Adding Ambilight to your home theater
The fun people over at Hackaday.com have found a cool alternative to Ambilight technology usually only found inside of Phillips systems. This system depends on video playing out of a computer…so just about everyone here has a HTPC. Who is going to try this out? We want some pictures.
Like the others, this iteration depends on you playing back video from a computer. [Yonsje] is using an Arduino with his own shield to connect to the HTPC. NPN transistors in the shield drive the RGB LEDs. The real cost savings is in his lighting source. A Deal Extreme RGB LED bar costs just $11.30 including shipping, and can be cut into six different segments for even spacing around your television. Check it out in the clip after the break.
I never understood the
I never understood the purpous of Ambilight. I don’t want lights changing color behind my set distracting me from my program. I built an RGB LED controller for my bike and it gets pleanty of compliments at bike rallys, but I wouldn’t put it on my TV.
When done properly I think it
When done properly I think it works well. I haven’t seen any clone projects that work as well as the Ambilight though. It is very soft and blends with the on-screen video extremely well.
I’ve never viewed an
I’ve never viewed an Ambilight display, but I am not inclined towards the implementation. SMPTE RP 166 already gives us the ideal viewing conditions to strive for which is D65 and when reflected off of a neutral wall color not to exceed 10% maximum peak luminance of white that the display is calibrated to (D65, of course). If manufacturers began to build a light source capable of this behind displays, I would be all for it.
With the Ambilight you can
With the Ambilight you can set it to a set strengthcolor. It doesn’t quite match but is close to close to 6500K (CIE D65)