Roku: use system screensaver?

Plex Players Streaming Devices
1

Is there a way to have Plex on the Roku use the system screensaver? I thought the “Blank” setting in the Plex app might do it but it is just a black screen.

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Many of the “system” screen savers are quite large in memory footprint. Plex is also quite large, Plex and many other apps cannot use the “system” screen saver usually because they both will not fit in memory and having an SD card in one of the Rokus that support them makes no difference.

So there is no way to do what you want,

Note: The memory (SD) card that many Rokus can have is not available for use by the apps running on the Roku. It simply acts as a local storage location for apps so they will not have to as often be downloaded when they are started. They are not used at all for any runtime storage for any apps. I never use one and I have seen no problem at all but when I tested with one I saw no noticeable improvement in operation. In many ways it is simply a placebo to make people feel better.

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3

Thanks for the explanation. Then it would be nice if Plex could offer an “exit Plex screensaver” so that the system screensaver could be used. Or, some kind of Plex Photos screensaver would be welcome.

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I have asked in the past for various apps to do something like that and I have been told that Roku does not does not provide access to the system calls to simulate an exit and then restart the app.

As far as the app itself providing a different screen saver for general use goes, that is completely up to the app’s developers. For me I would also like to be able to use my local picture library in the same way that Plex uses to display a slideshow. So far I have found no screen save at all that does that well. They all have some major limitation like an inability to correctly access storage or an inability to correctly size the photos. Since Plex does have the ability to do those things correctly the only limitation I see is the ability to get enough of the current operation out of the way and the ability to resume what Plex was doing before the screen saver kicks in. That could be a difficult problem or it could be as easy as pie. I simply do not know.

BTW: If Plex could morph their slide show ability into a screen saver somewhat independent of Plex itself (obviously the Plex server would be needed for this) I would find that valuable as well.

5

I just wanted to add to this thread that Emby does something different and behaves differently when the screensaver starts:

  1. If you are playing a video and have it paused the the screensaver is the default screensaver. That is not necessarily the screensaver you have chosen in Roku’s settings but rather the basic one that is currently, on the Ultra, the black screen with falling Rokus.
  2. If you are in the app but have nothing playing and the screensaver kicks in you see whatever you have set in Roku’s settings.
    Emby does not have a default screensaver it seems.

I just wanted to add this to show that there seems to be other ways for an app to handle screensavers but an app using a lot of memory seems to prevent the larger screensavers from starting.

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