Smart backlighting for home cinema and gaming: it’s that easy

If the wall behind your smart TV or gaming monitor lights up with the colors of your favorite series or current level design, it creates an even more wonderful atmosphere. You don’t have to buy a monitor with a built-in LED strip. You can modify effect lighting on an existing device much cheaper and more flexible.

There are complete affordable kits for this purpose. They usually consist of LED strips or flashlights as well as a camera or box with an HDMI socket. The camera or HDMI box records what is playing on the screen and converts the image signals into the colors and brightness of the different LED areas of the lights.

The technology is ready for use quickly. You can stick the LED strip to the back of the screen and place flashlights next to it. You can place the camera on the top edge of the screen and connect the HDMI box to your streaming player or gaming console.

Then you can enjoy the benefits of smart backlighting. It reduces the harsh contrast between a bright screen and a dark room, preventing eye fatigue. Flash on the wall and furniture allows the image to grow beyond the frame. This allows you to immerse yourself more deeply in your favorite movies, series or video games. Depending on the game and retrofit kit, lighting software can recognize important game events and highlight them visually using lighting effects. This reinforces the impression that you are right in the middle of the action.

Different combinations are recommended for video streaming and gaming. Because comparing images via a camera or an HDMI box offers different strengths. It makes sense to choose a manufacturer with many options. This ensures that everything fits together. Large selection of retrofit kits For home cinema And For games The Govee brand, which is active in the smart home lighting space, has developed its own backlighting process, Envisual.

Cross-camera image comparison is the preferred choice for home cinema. The choice of image content that can be processed is the largest. The camera converts everything the screen displays into light signals – regardless of whether an internal TV receiver or an external broadcast player serves as the image source. Additionally, the camera is easily integrated into your TV scene as you do not need to pair it with any device other than the set’s LED strip.

A camera designed to capture the image signal is ideal for live sporting events on TV. It also processes what the internal tuners provide, not just data from external media devices. (Image: Jovi)

Make sure the tape is long enough to reach the edges of the TV. It is an advantage if it lights up with white (RGBW) LEDs as well as red, green and blue (RGB) LEDs. Then more realistic white tones appear. This is important for a television picture because it often consists of many bright areas rather than brightly colored areas. Color reproduction becomes more accurate the more accurately the camera captures the TV screen.

In the Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite For example, there are fast computing devices and software that correct the typical fish-eye view of a camera lens, and thus also take the angles of the TV screen into account when calculating color. The kit includes an RGBW LED strip that covers popular TV sizes from 55 to 65 inches.

If you wish, you can add additional lighting to create a room-filling effect. This can take a special form Parking lights Right next to the TV, but also farther into the room. Govee’s DreamView process also transmits synchronized color signals via a Bluetooth connection Decorative lighting bars On a shelf or to one Light strip on the wall.

With an HDMI box, you can achieve particularly good results while gaming. Adjusting light without delay while changing a lot of image content in quick succession is important here. Because the display changes faster when playing games than when watching TV. Additionally, fans of action-packed multiplayer games sometimes prefer higher refresh rates than the 240Hz refresh rates in streaming video. Processing many individual images requires powerful computing hardware. There is more room for this in the housings of HDMI boxes.

The HDMI box is an advantage when gaming. Its high computational power makes it possible to create particularly complex lighting effects for very fast games. (Image: Jovi)

The boxes receive the picture signal from your computer or gaming console via an HDMI cable, in the same way as a gaming monitor. This means that the light balance captures all image sources even without using a camera. The direct cable connection also makes it easier to accurately analyze image signals and calculate the lighting effects of game events – like a red light when the going gets tough.

The Govee AI Gaming Sync Box uses artificial intelligence to visualize experiences, for example Fortnite, Call of Duty And PUBG. The box is available with LED strips or flashlights Set for common computer monitors And as Adjusted for larger TV screens.

Since you’re usually sitting closer to the screen and wall while gaming compared to streaming from a home cinema, it’s possible to have design options with additional lighting. Like with one LED strips for offices, A large area LED panels Above screen or decorative LED light strips You can provide specially coated backlighting for the side walls of your gaming station.

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