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View Full Version : producing a screensaver


RabBell
March 6th, 2007, 04:33 AM
myself and the deigner in my office has been asked to produce a screensaver and we've been working on it for a few days but a thought just struck me.

Why are most screensavers black?

Ours is mostly white and has moving objects and images but I just realised most are black.

Any reason for this or is it just a design choice?
Pasquale
March 6th, 2007, 06:13 AM
Less power?:P
RabBell
March 6th, 2007, 07:02 AM
Less power?:P

wtf?

do you mean strain on the monitor?
iLikePie
March 6th, 2007, 09:07 PM
well black uses less power/energy so you save a little bit of money and it's environmentally friendlier. Not that it seems like much, but you might as well make any little saving, hey?
protonxp
March 6th, 2007, 09:10 PM
HOw do you make a screen saver in the first place is it just making a movie and converting that to a .exe or is it more complicated
mleavi01
March 6th, 2007, 10:04 PM
You need a third party software for making screensavers. I use ScreenTime for Flash. It allows you publish pretty much any Flash file as a screensaver and steps you through customizing the dialogues for end-user installation. It's pretty sweet but it's not free.
protonxp
March 6th, 2007, 10:07 PM
Thnx
ø
March 7th, 2007, 02:38 AM
You need a third party software for making screensavers. I use ScreenTime for Flash. It allows you publish pretty much any Flash file as a screensaver and steps you through customizing the dialogues for end-user installation. It's pretty sweet but it's not free.
Is it possible to use AS then? To have some sort of buttons, or even a game would be nifty as a screensaver:P
iLikePie
March 7th, 2007, 03:02 AM
i reckon that would just be annoying... i like it so that as soon as i move my mouse, teh screen saver closes. that's kind of the point.
so buttons wouldn't really work with that.
ø
March 7th, 2007, 04:11 AM
^I didn't think of that:P lol
But if it was possible it would be fun to do a snake game using the keyboard or something. If it's possible?
Pasquale
March 7th, 2007, 04:47 AM
It's very possible, but if you want to play snake, why not just do it when it's not on screensaver mode? Otherwise you have to wait everytime to play ;)
hybrid101
March 7th, 2007, 05:51 AM
^agreed:P
and black uses less power and reduces carbon dioxide emmissions, so guess we're helping the environment without really knowing.

i made an AS screensaver ages ago, and it worked perfectly:D
RabBell
March 7th, 2007, 05:54 AM
In general does this software reduce the size of the movie?

I ask because my movie is too big and at the moment I'm trying to shrink it down (the exe's about 4MB) but does the software that produces the screensaver reduce it or increase it?
ø
March 7th, 2007, 07:48 AM
It's very possible, but if you want to play snake, why not just do it when it's not on screensaver mode? Otherwise you have to wait everytime to play ;)

Bah, just for fun! Would be fun to try it out..:D
Doesn't have to be snake, was just an example. I just wanted to know if AS was working:P
Pasquale
March 7th, 2007, 09:12 AM
^agreed:P
and black uses less power and reduces carbon dioxide emmissions, so guess we're helping the environment without really knowing.

i made an AS screensaver ages ago, and it worked perfectly:D heat not c02. c02 comes from fossil fuels (unlesss you run your machine from a diesel generator).
Syous
March 7th, 2007, 01:43 PM
Most of the screensavers that come standard with an OS are black and save energy. Most people use these screensavers, so it saves alot of energy.
CanisMajor
March 8th, 2007, 09:13 PM
The "black" screensaver was designed for the older monitors to help save the life of it.

With the newer Monitors, non-crt, it doesn't matter anymore.

My computer faces the front window of my office, so I prefer black screensaver so it doesn't advertise to people walking by that I have a computer within easy reach.
hybrid101
March 9th, 2007, 09:35 AM
With the newer Monitors, non-crt, it doesn't matter anymore. wouldn't the black help with lcd burn-in or dead pixels?
CanisMajor
March 9th, 2007, 10:32 AM
The problem with the CRT is to produce an image you have to basically ignite chemicals. This causes more heat and we all know that heat is our enemy.
Plus, showing images causes the phosphors to break down over time, which is the real problem
The life expectancy of a CRT is 10k-20k hours, and the life expectancy of the LCD is 50k hours.

So on a CRT, it doesn't make sense to "wear out" your monitor prematurely when you are not using it by have fancy screensavers.
However, it can be entertaining.

LCD monitor uses light shining through "panels", and uses the same amount of that "light bulb" all the time. The panels open and close to allow the light through.

Of couse, running anything electrical will shorten it's life. But the LCD technology makes the black screensaver COMPARED to the CRT negligible.


I suppose if you showed the same image in the same spot for days it might create a problem with a LCD (I don't really know).
But one of the drawbacks of the LCD is that fact that is does not display as bright of an image as the CRT.

Which is why some of us use a very big CRT. So we can get better colors.