DreamScreen HD + AppleTV 4k (4th Gen.) - now doubts

I have used many video based ambient light systems over the last 10+ years:

- SCIMO
- Lightpack
- Hyperion Based (a number of those)
- AmbiScreen 4K
- DreamScreen
- AptiLight
- And a few others from the early 2000's (forgotten the names)

I can tell that if your setup is working perfectly in terms of HDMI/HDCP/CEC compatability before you introduce any new hardware, you will have a very good experience with dreamscreen.

DreamScreen has been my favorite so far, with SCIMO coming in at a close 2nd place, although SCIMO is very hard to get. He's a busy guy.

I also have one I've been developing personally that is FPGA based.

I can warn you to Stay Away from Ambiscreen. Its crap. It's a sloppy job some hobbyist put together from commercial off the shelf tech with the worst soldering skills I have ever seen in a 15+ year career in electronics engineering.

Buy the DreamScreen HD or 4K. You'll enjoy it. Pretty easy to set up as well.

I am somewhere in the middle. I fully understand wbronze's support of this product. I've read his posts and I can tell he's quite knowledgeable about this tech. I too, like him, really think it's a great product in regards to its proper functionality, but that's where I start to fade away a little. If I were helping a base level consumer, someone looking to get a product, plug it in and enjoy, I would have a hard time recommending something like this. You can see from Hester's post where the attitude toward the product is beginning to trend. If you are comfortable with first generation jitters and potential compatibility issues and you are comfortable with troubleshooting through powering devices in various orders, replacing cables, and changing cable configurations, then it's largely great. If you are married or have kids watching the TV, just forget it! I had to hook up my Nvidia Shield through a splitter to the TV, because the consistent handshake issues angered my wife so much, I thought she was going to kill me with the remote. As a side note, she won't watch a movie without the lights on now though, lol. O replaced an Apple TV with the Nvidia Shield because of the issues I had. The Nvidia did work much better as it has more options for video formats.

So:

Are you looking for Plug N Play?:
Are you looking for worry free operation?
Would you like customer service that is quick and has effective means of correcting your problems apart from telling you to wait for the firmware?

If you answered YES then:
Don't buy it... yet. Wait for the mythical firmware update.

Are you a "gotta have it" gadget freak?
Are you comfortable with moments of black screen or no sound during your movies or shows?
Are you expecting an experience that's absolutely stunning and visually satisfying one moment and infuriatingly broken the next?

If you've answered YES then:
Buy it. It's fun, impressive and your guests will love it, but you'll have some bumpy times ahead.

Sooo, now with my registered account after finally beeing approved.

Thank you for your input!

I'm somewhat tech-savy and I'm not afraid of fiddling around a little bit to make things work. While nice, I'm not afraid of it not being plug-n-play out of the box. But, I also don't want headaches and a lot of crafting as in some of the other solutions out there. Again, I'm looking for something to somewhat emulate my beloved Philips Ambilight TV. I'm not so much afraid of not being able to craft something else, I simply don't have the time (and money) to deal with that or I'd already done it in the last three or so years after moving.
I can see how especially the DS 4K might still be more buggy, since it's fairly new - the DS HD had been around somewhat longer, no? And there was a BT DS before, no? So, isn't the DS HD technically the second generation, already?
I also do see how particularly elaborate home theater setups might be more prone to conflicts. But, as I said, our setup should - at least in theory - be pretty straight-forward.
I don't mind going looking for different cables that we know work (is there a list somewhere on the forums?)

What I don't want is having to unplug cables and plug back in EVERYTIME I turn on the TV/ATV.

As I said, we don't have cable, I haven't touched the actual TV's remote in months. We solely use the ATV and the remote that came with it to control the TV. I've plugged in our pre-historic xbox for the first time in literal years last month, but haven't touched it since (simply no time). So, in our setup it's really only one device that would be connected to the DS: our AppleTV. In HD. No 4K headaches, no HDR headaches...or so the theory. Still, the remaining concerns about the CEC handshake.... if it happens once every now and then, no problem. If it happens every other day: that'd bother us because it totally negates the comfort of CEC.


What I don't want is REGULAR blackouts or missing sound.

Again, if it happens every now and then, fine. If it happens all the time, not fine.

What I'm really looking forward to is including our Philips Hue setup once the DS connect comes out. Which speaks against other solutions out there that might be a little more stable.

Hmm....I mean, to be honest, $150 isn't THAT much for a nice gadget. But then, I'm just a student, so it's more than you'd think and I don't want constant headaches and it ending up staying unplugged after the honeymoon phase has passed because I'm constantly annoyed.... If there is the prospect of reliability constantly improving with firmware updates (and a record of the folks actually working on improving it), that'd be a completely different story, though....

While my reply won’t be as detailed and well thought out as some of the other replies I’ve gone into further details in other posts. I have a fairly simple setup myself but I do run all my devices through a Yamaha RX-V681BL receiver. My DS4K sits unused on the back of my TV patiently awaiting some sort of firmware/hardware fix. I don’t want to dumb down my devices to use it. Especially when it’s advertised as being able to. If I knew this I would have never bought it. I would have just waited for a fix or waited for someone else to develop a plug and play device.

Good info and points.

Which splitter are you using?

Ankaa, I have a similar setup to you but with a Panasonic TV. I had CEC working before I got my DS and use my AppleTV 4 for 99% of TV use. I hooked the DS up inline between my ATV and my receiver and everything works perfectly. The only small hiccup I had was when I first hooked it up the DS wouldn't turn automatically on/off with the rest of the system. For the first 2 or 3 days I had to manually turn it on and off through the iPhone app. Then it started working automatically and I haven't had any issues since. So for me with a system similar to yours it works perfectly and I love having it.

I am using the same setup as you are. Even for 4K content. My splitter is the HDFury Vertex which downscales one of the outputs to 1080p in 30/60 fps. I'm experimenting with the scaler settings of the vertex to see if any color spaces seem more vibrant.

E.g. 444 BT709 / 444 BT2020 /422 /etc
But anything above 8bit color depth seems to confuse the DSHD in my setup, even though its EDID reports 1080p60 12bit.