neew YouTube "lights out" option

[mrjazzguitar]

this is awesome -- there is a little light switch on the top right of the page, and makes everything black, instead of the normal blinding white. I don't have to go blind or turn my screen brightness down when I'm on YouTube anymore!

[ReaperKK]

Nice, glad to see that they caught on with the trend of other streaming sites

[glaurung]

It's a promotion for that earth hour or whatever it's called. I doubt it's a permanent feature.

[Gadough]

Yeah, they did it last year too. It would be nice if they made it permanent.

[ZBomber]

It's so pointless too... if you're on youtube then you probably are using up electricity. 

[mrjazzguitar]

I hope they make a permanent option to get make the page darker -- it makes such a huge difference

[ScioPath]

It's so pointless too... if you're on youtube then you probably are using up electricity. 

Well you know, black means the monitor uses less energy to make light.

[lonestar]

Damn, that is so much better to look at.

[blackngold29]

Actually I've heard that since your monitor is still technically displaying a color, it's using the same energy.

YouTube did have a "Turn off the lights" feature for a while that would grey out the surrounding area around the video. I loved it, but it disappeared a while back.

[yorost]

Actually I've heard that since your monitor is still technically displaying a color, it's using the same energy.

Depends entirely on the monitor.  In older displays black was the absence of a beam being fired, which is less energy.  In newer technology screens it is closer to what you say, but it isn't the same amount of energy.  Any colour of display can require a different amount of energy.  While white might actually be more efficient in some displays, I believe the general consensus is black is usually the more efficient colour.

Regardless, the main point for using black, to me, is that it is easier on the eyes.  I do all of my work with black backgrounds and gray as the basic font colour,  So much easier to deal with when you're at a computer 8+ hours a day.

[Ultimetalhead]

I missed the lights out feature. I'm glad it's back.

[ZBomber]

It's so pointless too... if you're on youtube then you probably are using up electricity. 

Well you know, black means the monitor uses less energy to make light.

Yeah, until you fullscreen the video playing. 

[juice]

Too bad this was just for that hour.  It would've been nice to have it as a permanent feature.

[Global Laziness]

Aw man, I saw that but I never clicked on it. I just went to go check it out and I guess they've removed it. How disappointing.

[Lynxo]

I doubt it was because of saving energy. It was to promote the CAUSE of saving energy by raising awareness, just like Earth Hour itself.

Turning off your lights for one hour isn't gonna save the earth, but if more people learn of how much it saves energy by doing stuff like that on a regular basis, then you might make a difference. One other thing that sucks up energy a lot is STANDBY MODE on all your electronic devices. Just turn the God damn thing off entirally!

[yorost]

Um, yeah, it's been popular for awhile now to promote websites using black backgrounds instead of white ones to actually save energy on any monitor displaying the site.  That's why the common question around these promotions is if black really is more efficient than white.

[Chino]

Maybe it's just me being clueless, but why would dark colors use less energy than lighter colors? All colors are made up of the three primary colors. Regardless of the color, a color is still being produced. Why would one need more energy.

[yorost]

It depends on the monitor.

https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=21630.msg824118#msg824118

[ThroughHerEyesDude6]

Maybe it's just me being clueless, but why would dark colors use less energy than lighter colors? All colors are made up of the three primary colors. Regardless of the color, a color is still being produced. Why would one need more energy.

I believe a scientist would be able to explain it better, but black is the absence of light. It takes very little to no energy to create black in visible lightwave frequencies (mu). Whereas white is the existence of all colors within the color spectrum (Look at the cover to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon to get a better idea of it), and as for some colors needing more energy I believe the hierarchy is as follows:

Red: Most (0.7 mu)  --> Purple: Least (0.4 mu)

As for an artist's POV, black is fucking difficult to make while painting. It's essentially taking all the colors on the colors spectrum (Red, Yellow, Blue for simplicity sake), then mixing each individual color with their respective secondaries (Green, Purple, Orange) and then taking all three combinations of brown and mixing them to create black. To me, that never works out, and I rarely add yellow to the mixture. I also substitute orange for brown. Just for kicks.

However, as an artist, while painting, it's the complete opposite. White is fucking easy: just don't paint there. Whereas if you don't have black, making it is fucking difficult. That's why in a lot of my paintings when I do a Spacescape, I use a ton of Red, Blue, Purple, Brown and Green to make a near-perfect black. Yellow is useless in the equation, unless you truly want to add in all secondary colors for the perfect brown. But that's just me.

[yorost]

That's not at all how LCD works, though, which is more of a light filtering approach.  Your idea is basically right for the old big monitors, but it doesn't apply to most newer ones.