Philips Hue Screen Sync

Discussion in 'Home Theater PCs & Equipment' started by Aix., May 23, 2019.

  1. Aix.

    Aix. [H]ard|Gawd

    Sep 30, 2010
    No idea if this fits in this subforum but here goes:

    Been messing around with lighting recently and have been enjoying the screen sync feature with Philips Hue products. For those unfamiliar, your smart lights will match the color/colors on your screen and extend the ambiance of whatever you're watching into the room. Totally unnecessary but it's quite cool. Philips previously had a number of TVs where this effect was built in, although I'm not sure they still do it that way.

    Unfortunately the sync feature is limited to what is being shown on my PC, so I can't currently get the same effect while watching regular cable TV (it's a TiVo unit). Only workaround I can think of would be to get some sort of capture device or desktop TV tuner and output from the TiVo to my PC.

    Anyone know of a device capable of what I'm looking for? Basically I want my cable TV to show up on my PC, with as little lag as possible. I was looking at the Elgato and Razer capture cards, which seem to have a "desktop preview" function but they also seemed to have a small lag due to the capture/processing element. I also couldn't tell if they had a full screen preview or not.
  2. Krispy Kritter

    Krispy Kritter Gawd

    Feb 13, 2003
    You simply need a tuner, not a capture device. For cable TV, you will very likely need a cable card capable device, unless you are still on a cable system that isn't all digital and encrypted. I recommend Hauppauge or the Silicon Dust hardware.

    I have an HDHomeRun Prime and can stream all of my cable channels over my network to any device.