Cinematic-Wake

OLED-safe cinematic sleep and wake utility for Windows. Features smooth multi-monitor fading, customizable ambient modes, and an aggressive, multi-strategy smart media detector to prevent unwanted dimming during video and audio playback.

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Overview

CinematicWake replaces the abrupt Windows screen shutoff with smooth, customizable fade-outs and fade-ins. It is designed to protect OLED screens while offering a premium aesthetic. It features a robust smart media detection system that ensures your screen never goes to sleep while you are watching a video or listening to music—even if the media player fails to register standard Windows wake locks.

Key Features

• Cinematic Transitions: Custom easing curves (Linear, Ease-In, Ease-Out, Sine) for smooth fade-ins and fade-outs across all connected monitors.
• Aggressive Smart Media Detection: A multi-tier strategy to prevent sleeping during media playback:

1. Windows Media API (SMTC): Uses native Windows System Media Transport Controls to detect active media (Spotify, browsers, streaming apps) universally.
2. WASAPI Audio Monitoring: Uses PowerShell/CoreAudio to detect active audio streams from known processes.
3. Window Title Heuristics: Scans window titles for media indicators.
4. Powercfg Fallback: Detects standard system wake locks.

• Ambient Mode: A pulsing screen saver mode that can be scheduled or triggered after a specific idle time to prevent OLED burn-in without fully turning off the display.
• Smart Scheduling: Define specific hours for CinematicWake or Ambient Mode to be active.
• Multi-Monitor Support: Automatically detects and scales black overlays across all active displays.
• Global Hotkeys: Force sleep or pause the application using customizable keyboard shortcuts.
• Audio Cues: Optional generated sine-wave tones for sleep and wake events.

Prerequisites

• Operating System: Windows 10 / 11
• Python: Python 3.8+
• Dependencies:
• pystray
• Pillow
• winsdk

Install the required packages via pip:

pip install pystray Pillow winsdk

Installation & Usage

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/CinematicWake.git
cd CinematicWake

2. Run the script:

python cinematic_wake.py

3. The application will start silently and sit in your system tray. Right-click the tray icon to access settings, pause the app, or exit.

Note: To run completely silently in the background without a console window, run it using pythonw.exe.

4. To compile as an executable:

pyinstaller --noconsole --onefile cinematic_wake.py

Configuration

CinematicWake generates a configuration file at ~/.cinematic_wake.json upon first run.

Core Settings

Setting	Default	Description
idle_minutes	5	Minutes of inactivity before the screen fades to sleep.
prevent_sleep_media	true	Enables smart media detection to block sleep during playback.
fade_in_ms	1000	Duration of the fade-in animation in milliseconds.
fade_out_ms	1500	Duration of the fade-out animation in milliseconds.
overlay_color	#000000	Hex code for the overlay color.
fade_curve	ease_in_out	Animation style (linear, ease_in, ease_out, ease_in_out, sine).
show_countdown	true	Displays a visual countdown before fading.

Ambient Mode Settings

Setting	Default	Description
ambient_mode	false	Enables a pulsing screen mode instead of full black.
ambient_min_alpha	0.85	The lowest opacity the screen will pulse to.
ambient_speed_s	8.0	The duration in seconds of one full pulse cycle.
ambient_schedule_enabled	false	Enables ambient mode only during a specific time window.

Hotkeys

• Force Sleep: Win + Alt + L
• Pause/Resume App: Win + Alt + P

License

no licence