bequietdrive
Member
Wow. If I get the job I'm interviewing for tomorrow I'll definitely be investing in this.
Imagine that ambi lighting when stoned as fuck. Gaming heaven.
Imagine that ambi lighting when stoned as fuck. Gaming heaven.
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Mario Kart 8 with Raspberry Pi running Ambilight
- Thread starter Exile20
- Start date
ah, i see....
ii was under the impression the tv already had the feature....
Pretty nice then!
RoadHazard
Gold Member
Looks exactly like what those Philips TVs do. And yeah, isn't Ambilight something they own? Like, the entire idea, not just the name? No other brands have this feature, AFAIK...?
Rebel Leader
THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
My reaction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPyIS33QKCk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPyIS33QKCk
SerTapTap
Member
How painful would this be to set up? I have HDMI splitters out the wazoo but I mean the LED/raspberry pi.
Also, are the colors accurate? Rainbow Road is an awful way to show this off because I honestly cannot tell if it's just randomass colors or actually matching the TV properly. The first scene seemed reasonably close but still not perfectly accurate.
Edit: Okay, checked out the other videos, it does seem fairly accurate.
Also, are the colors accurate? Rainbow Road is an awful way to show this off because I honestly cannot tell if it's just randomass colors or actually matching the TV properly. The first scene seemed reasonably close but still not perfectly accurate.
Edit: Okay, checked out the other videos, it does seem fairly accurate.
MR ARCADE FOREVER
Member
Is this a joke? This looks totally useless, lights flashing from the back of your television!?? What is so great about it?
Melchiah
Member
And now I want to experience that as well.
There's some evidence to suggest that spreading out the light instead of having it all come from a single source in a dark room reduces eyestrain. The Lightberry page links to some articles on this topic.
More importantly, it looks cool.
Fortunately. Ambilight comes with half a dozen of different settings, from relaxed to action mode, and a few others. I figure the Raspberry Pi app does as well.
Action is what you're seeing in the OP. Immediate, bright as fuck response to every color.
Relaxed mode has smoother transitions and tones down the harsh flashes.
Personally I have mine set against a matte white wall so action mode literally makes the entire wall light up. Going through tunnels in Wipeout HD zone mode has my entire room pulsating to the beat. It's pretty damn amazing and immersive.
This doesn't really seem to be synchronized with what's happening in the game at all. I thought the Microsoft thing was cool because it was an actual extension of the gameplay. This just seems like a mostly random flashing of colors that kind of match the colors that are present somewhere on the screen.
Seen the same thing at a friends place, its truly awesome
Funny though, Ambilight TVs have been around for a bunch of years now, I'm a bit surprised a lot of people have never seen them (or the concept itself) before.
Rainbow Road is kind of hard to follow because there's such a variety of colors moving around pretty quickly. I'd suggest watching the Titanfall video on the same channel; it picks up on stuff like the red team's player list being in the bottom right corner of the screen, a patch of open sky between two buildings near the top of the screen, etc.
if its properly set up its totally sync with the tv stuff.
Heavy's Sandvich
Member
I actually think that looks really nice.
zephervack
Member
This looks really cool and I would love to have it but not at $150, 
Also, once this is all setup, how much of a pain is it to set it up everytime I want to watch TV?
Im guessing you have to wait for the Pi to boot and open the application, etc? Also turn on the LEDS manually?
Also, once this is all setup, how much of a pain is it to set it up everytime I want to watch TV?
Im guessing you have to wait for the Pi to boot and open the application, etc? Also turn on the LEDS manually?
On a less intense/distracting mode I can totally see how this would be great though.
IAmRandom31
Banned
This would be amazing for an atmospheric game like Demons Souls or the upcoming Bloodborne or whatever.
Saw someone tweet about using this for No Mans Sky as a tester due to all the colors lol.
Saw someone tweet about using this for No Mans Sky as a tester due to all the colors lol.
zephervack
Member
Anything with HDMI
I love it in Dark Souls because dark areas in the game literally darken the room by shutting off the lights dynamically. Walk past a torch on the right side of the screen and only the right side of the room is bathed in a soft, flickering red light only to fade away when you enter a dark cave.
The Destiny video posted above shows this pretty well. This Raspberry Pi thing would technically work with whatever you're displaying on-screen.
hardcastlemccormick
Banned
This thread reminded me that I needed to buy a Pi Model B+.
Nice project. The RasPi has been a great boon for all sorts of little programming ideas. The hardware's not innovative, but the community has been on fire!
Nice project. The RasPi has been a great boon for all sorts of little programming ideas. The hardware's not innovative, but the community has been on fire!
HF2014
Member
This is the coolest thing i ever saw . I seriously need that ASAP!!
So I bought it. Just to warn you: Setup and configuration is rather complex. Chances are you invest a lot of hours until you get it up running. In my case, I wasn't able to. All digital via the Pi it was just fine, but the analog way (splitter + grabber) results weren't nice and I had several issues. It's not really a product for the mass market, more for nerds who like to figure with stuff.
Garrett Hawke
Member
I tried this and after five days of trying to get it to work I've given up returning everything on Monday.
It was a shame - I managed to get it working for a few minutes but Hyperion (the program that controls the lights) kept crashing, and then I would have to restart the whole thing.
It was cool, but not worth 5 days worth of trying everything and not really knowing what I was doing.
returning everything on Monday.It was a shame - I managed to get it working for a few minutes but Hyperion (the program that controls the lights) kept crashing, and then I would have to restart the whole thing.
It was cool, but not worth 5 days worth of trying everything and not really knowing what I was doing.
br0ken_shad0w
Member
Technology is pretty neat. While I don't have the OP's setup, I do use something similar:
But yeah, like what someone mentioned, it's a bit of a bitch to setup and work properly.
But yeah, like what someone mentioned, it's a bit of a bitch to setup and work properly.
I tried this and after five days of trying to get it to work I've given up
It was a shame - I managed to get it working for a few minutes but Hyperion (the program that controls the lights) kept crashing, and then I would have to restart the whole thing.
It was cool, but not worth 5 days worth of trying everything and not really knowing what I was doing.
Never had these problems. Mine were flickering LEDs in dark scenes. Made your eyes hurt. They will check if there was a defect somewehre but to be honest, that mistake is way to specific to be a defect, rather a hardware/softare issue. It's just not a finished product at this point.
Garrett Hawke
Member
Oh yeah, mine had flickering too. There was flickering, crashing... I tried with so many different configs and drivers and guides etc and the best result I could get was flickering, an incorrect light configuration and Hyperion crashing every 2 minutes.
Well, for me, when it was working, it was very nice. But I had to set the treshold for colors to 0.0 so I don't get flicker (well, at least not much...) and that meant, that for example in dark scenes, the lights were still on. I definitly couldn't match their demo videos on youtube, which look amazing. I'm not saying these are fake, they are definitly legit, but I think the setup is very, very sensitive. To software AND to hardware influences...it's just not a solid product, more experimental...
Canis lupus
Member
This thing also works with PS4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNMgi7cP03s
We have a Philips tv in the living room, Ambilight is great, might get this for my own plasma.
We have a Philips tv in the living room, Ambilight is great, might get this for my own plasma.
Connecting it is actually not the problem. It's the setup per se (analog grabber) and the software configuration is a pain in the ass and it seems like no one knows how everything comes together.
Yeah, that's partially what I'm complaining about.
Dr. Black Jack
Member
Ugh, this looks awesome but my HD CRT doesn't have a flat back. Oh well.
I hope there wasn't a drug test.
I hope there wasn't a drug test.
I wish I would have never seen this thread. It costed me a lot of time and money. I hope I'll get my money back at least partially. They are selling an unfinished product for sure.
Described as "easy to install" and "simple to use", it actually needs programming skills (special FTP software, Linux commands) to configure it. The configuration is highly complex and consists of several parameters.
Besides that, it wasn't working as promised. There are severe flickering issues that could not be resolved because of the above described complex configuration.
I documented the flickering in some youtube videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QRvpoHO1V8&list=UUqDQ4wogYkH7_bf4aq0hKOw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM1AYhtjRGA&list=UUqDQ4wogYkH7_bf4aq0hKOw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAj5kU-LhAI&list=UUqDQ4wogYkH7_bf4aq0hKOw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0ktlGo8mFk&list=UUqDQ4wogYkH7_bf4aq0hKOw
The joke is: They told me to send it back because it was supposedly a hardware issues (although I was sure that it wasn't). I still send it back on my own costs. They then acknowledged that it's software and they could kinda solve it with a better config file, but for sending me my stuff back, they wanted to take shipping again from me!! Reminder: I already paid the shipping to send it back to them, I bought a powered USB hub, I bought new cables to test the stuff...all in all, more than 30 Euro additional costs. After my complaint they told me, that they will send it back to me, but without the preconfigured file (I PAID for that and that was the one supposedly getting rid of the flicker!!!) and I should never contact them again for support.
I maybe had 3 times of bad internet business in the last 15 years. This one was easily the worst. Easily. They even closed their forums....
Besides that, ambilight is overrated. When it was working, it was kinda distracting.
Described as "easy to install" and "simple to use", it actually needs programming skills (special FTP software, Linux commands) to configure it. The configuration is highly complex and consists of several parameters.
Besides that, it wasn't working as promised. There are severe flickering issues that could not be resolved because of the above described complex configuration.
I documented the flickering in some youtube videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QRvpoHO1V8&list=UUqDQ4wogYkH7_bf4aq0hKOw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM1AYhtjRGA&list=UUqDQ4wogYkH7_bf4aq0hKOw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAj5kU-LhAI&list=UUqDQ4wogYkH7_bf4aq0hKOw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0ktlGo8mFk&list=UUqDQ4wogYkH7_bf4aq0hKOw
The joke is: They told me to send it back because it was supposedly a hardware issues (although I was sure that it wasn't). I still send it back on my own costs. They then acknowledged that it's software and they could kinda solve it with a better config file, but for sending me my stuff back, they wanted to take shipping again from me!! Reminder: I already paid the shipping to send it back to them, I bought a powered USB hub, I bought new cables to test the stuff...all in all, more than 30 Euro additional costs. After my complaint they told me, that they will send it back to me, but without the preconfigured file (I PAID for that and that was the one supposedly getting rid of the flicker!!!) and I should never contact them again for support.
I maybe had 3 times of bad internet business in the last 15 years. This one was easily the worst. Easily. They even closed their forums....
Besides that, ambilight is overrated. When it was working, it was kinda distracting.
Quote
Member
So, I've been building mine piece by piece and finally have everything basically how I want it, now I just need to mount all the hardware to the back of the TV so there are not cables everywhere.
I'm using about 112 LEDs with the WS2801 strips.
And here is a video with it all running. My wall isn't white so the colors are not perfect but will be soon when I repaint the room. Also, don't mind the cable management mess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmKMnLdZDAg
I do have a few ideas on what your issue is. It is most like the video that is being outputted by the video grabber (EasyCap or whatever), I noticed that my top string of LEDs would flicker just a tad on the PS4 dashboard which is all blue. By taking screenshots from the grabber, I was able to see that there was a purple fuzz-like noise at the top of the image. This can be resolved-ish in two ways, you can crop which ever side is causing it a little more, it'll be tricky since its a corner, or you can use HyperCon and adjust the vertical/horizontal dept to take more/less into consideration.
It also sucks you found it distracting too. I often forget its there and makes my screen feel bigger or some things more intense, like leaving a cave to a bright outside.
I hope it works out for you!
For anyone thinking about building one, I'm not sure I'd recommend it unless you have extra money to burn and want something interesting to build and learn while doing it. I wish wish wish someone would build a real high quality kit for any consumer, but I think there are issues with HDCP that kill that dream.
I'm using about 112 LEDs with the WS2801 strips.
And here is a video with it all running. My wall isn't white so the colors are not perfect but will be soon when I repaint the room. Also, don't mind the cable management mess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmKMnLdZDAg
That sucks. It definitely was not easy building this, and even with a prebuilt kit I can't imagine it being much easier.
I do have a few ideas on what your issue is. It is most like the video that is being outputted by the video grabber (EasyCap or whatever), I noticed that my top string of LEDs would flicker just a tad on the PS4 dashboard which is all blue. By taking screenshots from the grabber, I was able to see that there was a purple fuzz-like noise at the top of the image. This can be resolved-ish in two ways, you can crop which ever side is causing it a little more, it'll be tricky since its a corner, or you can use HyperCon and adjust the vertical/horizontal dept to take more/less into consideration.
It also sucks you found it distracting too. I often forget its there and makes my screen feel bigger or some things more intense, like leaving a cave to a bright outside.
I hope it works out for you!
For anyone thinking about building one, I'm not sure I'd recommend it unless you have extra money to burn and want something interesting to build and learn while doing it. I wish wish wish someone would build a real high quality kit for any consumer, but I think there are issues with HDCP that kill that dream.
With the lightberry guy being so annoying, I canceled everything and opened a PayPal dispute. They could've easily helped me out with a better config file if they would actually know their product. Instead they hide behind "we don't sell software, only hardware" which may be true, but selling preconfigured software is pretty close to selling software and the website certainly suggests that it's a finsihed plug and play product, more or less...
Anyway, cropping didn't help. I didn't play with the depth of it. I played alot with treshold and blackborder and the likes, but I never found a configuration without flicker.
Anyway, cropping didn't help. I didn't play with the depth of it. I played alot with treshold and blackborder and the likes, but I never found a configuration without flicker.
Phreakuency
Banned
Seems pretty cool if you have the proper room and setup for it. Kind of funny to see Mario Kart 8 footage I captured being used in the example video lol.