 sliders all the way to the right. Then, whenever you are about to run a movie, just go to your status bar, click on the battery icon, and click custom on the drop down menu. The computer will never go to sleep or dim the screen whenever that is selected

I have your answer! This has frustrated me since I got my MBP 2 months ago and even the idiots at the genius bar couldn't answer.

It's quite simple, these are the most basic steps required to make it work. I've also attached a link for a further write up and how to visually verify (aside from noticing your screen won't dim):

-Go to Applications and open Terminal (if you're not unix savvy no worry, this is very easy)
-type: pmset -g
-type: sudo pmset -a halfdim 0
-it will then ask for your password
-type: exit
-close the terminal window

You will not experience the stupid dimming issue=)

Enjoy!

Strange. My terminal shows the halfdim setting to be at 0 [zero] already. I set it again as per your/gibbilicious instructions with no luck. The dimming keeps happening.

Which MacBookPro's is everyone writing in about. Mine is firstgen with Intel Core Duo, not Intel Core 2 Duo....

Might make a difference in the build/motherboard...

The other option I use is a small program called 'Caffeine'. It runs in the menu bar and keeps the screen from dimming. Link of program on Version Tracker:

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/31941

To stop the automatic screen dim, I went to:

- System Prefs
- Displays
- Underneath Brightness, UNcheck box: "Automatically adjust brightness as amient light changes".

It stop the dimming for me...

This is the point.... that what you normally would do on some computers does not work. The System Settings may at times work, but as soon as you re-boot the dimming behavior begins again.

Your MacBook must be a newer model if it works properly.

Hello
I am trying to figure out how to connect my MacBook Pro to my new LCD HDTV. After reading your post I realise that you have already figured out how to do this connection. I would appreciate if you can email me what cable(s), connector(s) and audio cables you used to make this connection. Do you get a full HD signal on your TV?

Just found something not mentioned yet.
system preferences/energy saver/ when you select either battery or power adapter you need to choose custom and you will see the settings you are looking for.
Really hope this helps.

you need a vga cable, if you want to be true HD you need a DVI cable. neither of these will work for your sound so you need to hook it up with with either a miniplug to red and white audio or you can use the fiber optic out to your receiver if you have one.