Make Your Own Ambilight For $60

Someone needs to make a commercial version that works with HDMI pass through and simply sicks onto the back of any television.
 
Why are people's entertainment setups so disgusting.
 
Megalith I imagine your head might explode if you had to visit almost any southern asian city. The wiring is like things from nightmares.
 
Has anyone found any software that works without judder or disabling aero which causes crazy screen tearing while using one of these on a Win7 machine? I hage a Light Pack and would love to use it more because I really like it but it's annoying to use because of the screen syncing quirks.
 
People care they just run out of time and money to do it right. People often say things like people don't appreciate art etc..... I have never met a person in my life who didn't enjoy good looking art and didn't want an amazing looking house that is all finished up great. But that doesn't mean they have the means of doing it or making it a priority over all the other things in life within their time, space and financial constraints.

It’s not all just laziness. The most expensive part of HT can easily end up being finish, it’s the difference between great sounding and great looking systems and shelving. Almost all readily available entertainment centers are horribly designed for Bose crap and cannot fit normal sized gear. And on top of that even if some did work, try finding one that matches your decor color, and fits in the limited space you have and at the same time holds whatever you want to put in it. Then hope that you can route wires to the TV..... Almost all houses are not properly wired, and why the heck would you do that anyway because in 3 years the morons who control this stuff will change the cable standard yet AGAIN. And almost all furniture and carpenter type people who build homes are completely clueless about HT and design stupid built in shelves that don't make any sense at all and end up limiitin the TV size, not having proper cooling and not having enough space for speakers etc..... If you are going to spend money it makes sense to spend it more on what matters most, the sound and picture quality and less on what you can’t see once you turn the lights out. Also if you are DIY person you are probably pulling the stuff out and switching it around so much you always think this is just temporary.

Basically it’s a lot of things that add up to a point where people just give up. And I wouldn't say they are lazy it’s a shit ton of work that can consume months of your time in some cases. I personally care enough to make my setup look good but I can tell you it took astronomical amounts of time given I don't have a dedicated HT room or a giant house. I went to every place I could think of in my town and found not one single entertainment center or shelving system that would work. After all that I looked online and the only ones that would give me about 80% satisfaction cost more than the most expensive part in my system, that is pretty sad because I have a pretty nice setup. Ultimately I was left with only one solution. If I want it done right I have to build it myself and that is what I did. You have to remember that many people who can afford really nice stuff probably have a giant house and can afford to setup a remote room where all the HT gear is just piled on a rack and hidden from view. People who want decent sound and know enough not to buy bose are a niche under served market that sits in the middle of the masses of ipod docs and Xboxes and the high end players who just pay thousands to have someone else do it all for them.
 
You know whats better than ambilight? Just getting yourself a nice projector.

The point of ambilight is further immersion by quasi-increasing the screen size, and making the environment part of the screen action.

A bigger projector creates an ACTUAL bigger screen size, and just by accident tends to create a bit of ambilight reflection into the surrounding room of the dominant colors on the screen.

For just $600, you can get a Optoma HD141X Full 3D 1080p 3000 Lumen DLP Projector
http://www.amazon.com/Optoma-HD141X...425089741&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=Optoma+HDX141

So its not that ambilight is dumb, its just a question of... well.. WHY, when there are better alternatives.
 
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refraxion said:
I'm actually waiting for a good deal on 4K projectors. Maybe in a year or two..
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Just buy now with a universal ceiling mount. When its time to upgrade, its literally just plug and play. Loosen three screws and you're done.

Unlike huge television sets, reselling projectors is also way easier, as they fit right back into the small original boxes you can set aside, with next to no chance it will be damaged in shipping.
 
Ducman69 said:
You know whats better than ambilight?
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A proper 6500k bias light.


Ducman69 said:
The point of ambilight is further immersion by quasi-increasing the screen size, and making the environment part of the screen action.
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The point of the ambilight was supposed to be a proper 6500k bias light but Philips marketing department turned it into a gimmick to sell TV's.

Ducman69 said:
So its not that ambilight is dumb, its just a question of... well.. WHY, when there are better alternatives.
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Actually it is dumb because it destroys the perceived image quality because the dominant color of the light in the room influences our perception of the other colors. You know that current internet controversy about "What color is this dress"? while the phenomenon isn't the same but as an example an Ambilight could potentially switch the dress to blue/black or white/gold so to speak to the image on your TV in real time (it's probably not that extreme but the idea is similar).

Info:
http://cinemaquestinc.com/blb.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fwyYR_EcPfs#t=3481
 
Megalith said:
Why are people's entertainment setups so disgusting.
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Because you moved the TV to another room, and have kids. Who cares where the wires run when you are listening to " AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! WHY DID YOU TURN OFF (insert X cartoon)!!" :D
 
|Tch0rT| said:
A proper 6500k bias light.
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I don't ever recall Ambilight coming in a version that wasn't shooting out a myriad of rainbow colors to match whatever was on the TV. That just sounds like a regular backlight.

Regarding light bleed, its never so extreme, and that visual effect really only matters under specific circumstances. I've never experienced any color issues with my projector setup, but a bit of light reflection into the room is unavoidable. It just means that when you're watching a scene in Star Wars where its all desert, the room is going to glow a soft tan.

I think the only way to totally eliminate it is to use one of those highly directional projector screens, and ensure everything behind you is matte.
 
For many of the reasons I mentioned above projectors are very difficult to work with. People cant even find good setups to run cords from equipment to the TV its even harder when those cords have to run across a living room to a projector. Lets hope you don't have a low ceiling. Where are you going to put the projector? Projectors like DLP are becoming more and more niche because TVs of bigger and bigger sizes are coming out and the ones just a little smaller are coming down in price. Projectors used to be the realm of value minded videophiles but as really good plasmas started to creep up in size most of those people dropped projectors unless they needed 80+ inches.
 
Ducman69 said:
I don't ever recall Ambilight coming in a version that wasn't shooting out a myriad of rainbow colors to match whatever was on the TV. That just sounds like a regular backlight.
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If you watch the video Joel Silver President/Founder of ISF (one of places that set standards for video displays and works with manufacturers to implement them) said that Philips did a lot of scientific research on bias lighting and the original intent of the Ambilight was for 6500K bias lighting but once the marketing department got involved they turned into the rainbow puke spewing abomination that went to mass market.

Ducman69 said:
Regarding light bleed, its never so extreme, and that visual effect really only matters under specific circumstances. I've never experienced any color issues with my projector setup, but a bit of light reflection into the room is unavoidable. It just means that when you're watching a scene in Star Wars where its all desert, the room is going to glow a soft tan.
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Yeah as I said that example is a bit extreme but changing the dominant ambient light in the FOV does effect the other colors. With a projector the screen fills much more of your FOV so you're unlikely to perceive the color shift as strongly as someone with small tv and their FOV with the ambilight changing the colors around the screen. Anyway the worst part would be the constant color changing and that would always draw my eye away from the screen and introduce eye strain (which proper bias lighting's goal is to reduce eye strain and stabilize the color).
 
OregonLAN said:
Someone needs to make a commercial version that works with HDMI pass through and simply sicks onto the back of any television.
Click to expand...

Philips owns the license to such tech. Anyone that tries has gotten served. So blame Philips for the hold up.

While this guide is great its pretty complex for even the average DIY. Still its this or a much less quality option or a $300 kit from that Kickstarter campaign and its weird software bugs.
 
Needing the Arduino AND a PC to drive it makes it just too much damn trouble.... but I do love the effect, and I do love the 6803 addressable LED strips. Hell, I already have two 5 meter long rolls of those in the closet so I'm more than halfway there....
 
Ducman69 said:
You know whats better than ambilight? Just getting yourself a nice projector.

The point of ambilight is further immersion by quasi-increasing the screen size, and making the environment part of the screen action.

A bigger projector creates an ACTUAL bigger screen size, and just by accident tends to create a bit of ambilight reflection into the surrounding room of the dominant colors on the screen.

For just $600, you can get a Optoma HD141X Full 3D 1080p 3000 Lumen DLP Projector
http://www.amazon.com/Optoma-HD141X...425089741&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=Optoma+HDX141

So its not that ambilight is dumb, its just a question of... well.. WHY, when there are better alternatives.
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Mostly because you don't normally want to watch things on a projector, you need a certain room setup, and you have to run wires all over the place. Where if you have a regular computer monitor you can have some lights on the back that give the impression if a wider field of view for some games that it works well or for watching movies . . . plus you don't have to buy bulbs every couple years. So for 60-100 bucks one time you can have a cool device on an existing screen that actually works pretty well.
 
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Godmachine said:
While this guide is great its pretty complex for even the average DIY. Still its this or a much less quality option or a $300 kit from that Kickstarter campaign and its weird software bugs.
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Lightpack is 90 bucks (or so), or you can do it yourself for 60 bucks apparently. Light pack works with most software out there, though I agree it has some really weird quirky bugs like not being able to capture at any decent rate when Aero is enabled, which makes screen syncing not work inside windows like when running netflix... so you end up with nauseating judder or screen tearing.
 
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