Bruce Von Stiers

I recently saw a press release for a program that produces screen savers. That doesn’t seem too big of a deal until you find out what kinds of material can be put into the screensaver. This program will allow you to add audio and video files to your screensaver. Have some cool sound effects audio files? Add them to your screensaver. Got one of those Bikini Beach Bammo video clips? Turn it into a screensaver. The title of this program is ScreenTime Photo & Video Personal Edition. It comes from a company called ScreenTime.

At first I was real skeptical. How could you really put video files into a screensaver and make it work? I had one of those “yeah, right” kind of attitudes about the whole thing. Then I tried out the program. With the exception of a few minor gripes, I really liked the program. It can actually do what it claims; making screensavers out of video, audio and graphic files.

The user interface for the program is real simple. The interface is called the Project Window. There is a grid made up of a series of boxes. This grid is called the Storyboard. As this is set up as a “drag and drop” program, simply drag a graphic or video file from a folder onto the Storyboard. Mix and match the types of media on the Storyboard. The first item (called a Scene) could be a JPEG file and the next an AVI movie.

Here’s where my first minor gripe comes in. If you make a mistake in the order of the Scenes for your screensaver, you have to use the Windows Cut, Copy and Paste commands to put things where you want them. There is no dragging a Scene to the appropriate spot on the Storyboard. It is only a minor inconvenience, but it can be a little tedious if you have things out of order too much.

At the bottom of the Project Window, there is an Information Bar. This has a listing of how many Scenes are in your project, as well as the number of sound files and the compression ratio of the whole thing.

For a graphic file, or still image, there are certain settings that can be changed. You can set the duration of the image to be on the screen. The duration can be anywhere from 1 to a full 120 seconds in length. If you have a sound file that is to be for that specific image, the duration can be matched to the sound file length. The image size can be Inset, Actual Size, Double Size or Full Screen. You can add a caption to the image and place in a specific place on it. Then add a Transition. There are 16 different Transitions that can be added to an image. Add a Dissolve or Drip Down Transition to the image. Select Use Previous Scene as Background if you don’t want a blank spot between images and transitions.

Now comes my second minor gripe. The transitions are only for the still images. There is no transition to get you from a video file to a still image and back. The Previous Scene as Background setting doesn’t have much effect here; at least I couldn’t get to work well. I would have liked to see some type of Transition effect that would bridge the two types of elements seamlessly. But the Settings for the video files don’t offer any transition features.

After adding images and image files, it is time to build your screensaver. But wait a second. I forgot about something else. You can add a soundtrack to your screensaver. This soundtrack will play in a continuous loop just like the images and video clips on the screensaver. The program will accept WAV, MIDI and MP3 audio files for the soundtrack.

Building the screensaver is easy. Click on the Build Screensaver button on the toolbar at the top of the Project Window. But before you build it, you can preview it by clicking the Preview Current Project button on the toolbar. If everything is all right, click the Build Screensaver button and you will be asked give your project a name so it can be saved. Then you will have the option of changing the preview monitor and settings windows of your screensaver. From there you can Build and Install your screensaver. If you don’t want to install it at that time, use the Installer button to build a screensaver that can be installed later. The program will also let you build an executable movie file.

When it’s all said and done, it takes only a few moments to build a screensaver. And yes, you can have a video file as a screensaver. I grabbed a video clip from the Codemaster console game Driver, and make a screensaver out of it. Then I made one featuring a couple of Karaoke animated clips from a disc by Knowledge Adventure. The third screensaver I did had a combination of video and graphic image files in it.
The last one that I tried out had a series of images from various sources. To these images I added the song “Montego Bay” as a soundtrack. All of these screensavers came out well.

I did have a little trial and error. The program hated some of the image files and several video clips that I tried failed after the screensaver was built. I’m not sure if the glitch was in the program, my computer or in the video files themselves. I know that they played fine in a video file viewer, but the program didn’t like them.

Overall, I would say that ScreenTime Photo & Video Personal Edition is a good program. It makes screensavers from material that you wouldn’t think possible. Favorite video clips can now be a part of your daily computer ritual as you stare at your screensaver. Cool images and songs can be matched up for a desktop media extravaganza. Aside from the minor gripes I listed, I really liked the program and will continue to use it to make new and unusual screensavers.

ScreenTime Photo & Video Personal Edition can be purchased directly from ScreenTime. Their web site is www.screentime.com. The price for the program is $ 29.95. You can also download a trial version of the program.