Love The Newcomer
 

I love the new Achilles Tang. Takes me back to snorkeling in Maui. Did my video help design her? A great reproduction of its color--just as I remembered it.

Quick question. Would it be possible to fake sea anemone movement by dissolving between two, three or four backgrounds? Perhaps doing this in only the areas that require movement? I have posted an example in the link below. It was made in Flash with only two images.

http://www.schneblin.com/misc/anemone.html

Could this help create movement without taxing the CPU?

What resolution?
 

Hey Wombat, what resolution do you have your HDTV set to when you display the MA screen saver on it?

480p :(
720p :|
1080p :TU:

I would expect serious pixelation because the coral and stuff is relatively low res. As we speak I am using a Dell 2405FPW 24-inch LCD panel set to millions of colors and 1920x1200 resolution. The coral and stuff is rather blocky and pixelated.

Take a look at the attached screenshot.

C'mon back ....

- John

Schneb - Not sure if that actually gives the impression of movement. It just looks a little blurry to me. The technique I'm working on will run an actual animation in certain areas of the screen. Waiting for my new HD videocam to arrive.

I guess I made it too subtle. I have my Sony HD camera and it is alot of fun! Had to buy the Intel iMac just to edit the footage!

Which camcorder did you get? I ordered the little HVR-A1U.

HD
 

I have the HDR-HC1 Sony. I got it off eBay. Except for a few things here and there, it does a nice job for a hobbyist like myself.

Morg,
The link in the first post of this thread looks a bit flaky. Might want to edit it (minor issue).

Flaky? How so? What would you change?

Making the link work for starters... ;)

Fixed. Thanks!

[quote=johnblommers]Hey Wombat, what resolution do you have your HDTV set to when you display the MA screen saver on it?

480p :(
720p :|
1080p :TU:

I would expect serious pixelation because the coral and stuff is relatively low res. As we speak I am using a Dell 2405FPW 24-inch LCD panel set to millions of colors and 1920x1200 resolution. The coral and stuff is rather blocky and pixelated.

Take a look at the attached screenshot.

C'mon back ....

- John

Hi John,
My LCD TV is capable of 720p/1080i but I'm not using HDTV resolution as I'm only using a standard resolution Digital set-top box for TV. For Serenescreen, I plug the S-Video TV-out connector on my laptop to the S-Video input on the TV. The normal resolution on my laptop is 1440x900 but if I set Serenescreen to that, the display on the TV is badly clipped. The TV display is 1386x768 (WXGA). So I set Serenescreen to the nearest available resolution (1024x768) and that looks OK, although not as good as it does on the computer at 1440x900. I get no blocky or pixillated pictures that you see, but perhaps that is because my S-Video cable is 20metres long, and I must suffer some high frequency attenuation.
Regards,
Wombat (That's rednosed, not hairynosed)

The Aquarium is 1024 x 768.
The Aquarium set to widescreen is 1280 x 768.
Perfect for running 1280 x 720 (720p).

Hey, Jim et al....

Anybody notice the nod from Jon Stewart on The Daily Show the other night? He was talking about some marine preserve off Hawaii, and said something like "the area is home to thousands of species of fish, and has inspired our most fascinating screensavers."

I know yours is not technically a screensaver, but clearly he was referring to your Marine Aquarium.

Perhaps he meant the Hawaiian salt water goldfish of your tank? (at least it's fascinating :) )

Copy that
 

Cool, thanks for sharing your video resolution setup, Wombat. The bandwidth available for S-video over your 20-foot cable will have a smoothing effect due to the low pass filtering. Plus you're not shooting for the very high 1080p resolution.

I know how nice Serenescreen can look even on a huge HD screen like 52-inches or so, though you do have to step back to appreciate the colors and composition. I saw this last year at a CompUSA where the had an HP media center PC hooked to it, and LO! they had the Serenescreen saver running.

The Serenescreen that ships with MS Media Center has the nice blue gravel - that blue gravel is not available for the Mac version, and I have not found a way to pursuade Jim Sachs to remedy that product gap :lol:

Take care!

- John

The Aquarium will run at 1280 x 768 which should look better. Set the Aquarium to Widescreen.

Eric - Yes, my daughter and I happened to be watching Jon Stewart when he said that. We both looked at each other and laughed.

Mine won't set to 1280x768 - only to 1280x800, and when I set to that, the TV clips about 10% from the sides, and if I turn widescreen on, it still clips the sides and goes to letterbox, with black bands top and bottom.
I guess I will stick to 1024x768, which fills the TV screen nicely.
Thanks anyway.

Just a note regarding the product. Everybody, EVERYBODY!, that comes by loves the screensaver. I sent a note the other day about stuff I would enjoy seeing and thought I would add it here. On a program I use for pictures, Thumbs Plus Pro, they have a loupe that will move around the screen. My son is really into the tropical environment as we just visited Hawaii and I would love to see this feature on the screen for detailed study of the scene. It could be pulled around by the mouse or allowed to wander. The picture program allows for up to 800% magnification.

The only problem with a magnified view is that someone (me) would have to put in all that detail.