Movie Sleep Timer

After a hard day at work, you might want to stay in bed and watch your favorite show or movie. However, there is a risk of falling asleep halfway through and your computer is left running through the night. Luckily, applications like Movie Sleep Timer give you the possibility to prevent such events.

Running the application gives you access to all it has to offer. The main window is equipped with tabs you can use to your advantage.

A timer is available so you can carefully set when the computer when to shut down in hours, minutes and seconds. Hitting the “Start” Button lets you resume activities, in this case enjoy a movie. You can switch to the VLC tab which is only a similar automated process that detects when playback is done and takes action.

Unfortunately, the application only lets you take advantage of two power options, shutting down the computer or simply turn off the monitor. It would have been useful and more energy-efficient to enter hibernation or sleep mode.

Moreover, using the application strictly limits you to VLC player, with no integrated function that lets you add a custom media rendering utility. Minimizing the application only brings it to the taskbar, with no possibility to have it hidden to system tray.

It would have been useful to see hotkey support, but the application needs to be run and configured each time, with no profile saving options.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that Movie Sleep Timer is a handy, straightforward utility that gets its core function done well. However, the overall design leaves a little something to be desired, missing several features that could have made it a little more practical.