TV Backlight
A Project From 2023
MY FRIENDS LARRY, TIM AND I meet once a month at Tim’s house for a “movie night.” Tim has an exceptional home theater. I take inspiration from it for ours, even if I’m working with only about 5% of his budget. One thing Tim has is a backlight behind his TV that’s tuned to a specific shade of white that helps your eyes perceive more of the TV’s color gamut while reducing eye strain. Besides this theoretical improvement to the viewing experience, backlighting looks cool.
At first, we placed a little, cylindrical “up light” behind the TV, but the top of the lamp was visible in the gap under the TV, which was distracting. So, I built a taller one from poplar. It has three legs for “tripod” stability and a sleeve through which the cables leading to the TV pass. The lamp now serves two purposes: it backlights the TV, and it also hides some cables. I haven’t tuned the light to a specific shade of white like Tim’s, but it has an RGB bulb, so we can backlight with lots of garish colors.
Cables pass through the light’s front sleeve so they are not visible in the gap under the TV
