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Lightpack – Ambient backlight for your displays

lightpack.tv

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Re: Lightpack – Ambient backlight for your displays

#21

Post by matmann2001 »

mortenjorck wrote: post #20

It's great to see the Philips Ambilight concept democratized (I hope Philips doesn't have any applicable patents here), but the fact that this requires the video source to be a Mac / Windows / Linux PC is going to cut the potential audience way, way down.

I actually made a Standalone version of my own. All it needs is a composite video signal, so you can use it with any type of video source.

Re: Lightpack – Ambient backlight for your displays

#22

Post by galvan »

I have the DIY version [0] of this on the back of my monitor right now, and the effect is quite nice, especially when playing games. The total DIY cost was $30 in components, namely a Teensy 2.0 microcontroller and a WS2801 RGB pixel string from eBay (unfortunately, I don't have nice mounting hardware so they're just stuck in cardboard strips).

[0] http://learn.adafruit.com/adalight-diy-ambient-tv-lighting/o...

Re: Lightpack – Ambient backlight for your displays

#23

Post by galvan »

jbverschoor wrote: post #11

Nice! Ambilight on non-philips tvs Too bad you need a HTPC..

There's other versions [0] of the same idea that uses a Raspberry Pi and a USB video grabber to do the same thing with any HDMI signal (you only need an HDMI splitter and an HDMI to composite adapter).

[0] https://github.com/gkaindl/ambi-tv

Re: Lightpack – Ambient backlight for your displays

#25

Post by jessaustin »

scosman wrote: post #24

interesting product, but really weird/poor choice in demo content at 22s in their video... The YT link they have on their marketing page (above the video) is even set up to take you to the creepy part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UP7SmUqkxc#t=22

Yikes! Trigger warning: bondage/terrorized young woman.

Re: Lightpack – Ambient backlight for your displays

#26

Post by dublinben »

lojack wrote: post #10
chrisfarms wrote: post #5

Some Sony TV's have this ... I like the effect during films, but I don't know why I like it... intuitively it feel like it should reduce the apparent contrast of the picture, but it instead feels like I'm watching a larger screen or that there's more going on in my environment. I'm going to hypothesise something to do with how brains process our peripheral vision. Anyway, not sure how much fun it would be to to run i…

I like this effect, but not because of changes to the perceived contrast. Often people turn off the lights during movies and this always bothered me because I lose my point of reference. It actually tends to give me nausea to have the only light coming from the TV. Having some sort of light whether its this, a nightlight, or a soft light from a different room tends to prevent this nausea.

Bias lighting is well understood in the professional video industry. Your intuition is spot on. These products, however, do not work like they ought to.

http://www.cinemaquestinc.com/ideal_lume.htm

Re: Lightpack – Ambient backlight for your displays

#27

Post by pbhjpbhj »

trekky1700 wrote: post #14

I was looking at building one of these a while back for my computer. It seams pretty easy with an Arduino, a $15 roll of RGB LED strip and some computer software. Though going beyond computers, it gets quite complicated.

http://blinkstick.com/ was on here a couple of days ago too, it can be wired in to a Ikea multicolour LED light strip (I forget the name) - their demo video shows it synced to display colours.

Edit: "Dioder".

Re: Lightpack – Ambient backlight for your displays

#29

Post by [deleted] »

jessaustin wrote: post #25
scosman wrote: post #24

interesting product, but really weird/poor choice in demo content at 22s in their video... The YT link they have on their marketing page (above the video) is even set up to take you to the creepy part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UP7SmUqkxc#t=22

Yikes! Trigger warning: bondage/terrorized young woman.

[deleted]
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