Simple software WLED setup with Pi4 Kodi and PS4 Pro HDR

Hello all, first time poster but I've been reading this forum amongst other sources to build my ambilight setup which is up and running now (like many others here). Thought I'd make my first about my current setup and findings. I wanted to start simple and now have the following up and running:

- 220 W2812b leds (60/m) behind my 55" LG OLED TV, controlled by a Wemos D1 Mini flashed with WLED and all powered by a single 5V 10A power source.
- Raspberry Pi 4 running Hyperion.ng Alpha 5 and latest Kodi on Raspbian Buster using internal framegrabber.
- Hyperion.ng data is send to WLED using UDP(Raw) and there doesn't seem to be much noticeable delay.

I went for WLED because it seemed easier to configure but I'm curious now if there would be even less delay hooking the LEDs up directly on the Pi. Since it's not a lot of work I'll try that out soon either through USB or direct wiring, even though it's not bothering me too much. Update: Now controlling WLED over USB using adalight interface and all delays are gone. Incredibly responsive. See post below.

From my tryouts it seems Hyperion.ng DispmanX performs way better on Raspbian then on LibreElec: no signal blackouts or HDMI signal failure while grabbing at 30fps (even on 1080p 60hz content) for really fast and smooth lights. I got a lot of these blackouts on LibreElec even with 10fps to the LEDs.

Hyperion / Ambilight is automatically enabled/disabled when TV is on Kodi or PS4 source and sun is almost down (using Home Assistant).

I didn't really want to invest in HDMI splitters/grabbers (yet) since it seems like a hassle to get them to work and I first would like to invest in a new AVR (with multiple outputs). Everything below 4k works through Kodi, even Netflix, so I'm already quite happy with that. Of course I would like support for 4k and HDR but that's to come, hopefully.

I still wanted to have ambilight when playing games on my PS4 Pro though.... and found a way!

By using a separate PSN account you can start Remote Play and share your screen on other devices. Using Chiaki on an Android phone (the official Remote Play app doesn't allow screen grabbing), together with the Hyperion Android Grabber app you can use ambilight with a PS4 Pro through software only and it even works with HDR content since Remote Play ignores/converts that!

Of course this requires some manual steps: turn on Android Grabber and Chiaki, but this is done in 4 taps on my phone. Chiaki is open source and also available for Linux so there could be a way to run this on the Hyperion instance and even use it as a video source within Hyperion itself. Devs? Another way would be to use Tasker to automate this, together with Home Assistant, on an old Android device.

Here is little video of PS4 HDR software capture. Please ignore the quality, could only use my laptops webcam Proper color calibration still needs to be done, and probably some other tweaking.

For now I'm really happy with the software only setup. I would also like the explore the idea of using a (fisheye) camera to bypass 4K HDR DRM content, as seen on some topics on this forum, but fear it might not work as well. I'll start exploring this approach in the next few weeks.

See you on the forums!

 

Pm

 

Hi puck,

Very nice topic that you wrote. So my question is.

How could you run on the pi4 hyperion without any issues? I mean, a lot of people have signal drop issues. Could you tell me how to fix that.

And i am using an splitter 4k for my external sources like ps4 pro. I saw you fix that different. What we need for that way?

 

I also had a lot of signal drops on LibreELEC. I tried raising the width, height and capture framerate as some people suggested. Got less frequent drops, but still happened on some (high bitrate) content. Then I tried Kodi on Raspbian Buster: just installed it with the correct settings (see this topic).

From the start I had way less drops, and with tweaking the width/height of framegrabber I can now even run high bitrate 4k content while Hyperion is running (The bottom half of the captured screen is green though... so I guess Hyperion is just not able to grab 4k correctly. I just turn it off when playing 4k for now). So my suggestion would be: start with running Kodi on Buster. I am using the following settings:

Using Remote Play, a feature build in into Playstation, you can basically share (and control) your Playstation screen on another device such as an Android phone. Then you can use this source as a source for Hyperion. I did the following to make this work:
- Create a new PSN account on my Playstation which I only use to login as a Remote Play session.
- Install Chiaki and Hyperion Android Grabber on my Android phone.
- Setup Hyperion Android Grabber by pointing to the IP address of the device running Hyperion, then start capture.
- Setup Chiaki and enable Remote Play to connect to my Playstation and the PSN account created in step 1. See this guide.
- Connect with Playstation in Chiaki. You now use your Android device as a way to capture your Playstation and send the data to Hyperion!
- Note: You can set the video in Chiaki to stretch the full size of your phone's screen by swiping from top to bottom.
- Note: Streaming apps such as Netflix or Amazon Prime block Remote Play, so it will only work with games. But it does work with any resolution / framerate / HDR.

Update from my original post
Yesterday I plugged in the WLED directly on the Pi4 over USB and used adalight interface to control the LEDS over UBS instead of UDP. The difference is night and day! The delays are completely gone and the LEDS are way more responsive. I can't believe I didn't try this from the start. I guess I was already impressed by the initial outcome See updated post. Here's an updated video streaming a 1080p Netflix movie:

 

Very nice topic buddy.

So that means that you also have some issues to stream 4k content with hyperion running.

on libreelec is 1080 no problem. Only 4k is problem with hyperion. Hope that this will be fixed very quickly.

 

Yeah, I got around the signal drops on 4k content, but it's still unusable because part of the grabbed video is green. I think it's related to HDR but haven't really dived into this further. I will try non HDR 4k content later today, since I'm not sure if the 1 4k video I tried had HDR signal (probably not though, since Kodi played it correctly and HDR is not at all supported on a Pi 4).

 

I got you buddy. Now I have hyperion running with full hd movies series. No problem with it. When I watch 4k movies I need to stop the hyperion so it will not get signal drop.

The only thing is: with my pi3b I could switch by favorites from internal grabber to external and stop hyperion. Do you have an idea to fix that also for hyperion of libreelec and not from hyperion from this site?

 

You can use the JSON API to control almost everything. I use Home Assistant to toggle on/off Hyperion or (certain) grabber(s). Here is an example of such calls:

To toggle Hyperion

Code:

command_on: "echo '{\"command\":\"componentstate\",\"componentstate\":{\"component\":\"ALL\",\"state\":true}}' | nc 192.168.0.9 19444"
command_off: "echo '{\"command\":\"componentstate\",\"componentstate\":{\"component\":\"ALL\",\"state\":false}}' | nc 192.168.0.9 19444"

To toggle grabber

Code:

command_on: "echo '{\"command\":\"componentstate\",\"componentstate\":{\"component\":\"GRABBER\",\"state\":true}}' | nc 192.168.0.9 19444"
command_off: "echo '{\"command\":\"componentstate\",\"componentstate\":{\"component\":\"GRABBER\",\"state\":false}}' | nc 192.168.0.9 19444"

You can use `hyperion-remote -s` and `hyperion-remote {command} --print` to get all possible API calls.

 

Puck,

I have fix it as well on the pi. Like the same as my pi3.

was busy for some days but the result is a happy rpi4 user

 

Puck,

could you watch 4k content with hyperion active?

 

Yes. I played a 70Gb HEVC 4k movie with a bitrate of ~50Mbps. Worked without HDMI signal drops.

But the screen-grabber shows bottom half as green, so Hyperion itself is not working properly.

 

How did you fix it that you can watch 4k content with hyperion active?

 

I already explained this right? I'm using Kodi on Raspbian Buster and using the grabbers width/height and fps mentioned above. With LibreELEC I got a lot of signal drops. With Buster I do not.

I'll do some more tests with different content though.

 

Could I take my backup with me from Libreelec to Raspbian buster? otherwise I will lose all settings and addons and time that I invest in my kodi software.

And about your ps4pro. I do not have an android phone or tablet. Is there possibility fix this on iOS?

 

I don't know about restoring backups cross OS. You should look this up somewhere. I didn't use Kodi before this so didn't have a lot to reinstall.

Chiaki is open source and works on Linux, Mac, Windows and Android. Not on iOS but maybe that will come.

 

But what about the hyperion android grabber? that one you installed on your phone right?

 

Yeah true, but there might be other ways to frame-grab Chiaki on a different OS. I have no experience with it however because it works for me on Android.

 

And the Chiaki and hyperion android grabber works also for libreelec right? Could you show a little video how it works? I mean not the ambilight but the phone and the apps

 

It works with Hyperion in general. OS doesn't matter. I can make a video later today, but it's literally just running the two apps. You can see screenshots on the Google Play store.

 

That sounds good that it is working in general. Well I will wait on your video buddy. Like I said, I do not an device with android and nobody in the house as well. So I could not download and test it.