MediaLight Mk2 Flex TV Bias Lighting Review & Comments

I've had a search but couldn't find an answer (I probably will soon after writing this..), but will these after market bias lighting kits work no matter what the source is?

I mostly use AndroidTV apps installed on the Sony TV I have, so will this work with Plex, YouTube etc... as well as TV?
 
You might be thinking about reactive bias lights, like ambilight. This is different. This is single color and source has no impact at all.

I've had a search but couldn't find an answer (I probably will soon after writing this..), but will these after market bias lighting kits work no matter what the source is?

I mostly use AndroidTV apps installed on the Sony TV I have, so will this work with Plex, YouTube etc... as well as TV?
 
If you have lamps, you have ambient light, so you tick off one of the benefits of bias lighting. Glare could be an issue, and the bulbs are likely much warmer than 6500K, but it is better than watching in the dark in terms of eye strain.

Warm white 30w LEDs in a room painted dark grey. Plus the TV sits forward of the wall by a few feet, whereas the lamps are right in the corner, so no glare on the screen.
 
If your TV is calibrated, it may look too cool under warmer lights. If it's not calibrated, chances are that the manufacturer has it preset at a warmer color temperature by default. They do this because most stores and homes don't have D65 lighting, and since the lighting impacts the perceived white point of the display, it would look more natural out of the box at a warmer temp. So, what you see isn't what was intended, but it's also less jarring than it would be if it was presented with a D65 white point.

This is not entirely different from mobile devices that adjust to the white point of the ambient light in the room (TrueTone displays from Apple, for example), except that the TV doesn't adapt to the ambient light in the room, nor should it (which, probably means that some TV manufacturer will offer it in the future! 😛)

Warm white 30w LEDs in a room painted dark grey. Plus the TV sits forward of the wall by a few feet, whereas the lamps are right in the corner, so no glare on the screen.
 
This is not entirely different from mobile devices that adjust to the white point of the ambient light in the room (TrueTone displays from Apple, for example), except that the TV doesn't adapt to the ambient light in the room, nor should it (which, probably means that some TV manufacturer will offer it in the future! 😛)

Or the past :D
 
There is a 0.5m extension cord that you can use to connect between the LED strip and the on/off toggle switch if you need additional length. However, you shouldn’t need it because ideally you’ll be powering the LEDs straight from the TV's USB 3.0 port. You will also use less power if you omit it.

I don't want to come across as a know it all, but as an electrical and electronics person this information is just wrong.

(I'm assuming this extension lead is just wires and doesn't have any electronics inside it drawing power)

How much power would a 0.5m extension cord take at 5V DC?

Lets assume this product consumes 2.5A at 5V. Power consumption is 2.5 * 5 = 12.5W. Internal resistance of device = 5 / 2.5 = 2 ohms.

Recommended wire thickness is 0.75mm square. Resistance is 0.0115 ohms for 0.5m. There's 2.5A passing through the wire, so dissipated power (in this 0.5m of extension lead) is P = I^2 * R = 2.5*2.5 * 0.0115 = 0.071875W.

It would take 1.588 years to use 1KWh, which is what, 25p? or 16p a year?

So yes it does use more power, 0.575% more power, which is really, really insignificant. Speaker cables waste more power. Kettle leads. Your TV power lead, etc, etc.
 
Not quite the same thing. What the OP is referring to is the display device adjusting the colour temperature of the displayed image, to offset the effects of the ambient lighting colour temperature. This would require a sophisticated sensor and algorithm in the TV to achieve. There's also a number of issues to overcome to do this successfully.

What Dolby Vision IQ does is adjust the luminance attribute of the image, to offset the effect of ambient lighting brightness levels. It only adjusts the part that's beyond the TVs native capabilities too. So if the TV has a peak white light output of 800 nits, any part of the image that is graded to be above this is 'adjusted' by the Dolby Vision IQ process.

Paul
 
I don't want to come across as a know it all, but as an electrical and electronics person this information is just wrong.

(I'm assuming this extension lead is just wires and doesn't have any electronics inside it drawing power)

How much power would a 0.5m extension cord take at 5V DC?

Lets assume this product consumes 2.5A at 5V. Power consumption is 2.5 * 5 = 12.5W. Internal resistance of device = 5 / 2.5 = 2 ohms.

Recommended wire thickness is 0.75mm square. Resistance is 0.0115 ohms for 0.5m. There's 2.5A passing through the wire, so dissipated power (in this 0.5m of extension lead) is P = I^2 * R = 2.5*2.5 * 0.0115 = 0.071875W.

It would take 1.588 years to use 1KWh, which is what, 25p? or 16p a year?

So yes it does use more power, 0.575% more power, which is really, really insignificant. Speaker cables waste more power. Kettle leads. Your TV power lead, etc, etc.
So you use less power if you omit the extension cable?
 
I've always wanted to play around with this sort of thing. Strictly speaking it is verboten in a projection room, though to be honest all sense of decency goes out the window the moment you're talking about projection and HDR in the same sentence, so why not have a play.

Bought a 5m set to run around my PJ screen (top and two sides, but I'll probably hack it to be just the two sides; I've always wanted to experiment with this (my PJ screen - Screen Research - actually has a channel round the screen frame back specifically for this pupose).

Nice kit of bits, all goes together well. I've cropped the view of the top as my screen is top/bottom masking, and when I mask down it is weird having big wide black bars top and bottom, and it throws too much onto the ceiling. Still trying to figure out if I like or dislike it. It definitely notably changes the way the eye reacts to the image. It's nice having the little remote as you can A/B quickly between levels and on/off.
PXL_20201016_162640474.jpg


I think the UK seller may want to review the UK legal position on supplying a US-only charger in the box, without CE marking, as I don't think it is favourable... To be honest they're probably better off leaving it out of the box and selling as USB 2.4A only.

When can we expect UK stock availability?
Mine just arrived today after ordering on Sunday. When I chased my order yesterday the seller mentioned they had some stock in customs that was about to be released.
 
There may have been a USA adapter adapter or two in recent orders because they were so low in stock that I sent USA units. In most cases, we open to remove the adapter, but I may have sent a couple out with the USA adapter still inside (rather than opening, removing, and replacing the wrap and stickers).

If you need stock now, Flanders Scientific has them in the EU. UK site should have them by the end of next week as long as our shipment arrives in the USA on Monday or Tuesday. I'm shipping from the USA again because, last time, DHL and Fedex from China to UK took about 3 weeks. From NY, it's about 2-3 days.

UK units don't usually include any adapter, but the dealer has a UK adapter in stock for a nominal fee.

Given the choice of including the adapter or not, the international dealers preferred to not include the adapter because it meant increase the price substantially to cover shipping. I believe it.

For international orders from the USA, the UK adapter alone usually increases shipping costs by about $15. Many of our lights weigh almost exactly 8oz in a mailer without the adapter. Add the adapter and it's over 9oz and double the rate.

We will smooth things out over the next week or two and this will buy some time for our shipments for the peak season.

BTW, not verboten, but certainly less common and many of the reasons for using it are less of an issue with projection. Stewart Screen Excellence even made a bias light for their screens. Not sure if they still sell it, though.

I've always wanted to play around with this sort of thing. Strictly speaking it is verboten in a projection room, though to be honest all sense of decency goes out the window the moment you're talking about projection and HDR in the same sentence, so why not have a play.

Bought a 5m set to run around my PJ screen (top and two sides, but I'll probably hack it to be just the two sides; I've always wanted to experiment with this (my PJ screen - Screen Research - actually has a channel round the screen frame back specifically for this pupose).

Nice kit of bits, all goes together well. I've cropped the view of the top as my screen is top/bottom masking, and when I mask down it is weird having big wide black bars top and bottom, and it throws too much onto the ceiling. Still trying to figure out if I like or dislike it. It definitely notably changes the way the eye reacts to the image. It's nice having the little remote as you can A/B quickly between levels and on/off.
View attachment 1382807

I think the UK seller may want to review the UK legal position on supplying a US-only charger in the box, without CE marking, as I don't think it is favourable... To be honest they're probably better off leaving it out of the box and selling as USB 2.4A only.


Mine just arrived today after ordering on Sunday. When I chased my order yesterday the seller mentioned they had some stock in customs that was about to be released.
 
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Yes and no.

Length of the strip has some impact on this, but the strip is less efficient with the extension attached. So, while it might be drawing less power, you are losing more lumens. Let's just say it draws 2% less power with the extension attached, you might lose 5% of brightness. Most users are dimming in the 20-40% range, so reducing the maximum luminance slightly is not of much consequence.

The limitations of 5v USB power.

For brighter strips outside of bias lighting our upcoming 24v strips are more versatile.


So you use less power if you omit the extension cable?
 
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For international orders from the USA, the UK adapter alone usually increases shipping costs by about $15. Many of our lights weigh almost exactly 8oz in a mailer without the adapter. Add the adapter and it's over 9oz and double the rate.
Ah, makes sense. For what it is worth, there are UK adapters on the market that don't has such a large shipping footprint as they allow the 3rd earth terminal to retract into the body or otherwise fold, though like most things it probably ends up being a tradeoff due to the adapter being more expensive! uk usb 2.4a folding - Google Search
Just make sure it follows UK safety standards - the use of this plug in Hong Kong also has seen some odd interpretations of what is required from their Chinese neighbours...!

BTW, not verboten, but certainly less common and many of the reasons for using it are less of an issue with projection. Stewart Screen Excellence even made a bias light for their screens. Not sure if they still sell it, though.
I've seen a few screens with it as options I think. As I have top / bottom electric masking though it does present an added complexity in that the lit area is larger or smaller than the sides. I had considered also using something addressable like Neopixels or similar to be able to configure which LEDs are in use to customise the amount of LEDs to the screen masking size, but it's much more hassle. This appeals due to simplicity.

For brighter strips outside of bias lighting our upcoming 24v strips are more versatile.
Will that be available as strip only? I have remote / IP 24V dimmer electronics already for other LEDs in the room, would be useful if it was.
 
I'm sorry that we couldn't revive that dimmer. It doesn't seem fried because the flash that you saw indicates that it's cycling. You confirmed that the IR remote was working too.....

Was the dimmer, odd. But thank you again for the super fast shipping to Germany and the new dimmer works. Great customer service.

Installed this yesterday and so far so good; I made a little video here with a HDR demo running and me changing the brightness; sorry I tried to capture the different brightnesses and in the end also switch it off and go 100%. And yes you can see the TV reflect of the white back wall towards the front in the beginning when the TV shows all red; I think this was with 10% brightness. The iphone changes brightness dynamically constantly so it hard to capture how bright/dark it actually is.


My super quick review:
Installation is easy enough and the video on youtube helps if you want to do 3 side installation.
100% brightness is madness but at around 50% it is fine and I think the sweetspot is around 30% for HDR content. The youtube video with 'set your medialight brightness reference video" hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAwrN6xiqJg is not HDR and I notice a huge increase in brightness between normal HD and HDR content even when setting the LG to 100% brightness (OLED) in normal HD content. Maybe a HDR version can be created?
Contrast and Color reproduction: I honestly don't see much contrast change or 'hey the picture looks better' cause I still am blown away by the LG C8 and good HDR content in 4k :).
Yes color accuracy might be more accurate but I never calibrated my TV and use the 'good' settings the TV comes with and am 'warm' biased anyway.
Eye Strain: Yes, this will help and is much better then my 'orange' light/lamp to the right of the TV which would normally be on when I watch movies in the 'dark' and the light from behind the TV looks good and increases the atmosphere. I really need to get the popcorn smell though into my living room...
Generally: For the price, ease of use and help with eye strain when watching in a dark room movies well worth the investment ;) .
 
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It will come with a DC barrel adapter, AC adapter (UK version too lol) and remote, but you can just cut off the barrel adapter and use a single color 8mm LED strip connector to connect to any other kind of wiring.

When I was in China last year (fortunately, I went in late October 2019, before everything went nuts in the world), I found a USB adapter that worked everywhere and it folded down to a very compact size! But it was a travel adapter and involved inserting round plugs into the UK sockets and, yes, there was a 3rd ground terminal that extended out. It was almost as small as our US adapter.

I liked the idea from a shipping perspective, but I didn't like the idea of it the more I looked at it. We test our LEDs and PCBs to exacting standards, and it seemed really incongruous to say "stick this round plug into a rectangular hole."

Most people are powering from the TV, so we probably could get away without the adapter in the USA, but the #1 use for it is that it allows people to identify problems with their TV's USB ports. If the lights work with the adapter but don't work reliably with the TV then there may be an issue with the stability of the power from the TV (output, line noise, etc.)




Ah, makes sense. For what it is worth, there are UK adapters on the market that don't has such a large shipping footprint as they allow the 3rd earth terminal to retract into the body or otherwise fold, though like most things it probably ends up being a tradeoff due to the adapter being more expensive! uk usb 2.4a folding - Google Search
Just make sure it follows UK safety standards - the use of this plug in Hong Kong also has seen some odd interpretations of what is required from their Chinese neighbours...!


I've seen a few screens with it as options I think. As I have top / bottom electric masking though it does present an added complexity in that the lit area is larger or smaller than the sides. I had considered also using something addressable like Neopixels or similar to be able to configure which LEDs are in use to customise the amount of LEDs to the screen masking size, but it's much more hassle. This appeals due to simplicity.


Will that be available as strip only? I have remote / IP 24V dimmer electronics already for other LEDs in the room, would be useful if it was.
 
We have new installation and product overview videos, which were filmed and presented by respected UK-based producer and colorist and film-production educator. I'm getting it out to our dealer sites now for translation, but it should also be up on the UK site next week and up on the USA site by the end of the weekend.

Glad that we solved the dimmer issue. I included a different brand in the box as well, in case it was some other cause.

Was the dimmer, odd. But thank you again for the super fast shipping to Germany and the new dimmer works. Great customer service.

Installed this yesterday and so far so good; I made a little video here with a HDR demo running and me changing the brightness; sorry I tried to capture the different brightnesses and in the end also switch it off and go 100%. And yes you can see the TV reflect of the white back wall towards the front in the beginning when the TV shows all red; I think this was with 10% brightness. The iphone changes brightness dynamically constantly so it hard to capture how bright/dark it actually is.


My super quick review:
Installation is easy enough and the video on youtube helps if you want to do 3 side installation.
100% brightness is madness but at around 50% it is fine and I think the sweetspot is around 30% for HDR content. The youtube video with 'set your medialight brightness reference video" hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAwrN6xiqJg is not HDR and I notice a huge increase in brightness between normal HD and HDR content even when setting the LG to 100% brightness (OLED) in normal HD content. Maybe a HDR version can be created?
Contrast and Color reproduction: I honestly don't see much contrast change or 'hey the picture looks better' cause I still am blown away by the LG C8 and good HDR content in 4k :).
Yes color accuracy might be more accurate but I never calibrated my TV and use the 'good' settings the TV comes with and am 'warm' biased anyway.
Eye Strain: Yes, this will help and is much better then my 'orange' light/lamp to the right of the TV which would normally be on when I watch movies in the 'dark' and the light from behind the TV looks good and increases the atmosphere. I really need to get the popcorn smell though into my living room...
Generally: For the price, ease of use and help with eye strain when watching in a dark room movies well worth the investment ;) .
 
Set up, at 80% for photo but I like the 20% so far. Calibrated B6 although that was a while back so may have drifted. Great customer service the UK site said if I mess up they will replace whatever I've done wrong and laugh at me :)
 

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They are harsher than our USA customer support. In the USA, we only laugh at people who cut the strip from the power end. :rotfl: But, yes, we cover botched installations and if your dog eats the remote, we send a replacement along with chew stick.

Set up, at 80% for photo but I like the 20% so far. Calibrated B6 although that was a while back so may have drifted. Great customer service the UK site said if I mess up they will replace whatever I've done wrong and laugh at me :)
 
It will come with a DC barrel adapter, AC adapter (UK version too lol) and remote, but you can just cut off the barrel adapter and use a single color 8mm LED strip connector to connect to any other kind of wiring.
Look forward to seeing them come available.

When I was in China last year (fortunately, I went in late October 2019, before everything went nuts in the world), I found a USB adapter that worked everywhere and it folded down to a very compact size! But it was a travel adapter and involved inserting round plugs into the UK sockets and, yes, there was a 3rd ground terminal that extended out. It was almost as small as our US adapter.

I liked the idea from a shipping perspective, but I didn't like the idea of it the more I looked at it. We test our LEDs and PCBs to exacting standards, and it seemed really incongruous to say "stick this round plug into a rectangular hole."
Yeah, unlikely to fly. There are some strict regs on the UK design. Even how far in the pins are from the side of the plastic mouldings, which some plugs from China that look otherwise OK fail on.
They've got some great stuff down at the markets in Shenzhen etc, very innovative, and only half of it is lethal... :p. There's a guy on youtube called "big Clive" who euphemistically calls some of them "deathdapters"... His videos are always worth a laugh. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=deathdapter+big+clive
 
can i ask on a 55" wall mounted tv would you recommend all round or omit the bottom and what length ?
thanks
 
Our recommendation hinges on what you have beneath the TV. If you have a sound bar or centre channel speaker, or other objects that would cause reflections or be distracting, you may not want lights on the bottom. Only you can decide. Both work.

Good rule of thumb:

Take the screen size in inches and:

divide by 15 for required 4-sided length in metres.
divide by 23 for required 3-sided length in metres.

This works with any strips, not just MediaLight, lol.

If you are in-between sizes, you can either play the lights further than the recommended 2" from the edge or size up. If you get 2.65m, then you'd want to get 3m and trim it down.

With 4 sides, every inch that you move from from the edge gives you another .2m to play with. BTW, I know that mixing imperial and metrics is one of those awful American things like "gotten" and not believing in the germ theory of disease, so flame away. 😛

Anyway, plugging in 55", and you'd either want 3m for 3 sides or 4m for 4 sides.

can i ask on a 55" wall mounted tv would you recommend all round or omit the bottom and what length ?
thanks
 
Our recommendation hinges on what you have beneath the TV. If you have a sound bar or centre channel speaker, or other objects that would cause reflections or be distracting, you may not want lights on the bottom. Only you can decide. Both work.

Good rule of thumb:

Take the screen size in inches and:

divide by 15 for required 4-sided length in metres.
divide by 23 for required 3-sided length in metres.

This works with any strips, not just MediaLight, lol.

If you are in-between sizes, you can either play the lights further than the recommended 2" from the edge or size up. If you get 2.65m, then you'd want to get 3m and trim it down.

With 4 sides, every inch that you move from from the edge gives you another .2m to play with. BTW, I know that mixing imperial and metrics is one of those awful American things like "gotten" and not believing in the germ theory of disease, so flame away. 😛

Anyway, plugging in 55", and you'd either want 3m for 3 sides or 4m for 4 sides.
Thanks looks like it’s 4m then as nothing on the wall or near tv
 
Does anyone use this kind of bias lighting with a less than ideal TV set-up, ie in the corner of a room or alcove?
 
Does anyone use this kind of bias lighting with a less than ideal TV set-up, ie in the corner of a room or alcove?
Yes, in a corner under (open) stairs. It's not this product, just a cheaper Luminoodle one so not necessarily the correct balance but it does the job. This product seems more versatile since you can adjust the dimming - whereas with mine you pretty much control that by taking a stab at how long a length you buy!

The biggest disadvantage of the strip is the TV manufacturers poor implementation of USB ports, which means the strip tends to come on at random times when the TV is in standby. Seen it with Samsung and Sony. Although I've recently found you can solve this by purchasing a USB on/off switch intended for Raspberry PI's.
 

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