Wikipedia
__NOTOC__ Ambilight, short for "ambient lighting", is a lighting system for televisions developed by Philips.
Ambilight creates light effects around the television that correspond to the video content. Philips claims that a "more immersive viewing experience" can result. Ambilight is a lighting system that actively adjusts both brightness and color based upon picture content. Integrated into the television cabinet, Ambilight technology is aimed to enable the viewer to see more picture detail, contrast and color while eliminating on-screen reflections.
Ambilight technology works by projecting light from the rear of the TV cabinet in a very wide range of colors, shades and intensities. Viewers can choose to have Ambilight follow the color and brightness of the programme content – automatically changing with the colors on the screen – or alternatively the light levels and color can be set to match the interior decor or mood in the room. When the television is not on, the unit becomes a lamp, capable of displaying dynamic light patterns.
Ambilight is a feature invented in 2002 by the Philips ASA lab (a central development lab of Philips Consumer Electronics, also responsible for development of flat TV) and Philips Research, both situated in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. These departments worked in parallel: They started from different starting-points, and ended at comparable technologies. Philips Research investigated the application of LED in the home environment. This development resulted in a lighting system that displayed light according to a program (script) that has to be generated for all displayed video content, and which should be translated to the used lamp configuration. Movie directors could use a script to add special effects. The system was demonstrated using multiple light units, spread over the room. The starting point of the ASA lab was the wish to add (white) light units to the cabinet of the flat TV. These light units, lighting the wall around the TV, had to replace the table lamp often placed on top of the bulky CRT TVs. This development resulted in a TV lighting system (based on RGB LED) that reproduces the color and brightness of the content displayed on the TV screen. The concept does not require light-scripts, and is backwards compatible with existing video content. Introduction of this concept was less complicated because it only affects the TV itself. This concept was selected for the Philips Ambilight TVs that have been launched since 2004.