[fusionwerks]

ok, so this is my first post and not sure if I put it in the right place...
I have been considering doing an Ambilight clone. Right now I am leaning toward Hyperion since I want to run it off my Pi.
I have explored the different setups (hyperion, boblight, adalight) and I have seen all the videos on youtube... however, none of them show what the setup looks like when there are letterboxes on the movie you are watching. almost all of the movies I watch are in this format and I don't want to resize them to fit and cut stuff off. I know there are border detections for them, but before I pull the trigger and spend the time and effort to build it, I want to know what its going to look like. Can anyone share a video or something with me showing me what it looks like running a movie in letterbox?

[illiac4]

Use Hyperion it has blackborder detection. Hyperion uses almost zero CPU. I have used boblightbefore but am now using Hyperion from very beginning. It is far the best ambilight clone for my opinion. It also has superion config tool and some tools for android where you can see realtime shnages to the settings.
So if you are on x64 hardware or. rpi use ws2801 and arduino nano (adalight). On rpi you do not need arduino.
Nano link http://www.ebay.com/itm/HOT-SALE-USB-Nan...19f7c5cdc4
or. http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Leonardo-Pro...54062a948d The last one is a little faster if you are using a lot of leds.
Also both need a little modified .pde from Adalight or. at least the ATmega32U4 one.

[Memphiz]

iirc hyperion even can act as boblight server - so it should be usable with the official boblight addon...

[fusionwerks]

I would like to do it all off the pi that is running kodi. if I do that I wont need any arduino or the parts you linked to right?

[illiac4]

Right. you will need a separate 5V5A power supply (depends on the number of leds) and ws2801 leds strips. I'd buy leds something like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/1M-32LEDS-32-IC-...3ce5867a0d

Installation on openelec RPI build is super simple and is described on hyperion git site.

[Memphiz]

edit: nvm ...