Wanted: Colorful Static

July 13, 2023 5:58 AM

Is there a webpage or application that will generate colorful static on my monitor?

I keep looking for a way to generate full-screen static on my monitor--you know, like an old TV switched to a channel it can't pick up. But I must not be phrasing my searches right, because while I can come up with a million audio noise generators, and a lot of still pictures of static (and a few low-resolution youtube videos), I can't find anything to fizz up my entire screen. Does anything like this exist? If it helps, I'm on Windows 10. I'd even take an HD youtube video if it were more than, y'know, a few minutes long, although I'd prefer an application.

posted by mittens to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Best answer: Maybe Static TV screensaver?
posted by staggernation at 6:21 AM on July 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: As an exercise I implemented an "RGB static" shader on glslsandbox. It is very hard on the eyes!

v1: https://glslsandbox.com/e#104583.0
v2: https://glslsandbox.com/e#104584.0
v3: https://glslsandbox.com/e#104584.1

Set the magnification factor to 4x or 8x.

in v3 you can "turn down" the framerate by changing the number 8 in the line that reads float tmp = rand(vec2(floor(time * 8.), rand(position)));
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 7:43 AM on July 13, 2023 [11 favorites]

10hr HD YouTube video? Doesn't seem super HD but it's long.
posted by fiercekitten at 7:46 AM on July 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

But that isn't colorful, fiercekitten - looks like static on a black&white TV. In fact a lot of the static or dead-channel videos are black&white, but here's 60 seconds of a color, which could be looped, for a longer display.
posted by Rash at 10:09 AM on July 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Speaking as someone who has experienced static on a color CRT TV, it's black and white static with maybe a bit of phosphor color fringing. Color TV requires a specific signal (known as a "color burst") to decode color from a TV signal, and without that it will show a black and white image. Since static is the absence of any signal beyond the cosmic microwave background, it doesn't have a decodeable color burst signal and will be black and white.
posted by Aleyn at 11:18 AM on July 13, 2023 [4 favorites]

I agree with Aleyn - it isn't colorful until you get so close you can see the phosphor dots or spray it with liquid and watch it run down the screen, which makes your mom mad you messed up the TV.
posted by fiercekitten at 5:58 PM on July 13, 2023