Lightberry (ambilight-like) for gamers?

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Hi All,

I have come across this interesting gadget (Lightberry). If what they say on the site is true, it is possible to have this ambilight effect even from the gaming consoles, like PS3. Has any of you seen this working, especially with games?

Thanks
Chris

I've been curious about this sort of thing for a while myself, ever since I first heard about the Adalight (a PC-only, DIY version) a few years back.

The main thing that's kept me from trying it is that I can't tell whether it'd would stay fun, or turn out to be a gimmick that quickly wears out its welcome or fades into the background.

I've poked around that thing, but it seems like there's nothing like it available in the US (at least for home theater setups) and I eventually gave up.

If you just want it for the PC Mad Catz has a sort of half-assed version of it that works pretty well if you can position their lights well.

*I just looked at the Lightberry site and they do indeed ship internationally now. Way back when I looked they weren't doing that and the kits were only available overseas.

I'll be the guinea pig. Ordered a full HDMI premium kit.

*** The kit arrived yesterday morning and I've spent the better part of 24 hours fiddling and tweaking. I'm a total Linux noob, so working with the raspberry pi has been a bit of an adventure.

For home theater use the Lightberry kit is very cool, but not without its caveats, the first of which is that if you aren't reasonably well versed in Linux (like I'm not) then doing any config editing that's necessary will be a learning experience, as you'll be doing it while logging into the Raspberry Pi over your network.

A second caveat is that it requires the use of an HDMI splitter. Most of these, including the one with the kit, don't support 24p output. The one I have didn't have any trouble converting or whatever, as my player was already set for 24p, but what made it to the TV was a 60hz signal. I'll look into more feature complete splitters as an option at some point, and when I do I'll hit this thread again for an update there.

For what it's worth, the guy who made the kits, a fellow by the name of Jacek Tokar, has been immediately helpful and has gone back and forth with me in e-mail a bunch of times over the course of the last day. I think gmail said there were 13 emails in the chain last I looked, so that dude is pretty awesome and extremely helpful.

I made a very garbage video with the awful camera on my cellphone showing roughly what it looks like, but keep in mind the camera isn't picking up nearly as much light as the lights are actually putting out so some of the effect is lost.

Regardless, it's excellent, and the feed it's getting is just what's coming out of my receiver so it will work with all my consoles, the FireTV, my blu-ray player, etc.

That looks awesome!

jonnypolite wrote:

That looks awesome!

I thought their youtube demos looked awesome, which is what sold me on this little adventure.

If anybody else like me that would be going in with zero linux knowledge decides to take the leap and needs a hand with the config/setup, I'll be happy to help. It really is cool.

The kit came from Lightberry.eu.

For what it's worth, ordering the Raspberry Pi and preconfigured card from them makes a lot of sense, but some of the other hardware you can just get on amazon and not have to deal with the european plug adapaters. My CVBS converter and HDMI splitter both came from Amazon.

Definitely coming back to this thread once i get the basement built and the Plasma installed on the wall.

So far the most glorious it's looked has been Pacific Rim. There's so much crazy candy colored neon shifting through the picture in that movie the lights get an insane workout for the entire length of the film. It's nuts.

That's actually pretty cool. I wouldn't have thought it would work that well.

Yeah, I thought it would be kind of silly, but in the videos, it looks like it works really well. It kind of makes the screen feel bigger. Looks like you really need to have the TV wall mounted to get the most out of it though, which I don't. If I had a few hundred lying around, I'd give it a whirl.

Chaz wrote:

Looks like you really need to have the TV wall mounted to get the most out of it though, which I don't.

Mine's on an arm built into the back of that entertainment center thing and is about a foot away from the wall. I don't think you need to wall mount, but if you can get the TV up off whatever its base is sitting on a few inches I think it would definitely improve the effect.

Thin_J's post on purchases of the month sent me on a search for something that didn't require a raspberry PI or linux programming.

I ordered this one. Lightpack Shipping from Hong Kong this week.

Doesn't allow for HDMI, strict PC hookup via USB. I'll be running it on my office PC so I don't need the HDMI setup.

I'd love to get the lightberry for my home theater setup, but my LCD is flush mounted to the wall so I don't have the distance required for the light to be effective (You need some distance to allow the light to diffuse) It's also a 65" tv so I'd need more than one pack.

Oh and for anyone considering that madcatz item, stay far away. I tried that and it was one of the few times I actually returned something to Amazon. "Half-assed" is being kind to that product.

Once I get the lightpack setup I'll post impressions and video.

I looked at Lightpack for my PC specifically but they have issues with it not working during games and certain other situations. It's certainly a more elegant physical product but their implementation seems to lack versatility.

Yeah there seem to be some challenges, but there also appear to be workarounds via other software etc. so I'll give it a go as the cost is much less compared to the lightberry.

This Lightberry thing looks absolutely amazing. What did it run you after shipping Thin_J? I definitely can't afford it right now but I'm considering grabbing it in a couple of months. We just bought a 60" Bravia recently and this would be an incredible addition. I also know next to nothing about Linux and this might be a cool learning exercise.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

This Lightberry thing looks absolutely amazing. What did it run you after shipping Thin_J? I definitely can't afford it right now but I'm considering grabbing it in a couple of months. We just bought a 60" Bravia recently and this would be an incredible addition. I also know next to nothing about Linux and this might be a cool learning exercise.

I think by the time you order a Pi (which is a pretty cool little gadget really) and the light kit and the other bits it ends up running a bit over $200. Shipping is included in that total and was $22 or so I think. I had a customs hangup in Memphis that lasted a few days (because Fedex) but it did eventually get cleared.

I'm actually going to help a buddy of mine set one up on his TV today. He saw the video I put up and was like "Ok what do I need to order". So I'll see how fast (or not) the setup goes now that I know what I'm doing on the configuration side of things

JC wrote:

Yeah there seem to be some challenges, but there also appear to be workarounds via other software etc. so I'll give it a go as the cost is much less compared to the lightberry.

Definitely post an update here after you've had some time with the Lightpack. I'm curious. If you get workarounds going for all the quirks it might be a nice and noticeably cheaper alternative for others.

I checked this out..largest size TV is 60".. so if I have a 65" this would be a no-go? Looks like something I might enjoy for movie watching.

TheGameguru wrote:

I checked this out..largest size TV is 60".. so if I have a 65" this would be a no-go? Looks like something I might enjoy for movie watching.

They can custom size the thing per the FAQ. It also looks like you could simply shrink the light rectangle on the back to get complete coverage.

Q: I have [more than 50"] TV. What’s Lightberry size for me?
A: As you can see in our manual Lightberry needs a bit of space to work properly. If you have a very thin border (or borderles) TV you will be better of with shorter Lightberry. We designed Lightberry to be placed exactly as the screen goes on the back of TV – thin border will not be sufficent to “hide” LEDs from sight and you will have to move them a bit closer towards center of TV. If you have a much bigger TV / still unsure what you need contact us and we will help you pick correct one or make you custom Lightberry.

Can one install this without taking a TV off the wall mount? I don't really want to have to take down my Plasma (it's heavy!)

I think the answer to that is that it depends... If you have enough room to align the lights so they're all level and equidistant then there shouldn't be a need to take it down.

TheGameguru wrote:

I checked this out..largest size TV is 60".. so if I have a 65" this would be a no-go? Looks like something I might enjoy for movie watching.

The light strings have a connection on the other end, so you could just order another strand. The only thing that would get more involved is you'd have to use Hypercon to make your own light configuration file to get Hyperion working right. None of the downloadable ones would work.

TheGameguru wrote:

Can one install this without taking a TV off the wall mount? I don't really want to have to take down my Plasma (it's heavy!)

The one I *just* finished configuring a couple hours ago for a friend of mine's bedroom setup is wall mounted. As long as the mount leaves you a few inches between the TV and the wall you're good to go. It's not the easiest thing to get the velcro strips on and aligned, but it's very doable.

Video:

We had some different issues getting this one set up. His Onkyo TX-SR607 receiver was doing some kind of video processing and it was affecting the output. You could see the lights trying to work, one or two would flash the correct color here and there, but mostly they would just shudder on a variety of off-white shades. I had him hook his XBox One directly up to the splitter for the Lightberry connection and the lights instantly started working.

Some googling led me to a thing where you hold in one button on the front of the receiver and then hit another while it's held in. It brings up an otherwise inaccessible menu that lets you turn off all video signal processing in the receiver. One guy said that model receiver wasn't allowing his PC to send 1080p/60, it was only letting him use 1080p/30. When he found a note about that menu in his manual and turned it off, bam, 1080p/60 from his PC.

So I turned it off and once that was set the lights started responding correctly for the Xbox One and for the DirecTV box. The PS3 still had an issue that was related to "deep color output" or something. I forget the exact wording. Turning it off got the PS3 going too.

All in all much smoother. Took about 2.5 hours total from plugging things in to figuring out the quirks of his particular hardware.

Arghhhh. You're going to make me cave and buy a new wall mount and the lightberry for my home theatre setup. Stop posting cool videos!

I just emailed him, he's got some sets for a 65" coming in soon, email him if you're interested , GameGuru.

I'll be helping another person set theirs up at some point soonish. That one might be a few weeks or even a month or two off though.

Thin-J- Did you purchase one of the pre-made solutions from lightberry or did you use your own items to cobble together the setup? HDMI splitter etc?

The HDMI splitter and CVBS converter I'm using came from Amazon, the rest all came from Lightberry.

I mostly did it because the AC or DC adapters for all the stuff you get from Lightberry is going to have EU style electric plugs on them. He includes adapters, but that makes the plugs really tall and awkward. I figured if I could eliminate even one of those plugs it might make my life easier.

Good point. I didn't even think of that.

Care to share which ones you purchased?

And now that I think of it I've got a receiver that has multiple HDMI outs. I wonder if I even need a splitter since I have have hdmi1 and 2 sending the same signal....

to the internets!

yeah it can run active dual outputs.

I also have a component output that appears to be able to output at the same time as HDMI. So in theory, I should only need a component capture device to feed the Raspberry.

JC wrote:

And now that I think of it I've got a receiver that has multiple HDMI outs. I wonder if I even need a splitter since I have have hdmi1 and 2 sending the same signal....

to the internets!

As long as they can both be active at the same time and they don't futz with the signal like my friend's Onkyo was doing originally, I can't see any reason it shouldn't work.

The CVBS converter I ended up with is this one. You need one with the NTSC/PAL switch because the driver for the USB grabber is coded specifically for PAL signals. If you put it on NTSC that grabber won't take the signal and the lights don't work.

JC wrote:

I also have a component output that appears to be able to output at the same time as HDMI. So in theory, I should only need a component capture device to feed the Raspberry.

You'd be into customizing the entire setup including drivers for the Pi for whatever capture device you go for, and then making that driver works within the Hyperion configuration file. No idea what all that entails.

If you do it and it works, speak up. Maybe you can make setting one of these things up easier for others here if they decide to give it a shot.

ugh... yeah don't think that's something I have the knowledge to tackle.

I think I'll go with an HDMI to composite converter and hook that into the usb capture device that they use. That would keep it the same as the lightberry's setup and keep the cost down as well.

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