It depends on the color of the translucent cover and how much light it blocks. If you use matte or milk-white Plexiglas for the cover, the loss is minimal and the color shift negligible. Most of the time, my Hue lights are not at full power so if there was light loss, it could be compensated by setting the brightness a bit higher. Be sure to provide sufficient ventilation in the enclosure. While LED lights run a lot cooler that incandescent lights, the electronics still emit a certain amount of heat. Overvoltage and heat are the biggest factors in shortening the life of modern LED lights like the Philips Hue.

Vudo is listed under www.google.com/chrome/devices/chromecast. You should be able to play Vudu streams on your Chromecast device and connected TV by using a PC with the Chrome browser, a recent Android device or iOS (Apple iPad or iPhone).

It may work but it is a bit tricky. Normally, an HDMI output contains the audio and the video from the PC. In some cases, you can use the sound applet (in the Control Panel) to direct the audio to the PC audio and speakers instead. Then you can listen through headphones, PC built-in speakers or through a cable to a receiver and speakers. On a Windows 7 PC, you look for Hardware and Sound in the Control Panel, selecting Sound and "Manage audio devices." The HDMI output will be selected by default if you plug in an HDMI cable into your laptop, but you should also be able to select Speakers.

The Chromecast media player is meant to display video and render audio through an HDMI stream (which combines video and audio) which originates from a web site such as Netflix or Hulu. Chromecast is not a device to connect a PC to a receiver/TV. You may consider putting all your CD's in a media library on your computer by "ripping" the CD's in iTunes (Apple calls it "Import") and to play your iTunes media library through your receiver. You can hook up the headphone-out to line-in on your receiver but many PC's have only so-so digital to analog converters which means that you hear PC noise and distortion through a good quality receiver and speakers. Or you can connect your PC digitally (through an SP/DIF connector and coaxial cable) to your receiver.

A cleaner solution is to play your digital media through your home network on your network-connected receiver. Some receivers are able to play iTunes libraries through the network, and many play music through DLNA, which includes Windows Media. Many receivers include an USB port to which you can connect an USB disk or device with an USB output through which MP3 files, Windows Media but rarely Apple AAC format media can be played.