

Lightpack – Ambient backlight for your displays - Skovy
http://lightpack.tv/

======
chrisfarms
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 it on a monitor that has
vim/consoles 90% of the time... maybe it would encourage me to tab certain
syntax highlighted code to the far edges of the screen and go wild :)

~~~
lojack
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.

~~~
vanderZwan
> 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.

Finally, someone else! People always give me strange looks when I complain
about this.

------
nbush
Microsoft Research took the ambient background idea a little further with some
cool IllumiRoom demos. [0]

[0]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2w-XqW7bF4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2w-XqW7bF4)

~~~
gky2
Oh man that looks amazing... It'd be something interesting to follow and see
how it goes. Even just watching the video got me excited and curious to see
how it all works!

Thanks for sharing.

------
mortenjorck
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.

~~~
matmann2001
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.

~~~
Taniwha
that doesn't really help me - I have an HDMI-only home setup - multiple HDMI
sources switched by the AV receiver drive a single TV, I'd have to somehow
create a parallel composite switch from all the video sources - Bunnie Huang's
NeTV can almost do this (and with a nod and a wink one could hack the fpga to
do it) so the technology is available to an enterprising hacker - whether you
can make a commercial product that does this without licensing HDMI (or
licensing and still making it open source) and without getting sued is
debatable

~~~
matmann2001
All the devices that connect to my TV are HDMI as well. Put a
splitter/converter after your AV receiver and you're good.

------
67726e
Jeff Atwood wrote a piece on bias lighting[0] for computer displays. I've been
a fan of the idea and have been using the Ikea Dioder[1] colored, also in
plain white[2], LED strips mounted behind my monitors both at home and work.
It really makes things easier on the eyes when you aren't in a completely
pitch-black room, not to mention the color effects are rather soothing. The
Ikea strips are easy enough to mount to the back of monitors with a bit of
velcro tape.

[0] [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/11/bias-
lighting.html](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/11/bias-lighting.html)
[1]
[http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50192365/](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50192365/)
[2]
[http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20119418/](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20119418/)

------
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...](http://learn.adafruit.com/adalight-diy-ambient-tv-
lighting/overview)

------
nwh
Ack, it looks like a nice product but they need some help with their
copywriting.

> " _So, you can 't use Lightpack with your PlayStation 4 out-of-the-box cause
> you unable to run Prismatik in SONY ecosystem_"

~~~
Skovy
Yea, I agree and I noticed several other errors. As you could tell from the
video I believe they are Russian along with other nationalities.

~~~
nwh
They certainly aren't English speakers. It's a pity because they've a really
solid product, just not showing it off well to an international audience. The
rest isn't full of mistakes as much as just being informal and inconsistent, I
suppose it's quite a difficult language if you're not accustomed to writing
it.

~~~
wrongc0ntinent
Didn't dig much, but the "146% open source" line might be a reference to
Putin.[0]

[0][http://gawker.com/5864945/putin-clings-to-victory-as-
russias...](http://gawker.com/5864945/putin-clings-to-victory-as-russias-
voter-turnout-exceeds-146)

------
scosman
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UP7SmUqkxc#t=22)

~~~
jessaustin
Yikes! Trigger warning: bondage/terrorized young woman.

------
Duhck
I've wanted to make my own version for a while, but using a RBP (which I use
for my media consumption anyway) was previously a deterrent.

I think you should make a HDCP pass-thru box because the easy of installation
and practicality makes it more desirable to consumers (myself included). I
have previously written software that breaks HDCP encryption as well as does a
slew of other work arounds that other companies -- despite saying they do not
-- actually employ to make input switching faster.

If you need to talk to anyone about HDCP let me know; I can either help or get
you in touch with some people who can.

------
cobralibre
Interestingly, the BlinkyTape people also used the Futurama intro to demo a
similar use of their product:

[http://blinkinlabs.com/ambitape/](http://blinkinlabs.com/ambitape/)

------
swombat
Looks brilliant. I've put my email in the preorder form... I'd buy one right
now if it was available. I hope they deliver to the UK.

------
dylan604
This might be good for a computer screen running full screen images or even HD
video running full frame 1.78 content, but what about movies that are at a
wider aspect ratio like the common 2.35 that must appear letterboxed? Add this
to the fact that an HDMI license seems unreasonable, this doesn't look this
will be very viable for non-computer monitor situations.

------
tnorthcutt
All this talk about being easy on your eyes, and their body copy is 13px.
Typography goes a long way toward easing eye strain.

------
bobowzki
Exactly how is it protecting my eyes?

------
Taniwha
The question that didn't get answered for me was "will it work with encrypted
HDMI?" one hopes it does use one of the leaked keys and sniffs the stream ....
if it does I want one .... otherwise it's not useful for me

~~~
edvinbesic
I don't believe this works standalone with a TV. It needs an app running on
your computer from the looks of it. I'm still waiting for an HDMI pass-through
version myself.

------
trekky1700
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.

~~~
lambda
Adafruit has a tutorial about how to build something similar using an Arduino
and set of RGB LED Christmas lights: [http://learn.adafruit.com/adalight-diy-
ambient-tv-lighting/o...](http://learn.adafruit.com/adalight-diy-ambient-tv-
lighting/overview)

------
spyder
Simpler solution: Put mirror in front of the TV ;)

I'm just kidding but mirrors in front of the bezels can have some similar
effect but probably much weaker then the LEDs.

------
ztnewman
No mention of the price?

~~~
Skovy
I believe I saw somewhere it was $80

~~~
Pwntastic
They're finishing up a kickstarter[0], so it might be a while before they take
any actual orders from their site

[0] [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/woodenshark/lightpack-
am...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/woodenshark/lightpack-ambient-
backlight-for-your-displays)

------
jbverschoor
Nice! Ambilight on non-philips tvs

Too bad you need a HTPC..

~~~
galvan
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](https://github.com/gkaindl/ambi-tv)

------
lightblade
It makes me sad that Philips don't have any Ambilight TV on the US market. Now
I'm tempted to order one from Amazon UK and ship it over internationally.

------
omgtehlion
“146% Open Source”

ok.

