Vintage CRT TV Becomes Portable Pi Video Looper
Easily play clips from a thumb drive on this modded Magnavox TV.
As spotted on Reddit, some time ago “CherGuevera” was gifted an '80s portable Magnavox TV that would have been pretty sweet in its day. Today, however, it’s still a great piece of kit for modification, and this hacker inserted a Pi Zero W inside to enable it to play movie clips off of a USB stick.
Externally, the vintage video looper looks nearly stock, with a Pi safe shutdown button mounted near the volume knob and a “strangely” anachronistic USB port poking out of the top of the unit. The Pi Zero uses its composite output header to pass signals to the TV's input and a Raspiaudio Audio+ HAT takes care of sound. The device’s original 12V DC power supply or car adapter was discarded, in favor of a new supply that fits within the case and powers both the Pi and TV.
Software-wise, it utilizes a forked version of Adafruit’s Pi Video Looper, allowing it to play videos from a thumb drive plugged into the new top port. This setup uses green text for a retro CRT look, encouraging you to simply “Insert USB drive,” or “Press ESC to quit.” When a drive is inserted, it notes the number of movies found, and counts down in brilliant greeen and black before playing the content.
More pics of the finished build are available here.
