Turning a Classic CRT into a Smart TV
nickmchardy.com
Turning a Classic CRT into a Smart TV
1–10 of 21 posts
Re: Turning a Classic CRT into a Smart TV
#2I actually did something a bit similar[1], but with a Raspberry Pi 4, which has native composite out. I have it looping through Plex playlists of media that was originally released towards the end of the SD era (although most of it is high-quality HD rereleases that get naively cropped to 4:3 by VLC). I do also happen to have a Miyazaki playlist, but it starts at Nausicaä instead of The Castle of Cagliostro. I'd love to replace my cheap thrift store CRT with a nice PVM/BVM though!
Re: Turning a Classic CRT into a Smart TV
#3Not sure if it’s easy to do in most CRTs, but with a little engineering, it is possible to enable RGB inputs.
Re: Turning a Classic CRT into a Smart TV
#4Not sure if it’s easy to do in most CRTs, but with a little engineering, it is possible to enable RGB inputs.
Most (all?) CRT TVs eventually turn everything into an RGB signal before it goes to the tube itself, this is generally what most on screen displays feed into. So you could add something in that also feeds into that line.
Some people mod RGB into composite only CRTs this way for retro gaming.
Re: Turning a Classic CRT into a Smart TV
#5Not sure if it’s easy to do in most CRTs, but with a little engineering, it is possible to enable RGB inputs.
Most (all?) CRT TVs eventually turn everything into an RGB signal before it goes to the tube itself, this is generally what most on screen displays feed into. So you could add something in that also feeds into that line. Some people mod RGB into composite only CRTs this way for retro gaming.
Some old consumer Trinitrons (possibly other brands; I'm unsure) even have an unpopulated SCART header on the input board. Saves them from having to make custom hardware for the European market.
Re: Turning a Classic CRT into a Smart TV
#6I actually did something a bit similar[1], but with a Raspberry Pi 4, which has native composite out. I have it looping through Plex playlists of media that was originally released towards the end of the SD era (although most of it is high-quality HD rereleases that get naively cropped to 4:3 by VLC). I do also happen to have a Miyazaki playlist, but it starts at Nausicaä instead of The Castle of Cagliostro. I'd love…
It's just a shame that field combination is the normal deinterlacing paradigm for modern encodes of SD media, so it's hard to get digital copies that will make full use of a setup like that since the only interlaced encodes are generally like 15+ year old terrible-looking DiVX ;-) rips. I think most people don't even realize what's getting thrown away since it's been so long since they saw interlaced media on a CRT and have probably never compared them side by side to a 30FPS Handbrake-deinterlaced DVDrip.
For a non-infringing example of what I mean, check out my personal 60FPS HEVC encode of the Netscape "Code Rush" PBS documentary that was released freely online in 2008 as an interlaced MOV: https://mega.nz/file/QhtHzBZD#Z8eUnBgmk3lsjRgKQsiSaGD_gAnRgN...
Re: Turning a Classic CRT into a Smart TV
#7This is a fun little project, and I am happy it got posted. I have to laugh a little, though, considering that many of my clients have started asking for unsmart, just-a-display units!
Re: Turning a Classic CRT into a Smart TV
#8You can get pretty close to an HDTV with nothing but a dumb VGA monitor.
Context: as late as 2012, I had nothing but two Sun Microsystems (rebranded Sony) 19" Trinitron CRTs. The picture quality on these monitors was _phenominal_, and I kept it as long as I could, before the siren song of more desk space got me to give them up.
To get from component video to VGA, I had a color space converter. Then I hooked up a 3x component switcher to give me a few more inputs - for the game consoles, of course.
To get television, I had an old DirecTV tuner with a VGA output. I didn't actually have DirecTV service, but it had an NTSC/ATSC tuner, to which I had a pair of rabbit ears hooked up.
To get composite and S-video input, I had an RF modulator. The DirecTV tuner tuned to channel 3 would show whatever was on that.
The weak link, of course, was HDMI - an HDMI to analog converter was, at the time, more expensive than real televisions (this article appears to show that this is no longer the case).
Re: Turning a Classic CRT into a Smart TV
#9Not sure if it’s easy to do in most CRTs, but with a little engineering, it is possible to enable RGB inputs.
Most (all?) CRT TVs eventually turn everything into an RGB signal before it goes to the tube itself, this is generally what most on screen displays feed into. So you could add something in that also feeds into that line. Some people mod RGB into composite only CRTs this way for retro gaming.
8 Bit Guy did a video on this. I pretty surprised how easy it was to do on an inexpensive compact TV set from the 90’s.
Re: Turning a Classic CRT into a Smart TV
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most (all?) CRT TVs eventually turn everything into an RGB signal before it goes to the tube itself, this is generally what most on screen displays feed into. So you could add something in that also feeds into that line. Some people mod RGB into composite only CRTs this way for retro gaming.
8 Bit Guy did a video on this. I pretty surprised how easy it was to do on an inexpensive compact TV set from the 90’s. https://youtu.be/DLz6pgvsZ_I
Inexpensive, but requires balls of steel to work on a naked CRT.
Of course it is reasonably safe if you do it properly, but as an amateur it's something I'd like to do but scares the shit out of me.