I have an old school boob tube tv in my room, currently with a firestick running through a converter. It’s fine i guess, but i want something else because 1, the aspect ratio is off since it expects to be hooked up to a flatscreen, and 2 the privacy problem of running something from amazon. Is there something that could work here?
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You could do something pretty cost efficiently with a Raspberry Pi that has composite video out: https://www.blakecarpenter.dev/using-a-raspberry-pi-with-a-crt-television/
I think the main Problem with raspberry pi is the video encoding and that it doesn’t have enough power to do it properly depending on the codec.
Yeah, I’m unfamiliar with the state of doing encoding with a pi, I have seen that newer models have a dedicated encoder chip for h.264 but I’ve personally never used it. Even with the first model of the raspberry pi, it included a hardware decoder, and was able to run as a media player hooked up to HDMI. I’m assuming OP wants something like that, just a media player for the CRT, and not a full fledged media server which can power everything.
Oh that’s dope as hell, I didn’t even realize Pis had composite video output at all!
This was actually new to me that the recent models have it, I haven’t tried the instructions from this blog, but it seems about right. I only used the original Pi and gave some life to spare CRT TVs like 10 years ago.
I’m curious what retropie would look like on a CRT. Would it need the overlays still or look like the original?
Imagine if the CRT filter on an actual CRT turns it into HD
Raspberry pi is a good option
FWIW you can fix the aspect ratio issue on the firestick using ADB to force the device to display in a 4:3 resolution (except when using streaming apps that force 16:9)
If you want something privacy oriented you’ll probably need to build some kind of NUC. To my knowledge no off-the-shelf streaming device respects privacy
If you can find/download the CRT TV’s remote, it may be possible to force widescreen in the menu or adjust vertical deflection in the service menu
If I was in your boat I’d probably do what you’re doing right now, because I hate Roku’s operating system. Long ago my family used this Roku for the same use case:
https://www.amazon.com/Roku-Express-Ditital-Streaming-Player/dp/B07CVH1L53?psc=1
It’s the Roku Roku Express+ 3910RW. Apparently it doesn’t get updates anymore though so your mileage may vary with this thing.
https://community.roku.com/t5/Roku-setup/Roku-Express-With-Composite-Cables/td-p/823748
