More flotsam:
Just got a new gadgety thing from Ikea of all places. They're basically 4 strip lights, but with about 8 colour choices. You can even cycle them through and also blend them through all 7 cyclically if you want:
The medical reasoning behind this is as follows:
If you watch movies in pitch-black rooms, the amount of light may be very low from the screen (eg a night scene) in which case your iris is very wide (fully accommodated).
Now an explosion occurs on-screen (action movie?
)...so your iris has to contract to it's maximum amount.
So it has gone from fully dilated to fully contracted in an extremely short time (the blink of an eye?
). In the period of a film, it may do this hundreds upon hundreds of times....it's THIS that causes eye strain.
Using ambient light behind a TV (a la Philips ambilight) means that the room is never dark enough (despite a night scene on-screen) to require full (dilated) accommodation by the eye. So at the most, the iris will be required to change from fully contracted to only partially dilated........overall this causes less eye strain.
It also doesn't really make a difference re:the colour of this ambient light (so you don't actually need an ambilight....any old light will do).
I have a choice of pink/purple/aqua/blue/green/yellow/red/white.
I think I've plumped for "wii-style" aqua myself.
(oh....and yes, it does make a noticeable difference
)