1.Raspberry Pi
Every Rasberry Pi is able to handle Lightberry (hyperion to be exact).
However you might want to consider availability of Ethernet port for ease of setup and configuration – Raspberry Pi B, Raspberry Pi B+, Raspberry Pi 2 B.
Raspberry pi is not included in our products and needs to be bought separately. We don’t sell Raspberry Pi.
2.Hardware
Read this manual before you start working with Lightberry. Obey all instructions and warnings, in order to avoid injury or hardware (TV or Raspberry Pi) damage. Lightberry S.C. is not responsible for hardware damage, if this manual is not followed, and you should be aware that your Lightberry warranty will be void in these circumstances. Lightberry should only be used indoors.
2.1.Lightberry
Base model of Lightberry with “bubble” LEDs.
Size 44LEDs – 64LEDs
2.1.1.Specification
Lightberry is a peripheral device for Raspberry Pi® and is compatible only with this microcomputer. Thanks to Lightberry, you can enjoy colorful effects behind your TV: where video is played from Raspberry Pi®, your TV’s colors will adjust to what is being displayed on the screen. You connect Lightberry to pins in your GPIO bus (or with USB plug in USB version), according to the instructions in manual and, in order to work properly, it requires installation and proper configuration of hyperion software. You can also download preconfigured image from http://lightberry.eu/#download. Lightberry requires at least a 5V 3A constant current power supply (for<=48 LED version) or a 5V 4A constant current power supply (for 52 LED version) with a 2.1/5.5mm plug (sold separately in the Lightberry store). We recommend purchasing a Raspberry Pi® case that allows connection to GPIO through dedicated holes in the case (offered in the Lightberry store). The measured maximum power consumption for the 52 LED version of Lightberry, with recommended hyperion configuration, is less than 12W. Set contents:
- Strand of LEDs with drivers (from 44 to 56 pcs) and fastening points. Distance between centers of adjacent LEDs is approx. 70mm.
- 360cm (for 44-48 LED versions), 400cm (for 48 and 52) or 440cm (for 56) of TV fastening tape (self adhesive).
- Converter.
- Raspberry Pi®- Converter connector (approx 40cm)
- 5 extra fastening points.
2.1.2.Instalation
2.2.Lightberry HD
Lightberry HD with stripe LEDs and with both Raspberry Pi (GPIO) and USB connector.
Size – 4 meters and 5 meters
2.2.1.Specification
Thanks to Lightberry, you can enjoy colourful effects behind your TV: where video is played from Raspberry Pi®, your TV’s colours will adjust to what is being displayed on the screen. You connect Lightberry HD to pins in your GPIO bus, according to the instructions in manual or with USB plug (USB version only). In order to work properly, it requires installation and proper configuration of software. Lightberry HD requires at least a 5V 6A (4m) or 8A (5m) constant current power supply with a 2.1/5.5mm plug. We recommend purchasing a Raspberry Pi® case that allows connection to GPIO through dedicated holes in the case (offered in the Lightberry store).
Lightberry HD set content:
- LEDs tape with drivers (30 LEDs per 1m)
- 10 (4m) / 12 (5m) mounting hooks with self-adhesive tape
- Converter
- Raspberry Pi®- Converter connector (approx 40cm)
2.2.2.Instalation
Correct placing of the self-adhesive hooks on the TV is very important to ensure that the final effect is correct.
You should make sure that the hooks are mounted symmetrically and at a consistently equal distance from the wall behind the TV. The LEDs should not be placed too close to the wall, as this will cause a “spot light” effect. The recommended distance for best effect is 4-15 cm from the wall but it may vary depending on your TV and placement.
To avoid damage, you must not cover any ventilation holes in the TV. It is also recommended that you lay your TV down on a flat, soft surface (if TV manual allows it) before the hooks are mounted. Attaching the hooks to a hanging or standing TV may result in injury to you, or damage to the TV.
The TV fastening tape keeps it adhesive properties up to 60 degrees Celsius (the 60 degree resistance is likely to be sufficient for all standard TVs). If the back of your TV is likely to reach higher temperatures, do not mount Lightberry HD on it. Fastening tape is not designed for repeatable attachments. If you need extra hooks, please contact the support.
Place the hooks as on below schema.
Mounting the LED tape
Attachment of the LED strand is done by placing LED tape into the hooks. Keep tape as straight as possible to assure even light distribution. To secure Lightberry in place remove self adhesive tape protector and attach LEDs to hooks.
When mounting the LEDs, you should make sure that the wires are not twisted.
Note that the number of LEDs you need to use will not only depend on screen size, but also on suitable placement of the LEDs on the back of TV.
When placing the LEDs, you should consider the following factors:
- TV distance from the wall (it doesn’t have to be close to the edge, consider your TV shape).
- The minimum distance of the LEDs from the visible wall area (the part of the wall you can see when watching your TV should be at least 3cm, otherwise you may get a “spotlight” effect.
- The hook height is 25mm, so the minimum distance between the TV and the wall must be 25mm.
- Start in bottom left corner (facing back of the TV) and go up, right, down and left.
If your TV structure does not allow the installation of Lightberry according to the exact instructions above, then you should start with equally aligned LEDs on the first side of the TV, and then the LED mounting on remaining sides should be as similar as possible. You should ALWAYS make sure that wire is neither twisted nor bent.
Distances from the wall
After mounting Lightberry HD on TV and making sure that everything works as expected and is properly placed you can either secure remaining part of Lightberry HD on your tv or cut last LEDs as on the picture below. Do not cut your lightberry if there is additional power supply at the end.
After cutting Lightberry HD we will not accept returns. Warranty remains valid. If in any case you need to attach remaining part of tape (because of for e.g. TV upgrade) contact ligthberry@lightberry.eu.
Cut only at designed points. Failing to do so can result in damage to Lightberry HD.
2.3.Converters
USB Converter specific guides and documentation
2.3.1.USB Converter
WS2801 LEDs:
"device": { "type": "adalight", "name": "MyPi", "colorOrder": "rgb", "output": "/dev/ttyACM0" },
APA102 LEDs:
"device": { "colorOrder": "bgr", "rate": 500000, "type": "adalightapa102", "name": "MyPi", "output": "/dev/ttyACM0" },
Connection
Connect using USB cable to Raspberry Pi.
Software update procedure: update.lightberry.eu
2.3.2.GPIO Converter
Hyperion config device section
WS2801 LEDs:
"device": { "name" : "MyPi", "type" : "lightberry", "output" : "/dev/spidev0.0", "rate" : 1000000, "colorOrder" : "rgb" },
APA102 LEDs:
"device": { "name" : "MyPi", "type" : "apa102", "output" : "/dev/spidev0.0", "rate" : 500000, "colorOrder" : "bgr" },
Connection
Raspberry Pi A / B
Raspberry Pi A+ / B+ / 2B / 3B

Raspberry Pi A+ / B+ / 2B / 3B
2.4.External sources support
In order to support external sources (HDMI, SCART) you have to have one of the kits. Kits connect external source to the Raspberry Pi allowing Lightberry to react to it.
All our kits use UTV007 USB Video Grabber chipset. In order to use any kit you need to add proper configuration section to hyperion.config.json:
"grabber-v4l2": { "device" : "/dev/video0", "input" : 0, "standard" : "PAL", "width" : 720, "height" : 576, "frameDecimation" : 2, "sizeDecimation" : 8, "priority" : 800, "mode" : "2D", "cropLeft" : 5, "cropRight" : 5, "cropTop" : 5, "cropBottom" : 5, "redSignalThreshold" : 0.2, "greenSignalThreshold" : 0.2, "blueSignalThreshold" : 0.2 },
3.Software
3.1.Preconfigured system
Below are preconfigured system images that are ready to be used with Lightberry
- OSMC for RPi2
- OpenELEC 6.0.3 for RPi2 / RPi3
- OpenELEC 6.0.0 for RPI 1
- OpenELEC 5.0 with STK1160/UTV007 compatible kernel RPI 1
- OpenELEC 6.0.0 for Wetek Play
Write image on windows:
Process will erase all data on selected drive.
- Download win32 Disk Imager from http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/.
- Insert SD Card to Card Reader.
- Unzip image file if zipped to easily accessible folder on you computer (It should have .img extension).
- Run Win32 Disk Imager
- Pick image file.
- Pick correct drive letter and double check it.
- Click write and wait for OK message
- Safely eject SD Card
3.2.Hyperion Config Generator
Download it from https://github.com/LightberryEu/plugin.program.hyperion.configurator click on “Download ZIP” on bottom of right menu and save it on your device (for e.g. raspberry). Then open System -> Addons -> Install from zip, navigate to previously saved file and choose it.
To run plugin go into programs and pick Hyperion Config Creator. It will get you through the process in few simple questions: count of leds vertically, horizontally
and direction
Plugin will then try to restart hyperion with new settings. It will ask you if you see a rainbow and then plugin will light a LED in each corner for your verification if everything is set up to the single LED 🙂
If configuration suits your needs just accept it and plugin will make this a default one 🙂
4.troubleshooting
4.1.How to take screenshot from grabber using hyperion-v4l2?
When leds do not react to external video, you should check if grabber is working and what image it is passing into RPi. Hyperion has great feature of saving the screenshot from the grabber. Exact command is different depending on the operating system so we will have 2 sections here:
OpenElec
login to pi: root/openelec cd /storage/.config killall hyperiond LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/storage/hyperion/bin /storage/hyperion/bin/hyperion-v4l2 --screenshot
In your working directory there will be screenshot.png. Using Samba share (windows network neighborhood) go to \\openelec\ConfigFiles and open screenshot.png
Raspbmc and raspbian
login to pi: pi/raspberry killall hyperiond hyperion-v4l2 --screenshot
In your working directory there will be screenshot.png created. Using Samba share (windows network neighborhood) or FTP go to /home/pi directory and get screenshot.png
In order to find out exactly how hyperion sees the input video, you should apply the same settings a in grabber-v4l2 section, for instance:
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/storage/hyperion/bin /storage/hyperion/bin/hyperion-v4l2 -v PAL --width 360 --height 288 --screenshot
Full list of available options you can get with –help option:
OpenELEC:~ # LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/storage/hyperion/bin /storage/hyperion/bin/hyperion-v4l2 --help V4L capture application for Hyperion Build time: May 30 2014 20:07:11 Usage: /storage/hyperion/bin/hyperion-v4l2 [OPTIONS] Parameters: -d, --deviceThe device to use [default=/dev/video0] -v, --video-standard The used video standard. Valid values are PAL or NTSC (optional) --pixel-format The use pixel format. Valid values are YUYV, UYVY, and RGB32 (optional) --input Input channel (optional) --width Try to set the width of the video input (optional) --height Try to set the height of the video input (optional) --crop-width Number of pixels to crop from the left and right sides of the picture before decimation [default=0] --crop-height Number of pixels to crop from the top and the bottom of the picture before decimation [default=0] --crop-left Number of pixels to crop from the left of the picture before decimation (overrides --crop-width) --crop-right Number of pixels to crop from the right of the picture before decimation (overrides --crop-width) --crop-top Number of pixels to crop from the top of the picture before decimation (overrides --crop-height) --crop-bottom Number of pixels to crop from the bottom of the picture before decimation (overrides --crop-height) -s, --size-decimator Decimation factor for the output size [default=1] -f, --frame-decimator Decimation factor for the video frames [default=1] --screenshot Take a single screenshot, save it to file and quit -t, --signal-threshold The signal threshold for detecting the presence of a signal. Value should be between 0.0 and 1.0. --red-threshold The red signal threshold. Value should be between 0.0 and 1.0. (overrides --signal-threshold) --green-threshold The green signal threshold. Value should be between 0.0 and 1.0. (overrides --signal-threshold) --blue-threshold The blue signal threshold. Value should be between 0.0 and 1.0. (overrides --signal-threshold) --3DSBS Interpret the incoming video stream as 3D side-by-side --3DTAB Interpret the incoming video stream as 3D top-and-bottom -a, --address Set the address of the hyperion server [default: 127.0.0.1:19445] -p, --priority Use the provided priority channel (the lower the number, the higher the priority) [default: 800] --skip-reply Do not receive and check reply messages from Hyperion -h, --help Show this help message and exit
If you got an error or hyperion-v4l2 command has not finished, you may have:
- used OS that does not support your grabber
- Your grabber may not get enough power from pi (active/powered USB hub is recommended)
- your grabber is broken
- input provided to the grabber is not PAL/NTSC standard
4.2.My unused leds are on. How to turn them off?
In order to keep leds off when using hyperion, one must define separate transformation for these leds with gain=0. See this file as an example.
http://lightberry.eu/download/General/15×9/hyperion.config.jsonfor52
See below the transform section.
Please remember to define ALL leds in the “leds” section as if you define transformation for the led that does not exist, Hyperion will fail.
"transform":[ { "id":"default", "leds":"0-47", "hsv":{ "saturationGain":1.0000, "valueGain":1.0000 }, "red":{ "threshold":0.0000, "gamma":1.0000, "blacklevel":0.0000, "whitelevel":1.0000 }, "green":{ "threshold":0.0000, "gamma":1.0000, "blacklevel":0.0000, "whitelevel":0.8000 }, "blue":{ "threshold":0.0000, "gamma":1.0000, "blacklevel":0.0000, "whitelevel":0.8000 } }, { "id":"turnedoff", "leds":"48-51", "hsv":{ "saturationGain":1.0000, "valueGain":0.0000 }, "red":{ "threshold":0.0000, "gamma":1.0000, "blacklevel":0.0000, "whitelevel":1.0000 }, "green":{ "threshold":0.0000, "gamma":1.0000, "blacklevel":0.0000, "whitelevel":0.8500 }, "blue":{ "threshold":0.0000, "gamma":1.0000, "blacklevel":0.0000, "whitelevel":0.8500 } } ],
4.3.How to run hyperion from command line?
On openelec run the following:
killall hyperiond /storage/hyperion/bin/hyperiond.sh /storage/.config/hyperion.config.json
(assuming /storage/.config/hyperion.config.json is a location of your config file)
4.4.How to connect to Raspberry Pi using Putty
Easiest way to connect to Raspberry Pi command line is to use windows application Putty. You can download it from: http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/x86/putty.exe
Put name of your Raspberry Pi (or IP address if your router doesn’t suport hostnames – highly unlikely) in the right field and click Open.
As your credentials put one that matches your distribution ( if you haven’t change it ).
Raspbian – user: pi , password: raspberry
OpenELEC – user: root , password: openelec
4.5.How to upload hyperion.conf.json to OpenELEC
- Make sure raspberry Pi is turned on and connected to the same local network as your PC.
- Open Windows Explorer.
- Put in address bar :
\\openelec
- Goto folder
Configfiles
- Upload your config file there or change existing one with drag&drop.
- Restart raspberry pi for changes to take effect.
If you changed your raspberry Pi name put it instead of openelec e.g.: \\myraspberrypi
4.6.LEDs are ON when HDMI source is OFF
There are two possible scenarios:
1) leds display rainbow colors (static) – it is because your HDMI source does not provide any signal and conveter passes control image to the grabber. Not know solution of this except for sending black color from hyperion remote.
2) leds display solid blue or dimmed white color:
Go to grabber-v4l2 section in hyperion.config.json and increase thresholds. If your HDMI source provides black image when off, increase all thresholds to 0.2-0.3. If you have blue leds (HDMI source provides blue image when off), increase blueSignalThreshold to 1.0.
"grabber-v4l2" :{ "device" : "/dev/video0", "input" : 0, "standard" : "PAL", "width" : 360, "height" : 288, "frameDecimation" : 2, "sizeDecimation" : 1, "priority" : 1100, "mode" : "2D", "cropLeft" : 12, "cropRight" : 12, "cropTop" : 5, "cropBottom" : 5, "redSignalThreshold" : 0.2, "greenSignalThreshold" : 0.2, "blueSignalThreshold" : 0.2 },
4.7.My leds are on when screen is black
Threshold parameter is responsible for minimum color value (read by hyperion form the input) that is displayed by leds. In the settings above, 5% of brightness of each color will already light led up. If your leds are on when the screen is black, increase threshold to appropriate value which may be different depending on the source.
Please note that it is worth to increase gamma as well in order to avoid solid, bright colors when threshold is minimally exceeded.
Blacklevel is brightness of led when the screen is black (in this case you want to keep it at 0)
Whitelevel is maximum brightness of the color (when the screen is white).
"transform":[ { "id":"default", "leds":"*", "hsv":{ "saturationGain":1.0000, "valueGain":1.0000 }, "red":{ "threshold":0.0500, "gamma":1.8000, "blacklevel":0.0000, "whitelevel":1.0000 }, "green":{ "threshold":0.0500, "gamma":1.7000, "blacklevel":0.0000, "whitelevel":0.8000 }, "blue":{ "threshold":0.0500, "gamma":1.7000, "blacklevel":0.0000, "whitelevel":0.8000 } } ],