iScreensaver version 6.8.5 has a number of bugfixes and improvements, including fixes for several issues that could cause issues when running under macOS Ventura 13 (currently in beta, soon to be released) Authors distributing screensavers for macOS clients should update, re-build, and re-distribute their screensavers. Authors only supporting Windows clients can upgrade at their convenience.
Release Notes
video sync on multiple monitors with v6
Hi, we recently got the new v6 software and have started designing a new screensaver for our company using an mp4 file that our graphics department built. I was able to build the screen saver and set it up for deployment but when we pushed it to our test group the one feed back we got that was bad is that the video plays differently on each monitor. It will start on the primary screen and then start a few seconds behind on the 2nd monitor and then a few seconds later on the 3rd monitor. The standard setup for all users here is 2 monitors, with developers and controllers having 3 and 4 monitors.
I can't find the setting anywhere to enable or change the sync between monitors. Can you help me out?
Comments
Unfortuantely there's no way to guarantee sync across multiple monitors in version 6 at the present time. However, in our testing on multi-monitor systems, the screens will generally start out in sync with perhaps only 1/10th of a second delay.
If you are seeing "a few seconds" of delay, this sounds like some other issue. iScreensaver runs one process per screen, so the sync speed will depend on how fast those processes can be launched.
Things that can slow down process launch:
Can you confirm with you users that the delay is actually more than 1 second?
Another possibilty: If your MP4 file is not encoded properly, then the screensaver playback engine may have to load the entire MP4 file before playback starts. Or the MP4 playback may be using way too much CPU.
Check out our tips for re-enconding your video here: https://iscreensaver.com/help/notes/video_encoding/video_encoding.shtml
Also here's another blog which discusses how to optimize your MP4 files for fast start and streaming: https://rigor.com/blog/optimizing-mp4-video-for-fast-streaming
If you can share a copy of your screensaver, we'd be happy to download to test on our systems - you can post a link here if it's public, or email us privately.
The delay seems to vary. Same computer that reported a significant delay saw hardly any delay the next time it ran. On the 3rd time it was more like half a second delay. The systems with 3 and 4 monitors have a noticeable delay no matter what. The systems being used are fairly new (<1 year old) systems with i7 cpu's and 16gb memory with SSD drives. What each employee is working on varies wildly.
Would probably be a good feature to add soon to enable multi-monitor syncing. Or a way to turn off the other monitors and only have it display on the one.
Thankfully there is no audio with our video so its not that bad.
"Or a way to turn off the other monitors and only have it display on the one."
That feature already exists :-) In the screen saver control panel, you can click Settings and have full control over which screen(s) you want playback on. You can also control volume on each screen if you have audio (though we recommend against audio in screensavers except for special use cases, as it can be really annoying).
See https://iscreensaver.com/help/help15.shtml#userControlPanelScreens
Some more thoughts: