I have a large screen Sony TV and recently have discovered the delights of Showbox and Google Chromecast which means I have a world of visual entertainment at the tap of a screen.

When I have been using the TV for this purpose for a bit of time I get a prompt telling me the TV is going to switch off due to inactivity. I know I could alter the settings to not auto switch off after 4 hours but the unit is obviously being used for visuals and sound.

Why does the TV think that nothing is happening? Its not a massive issue, I am just curious.

The software is badly written is the reason.

It monitors changes made like via the remote control. A TV that monitored video/audio activity if on a 24/7 channel would never shut down. It would therefore be totally pointless.

Cool. So if I even changed the volume to an odd number every now and then that would 'reset' the timer?

I can live with that.

Yes any change that indicates there's a human watching that's still awake . Mind you so close to Halloween not sure about ghostly viewers

I don't think you need to change anything, just selecting the volume should do it.

It's designed for us old farts that go to sleep while watching the box.

Why not just turn off the option ?

That's what I should do. Love this website x

You could press any button on the TV remote and that will count as activity.

What a ludicrous suggestion!

The actual reason is that it's an EU regulation for this to happen, and that the TV was poorly set up when installed

All Sony TV's allow you to alter the inactivity period, including turning it OFF entirely (under ECO settings), and any competent installer would have done that when they set it up. You should also disable the 'auto-brightness' setting under the same menu.

Some sets however don't allow you to disable it at all, and it's THOSE that have badly written software

As always, RTFM