My post about adding backlighting to the TV led to follow-up questions about what it is and what solution I used, so here are the details. I had wanted to set up this kind of backlight, synchronized with the image on the TV, for a long time. I recall my first attempts at this over 10 years ago, but back then the solutions were very DIY and had questionable reliability. Now, however, it’s quite a popular category of home devices, especially with the widespread availability of “smart” LED light strips.
There are a few options for TV backlighting: one involves a camera mounted on the TV that scans the image on the screen and adjusts the backlight accordingly. The second option is more complex in that it processes the video signal itself, which passes through HDMI from the source to the TV. This second method is more reliable and faster, but also significantly more expensive. While writing this note, I thought that it’s a feature that can be built-in right into TVs —and I discovered those TVs do exist.
