Some Sony TV's have this ... I like the effect during films, but I don't know <i>why</i> 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.<p>I'm going to hypothesise something to do with how brains process our peripheral vision.<p>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 :)
Microsoft Research took the ambient background idea a little further with some cool IllumiRoom demos. [0]<p>[0] <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2w-XqW7bF4" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2w-XqW7bF4</a>
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.
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.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/11/bias-lighting.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/11/bias-lighting.html</a>
[1] <a href="http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50192365/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50192365/</a>
[2] <a href="http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20119418/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20119418/</a>
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).<p>[0] <a href="http://learn.adafruit.com/adalight-diy-ambient-tv-lighting/overview" rel="nofollow">http://learn.adafruit.com/adalight-diy-ambient-tv-lighting/o...</a>
Ack, it looks like a nice product but they need some help with their copywriting.<p>> "<i>So, you can't use Lightpack with your PlayStation 4 out-of-the-box cause you unable to run Prismatik in SONY ecosystem</i>"
interesting product, but really weird/poor choice in demo content at 22s in their video...<p>The YT link they have on their marketing page (above the video) is even set up to take you to the creepy part: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UP7SmUqkxc#t=22" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UP7SmUqkxc#t=22</a>
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.<p>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.<p>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.
Interestingly, the BlinkyTape people also used the Futurama intro to demo a similar use of their product:<p><a href="http://blinkinlabs.com/ambitape/" rel="nofollow">http://blinkinlabs.com/ambitape/</a>
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.
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
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.
Simpler solution: Put mirror in front of the TV ;)<p>I'm just kidding but mirrors in front of the bezels can have some similar effect but probably much weaker then the LEDs.
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.