Download Better Than Free Video Screen Saver

Now there is a whole different class of screensaver that uses real video. Available from TwoSailers.net, the one common thread throughout their entire library of video screensavers is that they all loop endlessly.

So what's he big deal? Well, looping is easy for artificially created animations but incredibly difficult when looking at a video of something natural, say a waterfall or a beach scene. Making something in nature appear to continuously run without any kind of "jerk" as it begins the process over again is almost impossible. Yet the folks at TwoSailors.net did it and according to the company, it only took them two years to figure out how to do it.

Back in the "old days" when cathode ray tubes reigned supreme and flat screens were either nonexistent or so expensive that their existence didn't really matter, the screensaver was born. The screensaver back then actually did what its name said it did, namely save screens. It saved them from the destruction that would occur when any static image was displayed on the screen for too long a time. If that happened, the electron beam that created the image would literally etch the delicate phosphor coating on the inside of the screen's glass and leave a ghostly burned-in shadow that would remain there forever, even with the power turned completely off. Basically if that happened, your screen was toast. It may be interesting to note that one of the most famous of screensavers depicted little flying toasters and pieces of winged toast moving across the screen. Be that as it may, the screensaver was born out of necessity.

All a screensaver did at first was to detect when your computer wasn't being used, and then blank out whatever you were currently working on with a dark screen. The problem there was that one was never sure if the computer was actually turned off or just running the screensaver. Too many times the former was assumed and computers everywhere were being left on all night which caused even more damage due to the unintentional extended computer usage. To make sure that didn't happen, the next generation of screensavers displayed some kind of animated graphic image. It had to be animated otherwise the screensaver itself would cause burn-in which was self-defeating to say the least.
For complete story please go to:http://www.computeramerica.com/content/columns/craig/2006/2006-02-20.htm


Craig Crossman is a Knight-Ridder newspaper columnist writing about computers and technology. He also hosts the nation's longest running nationally syndicated radio talk show on computers and technology, Computer America, heard on both the Business TalkRadio Network™ and the Lifestyle TalkRadio Network™, weeknights at 10PM Eastern time. In South Florida, you can hear a rebroadcast of a selected Computer America show each Sunday evening at 8PM on WJNO 1290AM.