Dual Monitor Screen Savers that Run Independently

Status
Not open for further replies.

bloodge1

Distinguished
Dec 14, 2010
7
0
18,510
Hi all,

I running a dual monitor setup with an LCD monitor and a plasma tv. I want to be able to have screensavers run independently on each monitor, so if I'm doing something on the LCD, but not on the plasma, then the screensaver will start on the plasma but not the lcd. If the screensaver doesn't start then the plasma tv it will get an image burn in.

Thanks :)
 

LePhuronn

Distinguished
Apr 20, 2007
1,950
0
19,960
Screensavers only kick in when the system is idle, so no you can't do what you want to do out-of-the-box.

However, there's nothing to stop you running some kind of application on the plasma's side of the desktop to prevent image burn-in. Even something as simple as Windows Media Player running a visualisation full-screen will do the trick.

Alternatively, a lot of plasma TVs have a feature that slightly shifts the image every few seconds - it's not really noticable to the naked eye, but it's enough to ensure that different phosphors are used for different parts of the screen so you won't get burn-in even for long periods of static images - use it all the time on my 50" plasma after I had some heavy ghosting of game UI and Sky+ pause logos.

Worst-case scenario just have a plain black desktop!
 

bloodge1

Distinguished
Dec 14, 2010
7
0
18,510


I've played with the screensaver settings within windows. And I've tried UltraMon but that just seems to allow you to run different screensavers on each monitor, but it doesn't allow for different timers on each screen...
 

bloodge1

Distinguished
Dec 14, 2010
7
0
18,510


I see that this is unfortunately the case.

At this point I'm hoping there's some sort of third-party program that can differentiate between activity on each monitor instead of overall system activity in order to initiate a screensaver. I would think that this is possible (and useful). But it doesn't seem to exist :(
 


While looking pretty, I don't see anywhere in this about the ability to only run it on one screen while working on another.
 

bloodge1

Distinguished
Dec 14, 2010
7
0
18,510
Well bummer. Thanks everyone for your replies. Searching for something that doesn't exist is frustrating. At least I can stop searching ;)

LePhuronn, thanks for the black desktop idea. That is very clever. I think a white desktop would probably work best at keeping the screen clean, though it would be very unpleasant to look at.
 

acer0169

Distinguished
Having to load a program up and do that is kinda' annoying and doesn't solve the issue. If he wanted to do that he could just open a picture folder and start a slide show, or better yet just pop a film or something on the plasma.

I still think having some power management setup on the plasma to just turn it off would be best options.

OR just get out of your chair and turn the screen off when not in use ;)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.