Screensaver for paused TV (1 Viewer)

[HTPCSourcer]

Salut tourettes,

As the OP I would like to focus the discussion a little bit down to the real issues. Fency stuff like animated screens can be nice, however, I am personally driven by two things only:

1. A visible picture on a 52" plasma screen consumes a lot of electricity. There is significant saving potential if the screen is blanked.
2. A static picture is a risk for the plasma screen - regardless of what the marketing guys try to make you believe

In a nutshell: I don't need the super-nice screensaver but would be more than happy if a paused TV was interpreted in the same way as for example playing music (where the screen is blanked after a while). I believe that this could be set up without major programming, but of course I have no clue to what extent new coding would be needed.

Regards, HTPC_Sourcer

 

[TechLife]

A little off topic but I feel it's necessary to chime in here. As I have been a high-end audio/video installer for 12 years and know a little something about this, I would like to clarify a couple points as they are slightly inaccurate.

1. A visible picture on a 52" plasma screen consumes a lot of electricity. There is significant saving potential if the screen is blanked.

On the contrary...When the screen is "blanked", the display is actually receiving an input signal forcing it to display all black. Black is the most difficult color for a display to reproduce. All pixels must be driven to their full potential to display black therefore a fully black screen consumes the *most* power causing your display to draw more power than if it was displaying an actual image.

The benefit of this is that you don't have to worry about static images being burned into your screen. The drawback is that you are in fact shortening the overall life of your display faster than anything else you can do.

The idea of a faded screen has been mentioned before and it would actually consume less power then a fully black screen. Faded or not, it's still a static image. It just wouldn't burn as fast.

If you truly want to conserve power over extended pause periods, the display would have to switch to stand-by.

I'm not sure but it seems to me as if the windows screensaver were allowed to take over in a paused or idle menu state then the power settings would be active as well and, depending on your connection method, be able to put the display to sleep as well as wake it upon activity thus satisfying all requests.

Whether this is a viable option or not - I don't know. It should be noted I have a $5K 50" plasma that took me a very long time to save up for and I am very protective of. I want to come up with a solution to this as badly as anyone else here...just not sure this is the best answer.

2. A static picture is a risk for the plasma screen - regardless of what the marketing guys try to make you believe

This is 100% true. Pixel shifting technology has had a significant impact on the burn potential of static images on plasmas but there is only so much it can do. It helps but it's not the miracle sales people want you to believe it is.

--
PLEASE NOTE:
I in no means mean to hijack this thread, step on anyone's toes or any other nasty thing my response could be construed as. I simply do not want anyone to be misinformed or misled.

 

[HTPCSourcer]

Hello TechLife,

On the contrary...When the screen is "blanked", the display is actually receiving an input signal forcing it to display all black. Black is the most difficult color for a display to reproduce. All pixels must be driven to their full potential to display black therefore a fully black screen consumes the *most* power causing your display to draw more power than if it was displaying an actual image.

That's true for LCD - but not for plasma as serious tests prove. Have a look at Vergleichs-Test: Stromverbrauch Plasma versus LCD. The article is in German but there a couple of direct comparison pictures beetween LCD and plasma that show that the consumption of the plasma drops from 272W to 44W when the screen is blanked while the LCD remains mostly unchanged (183W instead of 215W). This is logical as the LCD runs on backlight technology and black is therefore a color like any other. On the other side black on the plasma means no consumption for the referenced pixel.

My own measurements confirm the above. Unfortunately I can't post pictures for my own TV since the cabling is now hidden behind the furniture and I can no longer easily access the power plug.

Regards, HTPC_Sourcer

 

[TechLife]

Interesting read Sourcer. Thanks for the reference. (& thanks babelfish LOL) This certainly has encouraged me to pick up a meter and do some tests of my own on LCD vs. Plasma vs. DLP projectors.

At any rate, I stand corrected on the plasma issue - much to my pleasure. I'll feel much better now when my wife falls asleep or forgets and leaves the screen blanked for extended periods of time...

Now to fix this pausing issue...she has a really bad habit of doing that too...

I have to admit I am partial to the screensaver simply for the cool factor but in light of the above information, I'm quite content with a black screen for now.

 

[wouter1971]

I can confirm the statistics of sourcer also. My electricity company also likes me more when the plasma picture is not blanked.
Roots of MP is XBMC and XBMC also fades the screen after a configurable timeout period when video is paused.
How can we submit this new small feature to the developers???

 

[Snader]

When paused the gui of Mediaportal is on top of the paused TV or video. Cant there be some kind of full screen thingy on top of the video to prevent the burn in... for instant only 10% transparent?

 

[Phlexor]

Another thing to 'save' the screen of Plasma TVs would be the ability to change the black borders on 4:3 martial shown on 16:9 displays to a level of grey of your choosing.

 

[fitto]

One more vote for paused screensaver here!!! It was a long time request I'd love to see implemented...

Of course blanking or dimming might be the first step... But we're talking about the ultimate MediaCenter here!!!

Let's take a step further and be imaginative. Screensaver could be accessed by plugins so they could feed screensaving content. For example, let's say you're watching an episode of your favorite tv show and press pause... and then, instead of a black screen, FanArt pictures could kick-off and start a kind of slide show...

It'd be great using FanArt with TV series, films, music... you name it!
Anohter option could be to use local pictures, or RSS feeds, or weather forecast... Or a combination of some of them!

Just my idea...