TV Static

What tv static does

TV static is the random snow an analogue television showed on an unused channel, and this reproduces it full screen along with the noise that went with it. The two are separate controls because most people want one or the other: the picture as a prop or a backdrop, and the sound as something to sleep, work or concentrate to. Both are generated in your browser, so there is no file to download and the noise never develops an audible loop.

How to use it

1. Choose black and white or colour, and a grain size. Coarser grain looks more like analogue snow.
2. Pick a noise type if you want sound: white, pink or brown. Start with pink or brown for sleep.
3. Set the volume before going full screen, and raise it gradually rather than starting loud.
4. Click the panel, or press F, to fill the display. Pause the picture if you only want the sound.

About tv static

What analogue static actually was

The snow on an untuned analogue television was the set amplifying whatever signal reached its aerial and finding no broadcast in it. Most of that was electrical noise from the receiver itself and from the environment, but a small part was genuinely from outside: thermal radiation from the sky, including a fraction of the cosmic microwave background left over from the early universe. The often-repeated figure that around one per cent of the snow came from that source is roughly right for a set of that era. Digital broadcasting removed the effect entirely, because a digital tuner with no signal shows a blank screen or an error rather than amplified noise.

White, pink and brown noise are genuinely different

The names describe how energy is distributed across frequency. White noise has equal energy at every frequency, which the ear hears as bright and hissy because of how hearing is weighted toward higher frequencies. Pink noise falls away at three decibels per octave, so there is equal energy in each octave rather than each hertz, and it sounds balanced and closer to steady rain. Brown noise falls faster still, at six decibels per octave, which puts most of the energy low and produces something like distant surf or a waterfall. People choosing noise for sleep overwhelmingly prefer pink or brown, and the reason is simply that white noise is fatiguing over hours.

What the evidence for noise and sleep actually says

Continuous noise genuinely masks intermittent sounds, which is the mechanism that matters: a steady background makes a door closing or traffic outside less likely to wake you, because the contrast between the sound and the silence is what disturbs sleep rather than the sound itself. That much is well supported. Claims that noise improves sleep quality by itself are much weaker, and reviews of the research have generally found the evidence thin and the studies small. Keeping the volume low is worth taking seriously: sustained exposure to loud noise all night is a real hazard, particularly for infants, and several guidelines recommend keeping any sleep sound machine well below its maximum and away from the head.

Why this generates the noise rather than looping a file

A noise loop repeats, and once you notice the repeat you cannot stop noticing it. A two-second file played for eight hours repeats fourteen thousand times, and any small artefact in it becomes a rhythm, which defeats the entire purpose for anyone using it to sleep. Generating the noise in the browser also means nothing is downloaded, it works offline once the page has loaded, and the volume is under your control rather than baked into a recording.

Using the picture as a prop

Static is a horror and thriller staple, and it works as a stream transition, a backdrop, or set dressing for anything meant to look like a broken transmission. If you are capturing it, use a browser source rather than filming a screen, since a camera pointed at a display showing fine random noise produces heavy moire. Be aware that full screen static is a lot of high-contrast motion, so keep it brief in anything anyone has to watch for long, and turn the brightness down if it is running behind a person on camera.