Lightpack — ambient backlight for your displays

shawn posted about a kickstarter said Wed, Feb 5th 2014 at 8:51pm ET

Recently stumbled across a Kickstarter project called Lightpack.

I really like this ambient lighting behind the television, but my problem with the Lightpack is that it requires a PC. Back when Philips made televisions they had the Ambilight models with this built in. Maybe this idea will catch on and big electronics manufactures like Denon and Sony will build ambilight ability into receivers.

Or better yet, maybe this is what Steve Jobs meant when he said, "I finally cracked it."

Anyone every seen a Lightpack/Ambilight approach that works as a simple HDMI pass-through? Probably crazy hard to do with DRM...

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shawn said Wed, Feb 5th 2014 at 8:58pm ET:

Ah, just saw this on the Lightpack FAQ

Why the device requires a computer to work? Why not creating a
pass-through device which could be connected through HDMI?

We have been working on such device however this device has nothing in
common with Lightpack, neither in the way it works, nor in the
components which are required, nor in the complexity. The biggest
problem here are the licenses. If for example the device is going to
be connected through HDMI, we’ll have to join the HDCP consortium,
which means buying expensive splitters, security keys etc which would
allow us to decode the signal. the next step would include finding
ways to evade existing patents (by Philips) which cover the methods
and principles of analyzing the “raw” signal in the cable. If this
doesn't work, we’ll have to go through the licensing process which of
course means extra time/costs. We will continue research of this topic
but there is nothing to be expected at this moment. Anyway, the new
device (if created) will be something else compared to Lightpack.

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chrisk said Tue, Feb 11th 2014 at 2:01pm ET:

Didn't @Luke build something like this?

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