Looking at Bias lighting for my telly...

[struth]

Hoping to see this next week mate

[Gazjam]

Hope to see you there!

[Gazjam]

Got the bias lighting installed last night...
it's good, real good.
It does exactly what they say it does.

Post pics and a full write up soon.

[brian2957]

Aye see it Saturday mate

[struth]

me too....although need to know where

[brian2957]

Aye that would be good Grant . Just follow the light mate

[struth]

[Gazjam]

Right, enough faffing about time for an update.
Apologies for less than brilliant phone pictures...

Backlighting setup installed, it's good, real good. It does exactly what they say it does.
Why does it work? All the theory is here:
http://www.cinemaquestinc.com/blb.htm

Did my research and ordered the Kit from from a company called CinemaQuest in the States.
http://www.cinemaquestinc.com/customhome.htm
Great email response to my (dumb) questions and advised on the right kit for my setup.
Was told that getting things like colour temperature, luminance levels etc was absolutely worth getting spot on.
For flat panel TVs close to the wall they suggested their "IdealLume Panel Light kit"
http://www.cinemaquestinc.com/Ideal-Lume.htm#panelight

This comes with two 6500k fluorescent tubes and all the wiring you need to get it working.
I was advised that this would get the backlighing benefit, but for best aesthetic effect a light on each edge of the TV would be best, so ordered two kits, four tubes in all.

Interesting few hours installing it all, let me tell you about it...

Two of these:


What you get:
Instructions, two lamps, all the wiring you need and various bits 'n bobs to install them. Wall mount, cable ties and double sided tape. Theres not a lot of weight in the tubes, so tape is do-able, though the instructions advise against using tape with Samsung TVs because of the type of black paint they use, and my TV was...yup, a Samsung.


The boy was over to help me set it up, here he's (helpfully) using his foot for scale once I plugged the lamps in to test them.


OK, so whats the best way to install them behind the telly?
As a "fit and forget" kinda guy I didn't want to have to worry about them falling off, so decided to hook cable ties into the ventilation slots in the back of the TV and secure the lamps that way.
Easy peasy right? Just push cable tie through a hole, and hook it round to come out the hole beside it?


Nope! The slots on the back the TV are angled so bit of a nightmare to do it easily. Just my luck...
Well, cable ties were the way to go, fit 'n forget and all that, so I soldiered on. Did I lose 5 hours of my life trying to feed cable ties through..?
No, I unscrewed the back panel off my plasma and fitted them when it was off!

Not as scary as it looks, had some "plasma buzz" on my last telly and I removed the back panel and tightened up all the circuit boards which fixed it. When I had the panel off the big one, I took the opportunity to tighten everything up.

Hooking lamps up to the back of the TV:
Double cable ties looped through ventilation holes.



All installed and working, ready to put TV back on wall:


It works!


Naa, forget that it REALLY works, a much improved picture.
Crisper image, colours were better and blacks were now jet black but you could still make out all subtle detail.
Watched same clip with and without lighting on and it was night and day better.

Wiring it all up:
Each lamp has a male and female Fig-8 power socket so its easy to "daisy-chain" them together. Each has a power on/off switch.
I have them all connected together with all power switches on, plugged in to my Belkin PF30 conditioner which has switchable sockets. Sitting down to watch a movie I just press a button on the front of the Belkin and the lighting comes on. Simples.

Some more pics then some practical considerations based on my own experience that might be useful for anyone going down this road.
Its Movie night!





So, worth the effort and expense then?
Absolutely without a doubt.

I felt going in to this I wanted to to it once and do it right...forget about the hassle of setting it up and just enjoy it.
Maybe not the cheapest way to do it I guess, but worth it for me.
Having discussed it with the guys over at CinemaQuest over email, they say the most important factor is getting as close to 6500K colour temperature as you can, some of the LED striplights you can get on Ebay (which I initially looked at?) were quite a bit off. AV forums are a good source of info for what works and what doesn't and I found them full of great information.
Good bunch of links here:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=av...ial&channel=sb

So I reckon if your TV sits on a stand...
It would be better to stick an Ikea lamp(say) behind it with a true 6500K daylight bulb than get LED striplights from Ebay or whatever that you don't know the colour temp of around 4 edges of your TV.

If its on the wall...
Source some GOOD led striplights as close to 6500K as you can, preferably with a dimmer so you can set the ideal backlighting level for your setup.
10% is the recommended amount and it DOES make a difference to image quality.
You'll know it when you hit the sweet spot.

So absolutely worth it and I'd go further to say that if you enjoy your TV and have invested in a big telly your really missing a trick not trying out some kind of Bias lighting.

My take on it that its like mastering for vinyl and playing it back at home?
At the Studio the movies are created to be as the director intended in "mastering suites", using backlit displays, for colour accuracy and picture quality, similar as mastering for vinyl. Colour grading is a big part of cinematography and the overall film experience.
At home, just as with our hifi's, I reckon the better the reproduction equipment you have the closer you get to that original recording or movie, just as the Director or musician intended.

I reckon if backlighting can get you closer to that original vision then its a great upgrade.

[Ali Tait]

Yep, seen this and it really does improve the picture markedly, well worth it if you've invested in a nice telly.

[DarrenHW]

Nice write up Gary . Your bias lighting looks great in the photo's, I've not had time to investigate lighting any further since my last post however I now have an Oppo 105D and have been offered a deal on an Audiolab 8200X7 that the dealer should be taking as p/x in a couple of weeks which will enable me to use the Oppo as a pre amp, which I'm really looking forward too.

You've suggested using LED strip lights for wall mounting, I'm still working my way through the links you've provided (thank you), so apologies if I just haven't read far enough yet but so far the only reference I've seen to these is either the Antec (which I'm not really interested in) and Apollo lighting which I'm struggling to find, do you have any recommendations?