Customizable Surround Lighting for Media Content Using Precoding

This disclosure describes techniques to provide surround light to enhance a media viewing experience. Lighting parameters such as color and brightness of lights installed in a media viewing room are automatically adjusted based on the media content being viewed to provide an immersive viewing experience. The media content is encoded based on predefined protocols. The encoding includes light parameters that can be mapped to the available lights in the room. Various light groups can be defined and automatically controlled to provide lighting appropriate to the portion of the content being viewed. In this manner, the described techniques can provide a uniform user experience across households or even commercial settings of various shapes and sizes