How are You Playing Digital Video on Vintage TV's??

[benman94]

I use an XMBC server feeding a Raspberry Pi running an XMBC client. The data between the server and client goes over the network like any other data traffic. From there, the Raspberry Pi produces analog video out. PAL or NTSC, colorburst on or off. This is fed to a BT modulator connected to a dipole cut for that frequency.

Thus when I want to watch something, I load it on the client, connect rabbit ears to the set I want to watch, turn the set to the correct channel, start the video on the client, and away we go.

[M3-SRT8]

You mean, like "Pong?"

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by benman94

I use an XMBC server feeding a Raspberry Pi running an XMBC client. The data between the server and client goes over the network like any other data traffic. From there, the Raspberry Pi produces analog video out. PAL or NTSC, colorburst on or off. ...

Do you get to select the luma only, without the chroma (R-Y and B-Y, Pr and Pb, and such)? With pre-color standard TV sets (before around 1953) the TV probably will give you a full 4MHz of picture resolution. Later B&W sets would low pass filter the video to remove the chroma subcarrier (and higher resolution luma) and make a softer image.

[benman94]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

Do you get to select the luma only, without the chroma (R-Y and B-Y, Pr and Pb, and such)? With pre-color standard TV sets (before around 1953) the TV probably will give you a full 4MHz of picture resolution. Later B&W sets would low pass filter the video to remove the chroma subcarrier (and higher resolution luma) and make a softer image.

wa2ise,

When the color burst is in the "off" mode, the GPU on the Raspberry Pi ignores the color data. If it's converting a stream with 4:x:y sampling, x and y are discarded; only the luma samples are used. It can, and will, produce a full 4 MHz luma.

I highly recommend folks use a Raspberry Pi Model B Generation 3 to feed vintage sets directly through a B/T (or feed the Raspberry Pi to one of Darryl's converters if you're lucky enough to need one). You can do so much more with the Raspberry Pi than an off the shelf STB, and they're quieter and much more efficient than home theater PC.