[DIY] Amblight project/guide - Hyperion - WS2801/ WS2812B / APA102 (7 Viewers)

[invisiblelight]

Please read the section in the first post where it says "For video capture setup". If I am correct a rough idea is like below:

HDMI Source(TV/STB) --> HDMI Splitter --> One HDMI cable goes to 'HDMI to RCA converter' --> RCA cable to Video Capture stick (Must UTV007 chipset) --> Video Capture Stick to RPi USB --> RPi USB to Arduino USB --> Arduino Data pin to LED strip Data pin

This is the skeleton. Read the first post again like I said and come back with more doubts.

 

[Rick164]

@invisiblelight Yep that's it

Optionally if your AVR has 2 HDMI outputs you can skip the the HDMI splitter.

 

[askfriends]

Please read the section in the first post where it says "For video capture setup". If I am correct a rough idea is like below:

HDMI Source(TV/STB) --> HDMI Splitter --> One HDMI cable goes to 'HDMI to RCA converter' --> RCA cable to Video Capture stick (Must UTV007 chipset) --> Video Capture Stick to RPi USB --> RPi USB to Arduino USB --> Arduino Data pin to LED strip Data pin

This is the skeleton. Read the first post again like I said and come back with more doubts.

@invisiblelight Yep that's it

Optionally if your AVR has 2 HDMI outputs you can skip the the HDMI splitter.

that is the thing i want to know, if i want to use the ambilight system ONLY for my led tv and no other hdmi source, than i dont need hdmi splitter, the hdmi cable from my tv goes straight to HDMI to RCA converter and rest setup remains same, am i right? or i can feed the hdmi from my tv straight to pi?

 

[Rick164]

You will need to split the signal as most if not all tv's lack an output HDMI port so you can't only use your TV as it needs to sends its screen data to the rPI.

Basically live capture only works with an AVR or external device like an console / STB as you capture that output HDMI (split it between TV and rPI) and relay that back to the rPi which is running Hyperion, at the moment you need all the extra hardware because the rPI doesn't have any HDMI input connectors (someone is working on it though).

Perfect solution would be capturing the HDMI signal directly (without analog conversion) but one of the main problems with that is HDCP but there's a working concept out there its just hard to do without licensing fees and relatively limited user base, it will come eventually

 

[rafi21]

is this still the best method of having an HDMI input ambient tv display without buying those lightberry/kickstarter packs?

I've already set up adalight using ws2812 leds and an arduino using a PC before discovering that people made a way to use any hdmi input with a raspberry. however all the ones i've found was using 2801 leds and this is first one i've seen that had a workaround for the 2812's.

my only concern is that there are a lot of little devices just to make this work and was looking for a more elegant solution.

and another question: unless its somewhere else in the settings not displayed in the screenshots of this tuturial, how do you tell the hyperion program how many led's you have and the way its configured?

for instance, using ambibox on windows, i was able to set it up so that i have 104 led's and that the first led is in the middle of the bottom row going clockwise, and that the first/last leds of the horizontal strip are "overlaping" with the first/last led's of the vertical strips.
heres a picture to help explain it: http://i.imgur.com/QLOoAkQ.jpg

thanks for your assistance

 

[ixdvc]

and another question: unless its somewhere else in the settings not displayed in the screenshots of this tuturial, how do you tell the hyperion program how many led's you have and the way its configured?

You can use Hypercon to generate a config file and then just drop it on your Pi.

 

[Rick164]

is this still the best method of having an HDMI input ambient tv display without buying those lightberry/kickstarter packs?

There are some new kickstarter projects finishing somewhere this year (http://www.dreamscreentv.com/ / http://ambiscreen.tv/ ) which look promising as they are expected to use HDMI input and no more analog conversion.
Also a open source solution HDMi->HDMI should arrive this year and considering the popularity of Hyperion I have no doubt it will support it, if the commercial solutions can do it so can the open source community

Hyperion just gives you a lot of options (LED types / regular updates / broader device support) which makes it a better option in my opinion.

Also one of the problems with most of the kickstarter projects is that they still use 30 leds p/m strips and not the modern ones like WS2812 or APA102 which can do 60/77/144 leds p/m , not sure if it's about cost reduction but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to do new projects with that few leds.

for instance, using ambibox on windows, i was able to set it up so that i have 104 led's and that the first led is in the middle of the bottom row going clockwise, and that the first/last leds of the horizontal strip are "overlaping" with the first/last led's of the vertical strips.

It can do a start offset but doesn't seem like it can do a per zone offset in HyperCon sadly, overlapping is in it but that's a global percentage.
However in the Hyperion config output file you could manually insert the offsets but that's a bit of hassle.

 

[ixdvc]

Also a open source solution HDMi->HDMI should arrive this year

What is its name?

 

[Rick164]

No name yet, it was posted on the dutch Gathering of Tweakers forum a few months ago with a proof of concept in a few posts earlier.

The developer was looking into how it would communicate with the leds but has been pretty quiet since then, either way it can be done it's just that the rPi hardware makes it very difficult to attach an HDMI input (especially with HDCP) so custom hardware is required.
Can always pick apart the commercial solutions once they are out there if need be

 

[ixdvc]

Sounds interesting. I'm looking forward to it.