Life's a Coast Video Blog

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If you enjoy having a scenic photo for your "desktop" wallpaper on your PC, or if you like screensaver slideshows of your favorite picture collections, you might also want to consider occasional use of a screensaver that presents actual videos of scenery such as the ones featured on this site.  You can even have the videos running in the background as the actual desktop (underneath the icons and applications). .

You might first want to take a look at the videos below to see if you like the concept by single clicking the triangular shaped play buttons. The audio and visual quality of these videos of a video playing on a monitor through a video host, using a low end camera is not a fair representation of what you would actually see under ideal conditions, but in person and with better quality video and sound, a much better presentation would be realized.  Also, note that from even a few feet away or across the room (as a screensaver would normally be seen...) the visual effect is much crisper even if the videos happen to be a little grainy in full screen mode...

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If you like the concept but would rather not take the time to set up the screensaver application as outlined below, you could simply start up a webcam in full screen mode. For example, click on (this cam is only good during daytime hours, GMT - 5) this link to the Marco Island beach webcam and on the resultant webcam page, click on the "full screen" button on the rightmost side of the bottom menu bar -- now, the webcam image may be a little "grainy" up close, but walk across the room to observe a better visual effect...

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Temporary note.  Although most of the videos on this site will provide a minimally satisfactory viewing experience as a screensaver, due to panning with the videocam, movement of the objects being videod, lighting, your connection speed, and even the video host, a few of them may appear somewhat grainy and even a little blurred at times, particularly on a large monitor, in full screen mode, up close.  Although from across the room or even only a few feet away, this defect is usually not detectable. However, before downloading any of these videos for use in the screensaver application, we suggest that you review them in full screen mode from a few feet away to ensure that the video quality is adequate for sufficient clarity -- you might also want to consider the audio, as some videos have considerable wind noise (which could be dubbed over with music).  We need to upgrade our video equipment in order to eliminate at least part of this problem but the funding to do so is currently not within our budget. If you could manage to help us out with a contribution in the interest of improving the the quality of the videos, click on “Donate”.

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"Screen Saver" Software.

First, you need a video player that will allow you to play videos either as a screensaver and/or on the desktop.  If you do not have a video player that has your desired capabilities, with our limited knowledge on this subject, we recommend "BSPlayer" (not sure about WinAmp or ITunes, but Quicktime and VLC players did not have screensaver/desktop functionality, and personally suggest avoiding RealPlayer and Windows Media Player for other reasons...).   If you know of a better video player application please leave a comment to that effect.

Interim Update: in addition to the BSPlayer recommendation, Media Player Classic has been found to have all the capabilities required to serve as a "screensaver" media player and is a little smoother than BSPlayer in some aspects. However, Media Player Classic does not appear (as of February '09) to provide video play in "desktop" mode like BSPlayer. We will further evaluate this media player and incorporate information regarding it's usage into the instructions below. Meanwhile, here is a link to download the free "open source" media player: Download Media Player Classic.

BSPlayer is a no-cost freeware application and may be downloaded at the locations noted below - just be careful to select the free player if that is what you want, as they do offer "pro" versions at a cost.  Note that the second link below is for the newest version (of which I am not well versed) and appears to have major enhancements that overcomplicate the process and are not needed for accomplishing what you want to do for this screensaver capability (plus the new version is rumored to harbor "adware").  I would recommend the older simpler version, which is the first download link below.

Download BSPlayer Media Player -- Old Version, preferred Download BSPlayer Media Player -- New Version

If you opted for the old version and the link above is no longer viable, perform a search on something like "old version bsplayer" and that should produce several other sources.  The prior version that you want to locate should be in the range of 1.37.826 or below -- but not much below that.

After you have downloaded and installed BSPlayer, you then simply need to establish the "favorites" list of (downloaded) videos that you would like to play.  If you have done this type of setup before, you should be able to figure out how to accomplish this, but you can alternately refer to the "quick start" instructions below for detailed steps of how to configure BSPlayer.

If you have questions or suggestions regarding this process, send an email to jeb@lifesacoast.com and we will respond at our earliest convenience.

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Basic instructions on BSPlayer setup.

Click on the desktop icon for BSPlayer to start BSPlayer and a small BSPlayer control panel will then appear on your desktop.  Place the cursor over the BSPlayer control panel and  do a right-click.  A menu will then appear and from it select "playlist".  A playlist control panel will then appear on the desktop separate from the BSPlayer control panel.  On the playlist control panel, select "add" and a submenu will appear from which you should select "directory" if you have multiple videos in a folder,  or select "file" if you have one or several separate individual files that you want to select. Once you have selected the directory or file(s), the videos will be added to the playlist.  When the playlist is set, double click on the file (video) from the playlist, or the first file of multiple files that you want to start within the playlist.  At this point a video will start to play in a small window mode.  To switch the small window to full screen or desktop mode, place the cursor on the video and do a right-click.  Then on the resultant menu, scroll to "video", at which point another submenu will surface from which you should then select either full screen mode or desktop mode and the video(s) will play accordingly. To exit out of full screen mode just double click anywhere on the screen and the video will revert to small window mode.  To exit out of desktop mode, go to the taskbar, and in the system tray area at the right, double click on the round blue BSPlayer icon and the menu will surface again where you can either exit or choose a number of other options.  Note that there is a "preferences" option where you can configure BSPlayer to do what you want, and that is one place where you should be able to specify "loop" to have the videos play repeatedly until you interrupt the process to exit or alter the playing of the video(s).  Also, there is a question mark button on the control panel, but this is not a "help" function, altho there is a link to the BSPlayer site that will allow access to their forum for questions. These instructions are still in a very rough stage and will be refined with tips on how to smooth out the pocesss.

Again, if you have questions, comments, or especially suggestions regarding any of this, or particularly if you know of a better method of playing the videos, send us an email to jeb@lifesacoast.com or leave a comment at the bottom of this webpage.

Thanks for your patience while we get this video tech stuff worked out.

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If you are interested in how we went about establishing a video site like this, click on this link to our "Google Knol" for details. If you have further questions, just send us an email at jeb@lifesacoast.com. . In case you happen to be looking for a video webhost we will offer the following advice up front. All of the free video hosts that we explored tended to be problematic in numerous ways and frankly most reviews of video hosts were found to be either biased or out of date. After considerable research and more actual hands on experience than we wanted to acquire, our recommendation for online video hosting, as of February 2009, is the 4Shared paid plan. Note that 4Shared does have a free plan that should be more than adequate for normal online file storage and backup needs. Comments regarding this "moving target" subject are welcome. The link below to the 4Shared site will land you on the sign-up page, but in the upper right hand corner of the sign-up page there are links to the "features", "faqs", and "quick tour" information pages...

. Update: after several months of good service, we experienced changes with 4shared, and the changes were not for the better. We are currently attempting to take some time to find a new video host, so any suggestions would be appreciated... . .

The buttons below are links to online bookmarking/sharing sites. If you are unfamiliar with these services, most require membership except for "StumbleUpon" (the leftmost icon/link). We would appreciate it if you would promote our site in any way you can.

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