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Review: The Philips Hue Play Sync Box Matches Your Hue Lights to What's Playing on Your Apple TV
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Funny, I wish my Hue Lightstrip and Extension would do that.
Now, I'd have to buy a few of their play bar things, and this box.
Have you tried? It works surprisingly well and changes subtly and slowly to match the scenes. We like it a lot! It's much more immersive and cinema-like than just dimming the lights...
For the price the lack of Dolby Vision support its a major drawback. Most content on Apple TV is already Dolby Vision.
I guess for gamers will be fine.
I guess for gamers will be fine.
I've not tried this, and I don't doubt that you like it. Maybe it's cool, but at the risk of being pedantic, how can it be more cinema like if actual cinemas don't ever do this?
Personally I've found that any light added to the room when there's a movie on damages the picture quality however subtle (particularly when using a projector, although LED screens suffer too). Standard white lights wash out the colour, and coloured ones mess with the actual onscreen colours creating an unintended tint. I'd wager this is especially true with something like this, which factors in the colours that most occupy the screen and changes to that, thereby destroying the purity of whatever other colours are on the screen. That kinda makes more sense to me. This strikes me as gimmick-y, and I'm a big fan of properly lit spaces, so I'm prone to good lighting ideas.
But maybe that's just it. I might just be a cinema snob, and most people really don't care. I dunno...
Hoping this plays nice with the 2nd HDMI out of my receiver so I don’t have any HDR downgrade effects.
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I don’t disagree. I watch a lot of concerts though and the lights are awesome for that, Hue Disco in particular. If this could mirror the experience better, I’m pumped.
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I don’t disagree. I watch a lot of concerts though and the lights are awesome for that, Hue Disco in particular. If this could mirror the experience better, I’m pumped.
My workaround for this last year was just using the Hue Sync app on my computer and played games/videos over HDMI. I found it to be pretty immersive. It was more fun in movies like Spiderman or fast paced games compared to a tv show. You could select how bright and aggressive the colors are.
I recall this feature was supposed to launch with the Xbox One but never released.
I recall this feature was supposed to launch with the Xbox One but never released.
It does support HDR10! Not HDR10+ or Dolby Vision though. These are 3 different formats of HDR.
Philips do their their several really good models with the Ambilight designation. Unfortunately my plasma broke just before their OLED was released, I ended up going for an LG model instead.
With regards to Dolby Vision, I love it ever since I seen it on my Oppo player, but Apple’s TV plus efforts are the best I’ve ever seen on internet streaming. I don’t understand why they made this into a switcher. Surely you simply integrate it either inline or to preserve DV use the second or third output from the AVR.
If it changes like that you are overdoing it. Less is more. Take a look at the original ambilight by Philips. It’s subtle and just enhancing the experience.
Honestly, I can’t imagine anything more distracting, or more harmful to the quality of video, than constantly changing colored lights. Heck, why don’t you just purchase a nice disco ball and save yourself a lot of money.
You seem to lack a lot of imagination? Have you actually experience watching a movie with Ambilight?
I have none of these issues with around 25 Hue products. I recommend resyncing everything.
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They need a smaller and cheaper version with just 1 HDMI input for people with receivers/sound bars.
I bought and tried a similar strip light product by 'govee' not too long ago. Looks fun in the videos but found it very distracting and unpleasant while watching tv and movies. Might be fun for parties but even for iTunes it got tiring after about 30 minutes or so.
It's one of the Ikea globe lights (FADO) with a Hue bulb inside. They're great for Hue bulbs.
This is the higher setting. There's less shifting on the subtle setting and the colors linger for longer. I'll see if I can get a video for you later tonight/tomorrow morning.
Complete FAIL due to lack of Dolby Vision support! Every TV you buy should have DV in it, it required dedicated HW! HDR10+ support would be nice too, but they can probably add that via firmware update, maybe.
got his about a week ago...well worth it if you have the money, correct lights and right room setup...the lights are not distracting at all, you can control brightest and intensity, tweak it to your liking...main issue for me is sync dropping, it happens a few times during a movie or gaming...I have it set to dim if it loses connection, which is much better than lights just going off...no Dolby and HDR+ does suck, but it‘s not a deal breaker for me, it down grades TV to 4K 60hz (I’m hoping they can fix this with a software update down the road)...bottom line is when it‘s working perfectly and like it should, it’s really AWESOME and immersive
Yeah, as others have mentioned, Philips do a few of their own TVs which have the rear LED lighting built-in and are also capable of controlling additional hue lights via the hub.
I agree that to work effectively and not be a distraction, you really need the additional Hue lights to be dedicated and optimally positioned, rather than just use a table lamp and your ceiling light for example. Also, because they provide a wide spread of a single colour (at any one time) there's not much detail in the effect they provide on their own.
The rear lights are what really adds something. Because they're multiple LEDs around the edge of the rear of the TV each one can be a different colour so the overall lighting thrown onto the back wall is a much more tuned to the actual picture on your screen. Of course there's no radial resolution to it, but if you get an explosion spreading out from the centre of your screen, you'll get that same explosion spreading out across the wall. And it isn't gimmicky or distracting, it really does bring a new level of immersion whether you're watching a high-adrenaline action movie, a natural history documentary or even the news. After a while you sort of don't even notice it (in a good way), but turn it off and watching TV suddenly seems a much lesser experience when it's restricted to edges of the 50" (or whatever) screen in front of you. YMMV.
You're not limited to Philips TVs either, there's DIY rear-lighting kits available that are 10 minutes work to install (and I think actually look better than then built-in Philips ones, plus you can use any TV). I've used DreamScreen in the past and would strongly recommend it (though I don't think it supports additional Hue lights). There's also DIY kits running on stuff like Raspberry Pi.
I can't find the original tweet, but the below gives quite an extreme example of what you can achieve which is a bit more inspiring than what's shown in the review above. Bear in mind that with more relaxed viewing material, the transitions will be much gentler and so will the lighting effect!
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Haven't tried it beyond the hue sync app on my computer and its pretty bad on there with transitions.
I like a constant bright white background for tv viewing. Least distractions and improves "immersion".