[HN Gopher] ESP8266 Analog Broadcast Television Interface
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       ESP8266 Analog Broadcast Television Interface
        
       Author : _Microft
       Score  : 87 points
       Date   : 2024-10-04 13:04 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | mkesper wrote:
       | Seems to be from 2020 (on ESP8266), PAL support added last year.
        
         | iosjunkie wrote:
         | 2016, actually. I remember watching his video on it back then:
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSiRkpgwVKY
        
       | dylan604 wrote:
       | How old of a TV do you need to still have an analog receiver?
        
         | saltymug76 wrote:
         | Most TVs with a tuner can still listen to analog signals, I'm
         | assuming for legacy device support (game consoles, VCRs, etc.)
        
         | epcoa wrote:
         | Not old at all. Almost every TV sold in the US with an ATSC
         | receiver (so most mid to high end) will also do NTSC (and
         | "clear"/unencrypted QAM-64/256 for cable) In the past decade it
         | became more common for low cost TVs to drop the tuner entirely.
         | These use jellybean tuner/demod parts and you tend to get the
         | whole batch or nothing at all, once you have RF in, demodding
         | NTSC is basically free.
        
       | MeteorMarc wrote:
       | Amazing!
        
       | Aissen wrote:
       | Someone else recently using the code to test second-hand TVs:
       | https://social.afront.org/@MLE_online/113235301898075851
        
         | _Microft wrote:
         | That's actually how I discovered the project.
        
       | russellbeattie wrote:
       | It should be mentioned that those radio frequencies (60-66 Mhz
       | for Channel 3) aren't for unlicensed use like WiFi. I'm sure no
       | one will really care especially at low power, but getting a call
       | from the FCC (or worse a visit from the FBI) would sorta suck.
       | 
       | Edit: Oh, nevermind. This is meant to be connected by a cable.
        
         | whizzter wrote:
         | Shouldn't be an issue since the page mentions connecting the TV
         | (ie via cable) so nothing is meant to be transmitted in the
         | air, rather just as an input to the TV.
         | 
         | Same way as old NES consoles or C64 computers sent their signal
         | to TV's before composite, SCART and later HDMI became the way
         | to connect. This was often via a pass-through antenna connector
         | that was placed between the regular antenna and TV-set (so you
         | didn't have to disconnect it) and then just tuned one of the TV
         | channels to the channel the console used (and iirc that channel
         | was often channel 3 as mentioned in the github page).
         | 
         | The top stackexchange answer is quite informative,
         | https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/14280/why...
        
           | russellbeattie wrote:
           | Oh, I misunderstood the first line: _" Hook an antenna up to
           | GPIO3/RX"_. I didn't realize it was talking about the
           | television antenna.
           | 
           | As an 80s kid, I'm quite familiar with the adapter for
           | Channel 3. This is a cool project if you've got an old TV.
           | There was a post about Radio Shack catalogs the other day and
           | I still lust over a portable 2" color television from 1989,
           | which would be useless today. I almost want to find one on
           | eBay just to try this out.
        
         | londons_explore wrote:
         | The video in the top post here shows the antenna clearly
         | transmitting over the air, not over a cable.
        
         | andrewstuart wrote:
         | People often freak out about these transmissions being against
         | the law, but at least in the USA there are clear legal
         | exemptions for hobbyist/experimental low power transmissions.
         | 
         | So don't worry about the sky falling, using this stuff is OK as
         | long as you don't amplify it and it's in your interests to
         | shield it if you can and just run it for brief periods of time
         | - essentially, hobbyist/experimental usage.
        
       | solarkraft wrote:
       | Side note about cnlohr: This man has done a lot of cool stuff.
       | Initially discovered him through a 100W flashlight build, which
       | is probably his most boring project. Over the years I've followed
       | ColorChord, ESP8266 drones, WiFi strength mapping, big HTC Vive
       | setups ... there's so much cool stuff to uncover.
        
       | ThrowawayTestr wrote:
       | You can buy an ESP for literal pocket change. Insane that you can
       | build a whole TV station for less than a cup of coffee.
        
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       (page generated 2024-10-04 23:00 UTC)