[graecus]

Hello,
I have a pretty basic question,
which one of these led strips do I need for boblight?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5M-48-LEDs-16-Pi...4861e90319

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5M-WS2801-Blcak-...51b16eb26d

[soder]

I've just updated the Windows version of "Boblight Config Maker" addressing a minor bug for users that ran into the “1.0 is an invalid float” error message when creating a conf file. I totally forgot about the decimal point to be different in other countries. My apologies.

I think I found a bug. http://piclair.com/mdg7j

That is not correct for the start. hscan should be 0 33,3 and NOT hscan 33,3 66,7

BTW, got some question for boblight. If a movie is not 16:9, but with black on top and bottom, does boblight automatic understand this, and get "5%" from the movie picture, or do I need to use a % that will get the movie picture even with a lot of black up and down?

Also, since the TV screen is 16:9, 5% of the width is not the same distance as 5% of the height. Should the grab zoom for the sided be less % than the % of the top and bottom?

/Söder

[Bub4]

graecus,

I use WS2801 chip based Pixel Strands and it works fine.


soder,

for most of my 21:9 and 4:3 content boblight understand the black bars and it works.

[Bub4]

Memphiz,

* Interpolation is a setting for a boblightd output device, when it's on it will interpolate between the last two writes of a client, I suggest turning it off in the xbmc addon.

may I ask why you suggest to disable?
Any special reason? I'm asking because I have quite good experience (or rather better feeling) when it is turned on in TV shows.
...Makes multiple & rapid scene changes more comfortable

Appreciate the ability to set individual settings - Thanks for that!!

[soder]

I got a lightpack from Woodenshark too, and I use a custom OpenELEC HTPC with XBMC and boblight addon.

I got no problem to having it light up, and after some reading the first days, I also had "no problem" with creating a working .conf when I understood how the hscan and vscan worked.

I got some questions here, I hope someone that know more then me can answer.

As I said, I use a single pack of Lightpack from Woodenshark. After some reading, I use these settings for my three colors in the .conf-file (this is the only place to do calibrations for each color specific?)

Code:

[color]
name        red
rgb            FF0000
gamma        1.8
adjust        0.7
blacklevel    0.0

[color]
name        grn
rgb            00FF00
gamma        1.8
adjust        1.0
blacklevel    0.0

[color]
name        blu
rgb            0000FF
gamma        1.9
adjust        0.7
blacklevel    0.0

Then in the addon in XBMC I got these settings:
Speed: 40.00
Autospeed: 4.00
Interpolation: None
Saturation: 1.10
Value: 1.30
Threshold: 18

Can someone please say if there are some settings I should change? I think I got pretty good colors, not changing to much and so on, but if someone knows something, please share.

Also, the grab zones I use is for two lights on each side hscan 15% and for the 4 top lights (and 2 bottom) I use vscan 20%.

One question I got is if I need to think of movies that use the black bars, or if boblight only grab from the "active" part of the screen?

Thanks.

/Söder

[Hansaplast]

I think I found a bug. http://piclair.com/mdg7j

That is not correct for the start. hscan should be 0 33,3 and NOT hscan 33,3 66,7

BTW, got some question for boblight. If a movie is not 16:9, but with black on top and bottom, does boblight automatic understand this, and get "5%" from the movie picture, or do I need to use a % that will get the movie picture even with a lot of black up and down?

Also, since the TV screen is 16:9, 5% of the width is not the same distance as 5% of the height. Should the grab zoom for the sided be less % than the % of the top and bottom?

/Söder

I think you might be right, I'll look into it. I think (seeing your screenshot) that hscan should be 66.7 100.

I'm unfortunately not that familiar with the inner workings of Boblight. I think it actually takes the 5% of the movie, not the black bars. I'd have to test that and find some video that has black bars top/bottom or left/right. I have not tested with zooming yet either.

Taking a different % (lower) for the width sounds like a good thing to experiment with if you want horizontal and vertical to be identical.

[soder]

I think I found a bug. http://piclair.com/mdg7j

That is not correct for the start. hscan should be 0 33,3 and NOT hscan 33,3 66,7

BTW, got some question for boblight. If a movie is not 16:9, but with black on top and bottom, does boblight automatic understand this, and get "5%" from the movie picture, or do I need to use a % that will get the movie picture even with a lot of black up and down?

Also, since the TV screen is 16:9, 5% of the width is not the same distance as 5% of the height. Should the grab zoom for the sided be less % than the % of the top and bottom?

/Söder

I think you might be right, I'll look into it. I think (seeing your screenshot) that hscan should be 66.7 100.

I'm unfortunately not that familiar with the inner workings of Boblight. I think it actually takes the 5% of the movie, not the black bars. I'd have to test that and find some video that has black bars top/bottom or left/right. I have not tested with zooming yet either.

Taking a different % (lower) for the width sounds like a good thing to experiment with if you want horizontal and vertical to be identical.

hscan 0 33.3 was right for me in that screenshot, since that was how my setup was, and wasn't correct to your picture in the program.

Actually, I've change not that my "start", first light, is down to the right from back (down left from the front). That way it's correct to what is clockwise if using the app for android with boblight. I just took my L10 in my conf and made it L01 and my L09 I made L02 and so on. Works great now.

Still wonder about the black bars. Both in movies with hard coded black, and movies that just is thinner and leaving the TV to show the black bars.

If Boblight get like say 5% of the movie (not the TV) then the 5% will be different for many movies).

/Söder

[Hansaplast]

Hello,
I have a pretty basic question,
which one of these led strips do I need for boblight?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5M-48-LEDs-16-Pi...4861e90319

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5M-WS2801-Blcak-...51b16eb26d

I tried looking at your links but eBay report "Not Found".

In general:
I see quite a lot of people working with the WS2801.
I myself have used WS2812 (also referred to as WS2811).

You do not want any analog LEDs.

In an article (link) I do explain some of the [basic] differences between different LED types, but not specific for boblight. But I'm far from an expert ...

[M3Rocket]

Can someone please say if there are some settings I should change? I think I got pretty good colors, not changing to much and so on, but if someone knows something, please share.

Many settings like gamma, adjust, saturation, etc. are setup dependent. There is no one "right" config for those values. For instance, I have a Plasma that have really natural colors, and the default gamma settings on my LP's are too bright and too saturated, so I toned it down. After a lot of experimentation, I have good matching for blue and green, but only OK matching for red. I suspect the LED's in the LP are better matched to LCD TV's.

Also, the grab zones I use is for two lights on each side hscan 15% and for the 4 top lights (and 2 bottom) I use vscan 20%.

One question I got is if I need to think of movies that use the black bars, or if boblight only grab from the "active" part of the screen?

Boblight automatically grabs colors from the actual pixels based on the reported dimensions of the media file. Therefore, it does "ignore" black bars. In fact, the black bars are typically artificially generated by XBMC to show the movie in in it's native aspect ratio.

[Hansaplast]

For those interested;

Boblight Config Maker update (1.2)

Fixed a minor bug in my "Boblight Config Maker" (thanks Soder for catching that!), so v1.2 is available for Windows, MacOS X and Linux.

Ambilight / Boblight Test Video

I also uploaded a test video I threw together for my own testing. It's 1080p and runs for about 2+ minutes.
The MP4 file is pretty small (1.8 Mb), and I found it very helpful when testing different boblight settings.

Feel free to view and/or download it from my website where you can find it in my article (sorry, my website is setup so direct linking to a file is not allowed, link). I've also posted the video on YouTube.

The demo shows basic colors, color fading, large blocks, smaller blocks, vertical and horizontal lines (different size), and a rotating light beam on a black background.

If you decide to repost the video elsewhere, please mention the source (my website) ...

[Hansaplast]

For who is interested, I wrote a rather long article how I did my setup with WS2812/WS2811 LED strips under OpenElec. (English link, Dutch link)
Hope someone will benefit from it

[soder]

For those interested;

Boblight Config Maker update (1.2)

Fixed a minor bug in my "Boblight Config Maker" (thanks Soder for catching that!), so v1.2 is available for Windows, MacOS X and Linux.

Ambilight / Boblight Test Video

I also uploaded a test video I threw together for my own testing. It's 1080p and runs for about 2+ minutes.
The MP4 file is pretty small (1.8 Mb), and I found it very helpful when testing different boblight settings.

Feel free to view and/or download it from my website where you can find it in my article (sorry, my website is setup so direct linking to a file is not allowed, link). I've also posted the video on YouTube.

The demo shows basic colors, color fading, large blocks, smaller blocks, vertical and horizontal lines (different size), and a rotating light beam on a black background.

If you decide to repost the video elsewhere, please mention the source (my website) ...

About using . or , in the conf-file? Does it matter? Also, for settings like "Debug". Is the correct way to use "Debug off" or "Debug false". Does it matter?

/Söder

[Hansaplast]

As far as I can see on the boblight github page: they use on or off for the debug parameter.

The decimal separator is still confusing to me.
It seems that most boblight setups use the locale of the computer you're running it on.
I guess this could cause issue when you're creating your conf file on a computer with a locale that uses a comma, to then run it on an XBMC box that uses a period in their locale. But so far I cannot confirm this (both machines in my case use the US locale, a period).
See also this (old) bug report on gitgub.
Would be nice to hear some feedback of users that actually use a comma in their conf file.

[soder]

As far as I can see on the boblight github page: they use on or off for the debug parameter.

The decimal separator is still confusing to me.
It seems that most boblight setups use the locale of the computer you're running it on.
I guess this could cause issue when you're creating your conf file on a computer with a locale that uses a comma, to then run it on an XBMC box that uses a period in their locale. But so far I cannot confirm this (both machines in my case use the US locale, a period).
See also this (old) bug report on gitgub.
Would be nice to hear some feedback of users that actually use a comma in their conf file.

I use comma in my conf and it works. But I don't know if the setting is used, but I get no errors.

Using OpenELEC and XBMC with central Europe as locale I think, but use English as main language.

/Söder

[soder]

Boblight automatically grabs colors from the actual pixels based on the reported dimensions of the media file. Therefore, it does "ignore" black bars. In fact, the black bars are typically artificially generated by XBMC to show the movie in in it's native aspect ratio.

The bad thing is, when the black bars are coded in the video. I'm right now watching a program in 4:3 (but the video is 1024x576) and the lights on the side of my TV is completely off.

EDIT: But...I also don't know if I would have wanted the lights to be on. =)

/Söder