Retro TV
08-31-2021
Watch television programs like it used to be.
To the right of my computer monitor is an old black-and-white television. It's a nice thing for camping. It works on 220V (we used to have 220, not yet 230), 12V or on batteries.
I have now installed a Raspberry Pi 4 in the battery compartment so that I can watch old-fashioned television. The tuning knob has been replaced by an analog potentiometer connected to the GPIO of the Raspbery Pi via an ADC.
The Pi runs a number of Bash scripts that set up the correct channel. This is done by starting up Chromium in kiosk mode and streaming the correct TV channel.
In Lazarus (the open source Delphi), OO-Pascal in other words, I have made another program that makes it even easier to tune into a station from my PC. That program communicates with the Pi by calling the Bash scripts via SSH.
The source code for both the bash scripts and the Lazarus remote control application is on my Github.
The scripts control the browser via xdotool. Example of the script to watch Nederland 1 on television:
So the script resides on the Pi and is called from Lazarus, as follows:
To the right of my computer monitor is an old black-and-white television. It's a nice thing for camping. It works on 220V (we used to have 220, not yet 230), 12V or on batteries.
I have now installed a Raspberry Pi 4 in the battery compartment so that I can watch old-fashioned television. The tuning knob has been replaced by an analog potentiometer connected to the GPIO of the Raspbery Pi via an ADC.
The Pi runs a number of Bash scripts that set up the correct channel. This is done by starting up Chromium in kiosk mode and streaming the correct TV channel.
In Lazarus (the open source Delphi), OO-Pascal in other words, I have made another program that makes it even easier to tune into a station from my PC. That program communicates with the Pi by calling the Bash scripts via SSH.
The source code for both the bash scripts and the Lazarus remote control application is on my Github.
The scripts control the browser via xdotool. Example of the script to watch Nederland 1 on television:
#!/bin/bash
export DISPLAY=:0
pkill chromium
cd /home/pi/tv
chromium-browser --kiosk https://www.npostart.nl/live/npo-1 &
sleep 15
sleep 0.3 && xdotool mousemove 400 400
sleep 5
sleep 0.3 && xdotool mousemove 400 400
sleep 0.4 && xdotool click 1
xdotool mousemove 800 800So the script resides on the Pi and is called from Lazarus, as follows:
sshpass -p tv ssh pi@television.local /home/pi/tv/nl1Appliances
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