Tiny "Retro Cable Box" for CRT televisions.

[SeanSIMPLETHINGS]

I have set up a few 13 inch CRT  televisions as novelty or decor items for my friends. I outfit them with an analog TV converter box with a USB media player. They play old video footage on USB.

The Tiny TV style player would be so much better for these things. Loading up a bank of retro "cable" channels, Startup and go with no menu diving (the menus the analog converters have are difficult to view on small CRT's anyway) and having the channel flipping action like the Tiny TV has would be awesome & nostalgic. My old analog converters work like a media player rather than a retro cable box.

[nutmegsplosh]

I have set up a few 13 inch CRT  televisions as novelty or decor items for my friends. I outfit them with an analog TV converter box with a USB media player. They play old video footage on USB. bitlife

The Tiny TV style player would be so much better for these things. Loading up a bank of retro "cable" channels, Startup and go with no menu diving (the menus the analog converters have are difficult to view on small CRT's anyway) and having the channel flipping action like the Tiny TV has would be awesome & nostalgic. My old analog converters work like a media player rather than a retro cable box.

Your idea of transforming the 13-inch CRT televisions into retro, channel-flipping nostalgia machines using a Tiny TV-style player is great for capturing that old-school cable experience! It’s much more immersive than the traditional analog TV converter boxes, which can feel clunky with their media player-like interfaces. To get the experience of browsing through retro "channels" with the same satisfying channel-flipping action as Tiny TV, you could consider a couple of technical solutions to replicate this aesthetic and function.

[daffyhapless]

Slice Master I have set up a few 13 inch CRT  televisions as novelty or decor items for my friends. I outfit them with an analog TV converter box with a USB media player. They play old video footage on USB.

The Tiny TV style player would be so much better for these things. Loading up a bank of retro "cable" channels, Startup and go with no menu diving (the menus the analog converters have are difficult to view on small CRT's anyway) and having the channel flipping action like the Tiny TV has would be awesome & nostalgic. My old analog converters work like a media player rather than a retro cable box.

That’s a really cool project! The nostalgia factor of using 13-inch CRTs with old footage is amazing. I totally agree that the Tiny TV-style player would be a game-changer for this setup. Having a bank of retro “cable” channels with instant startup and seamless channel flipping would make it feel way more authentic, compared to the clunky media player interface on analog TV converters.

[SleepingInRlyeh]

Oh, this is a cool idea!   One could do it, albeit not in a totally tiny way, with a Raspberry Pi Zero.   It has composite out.

https://magazine.raspberrypi.com/articles/rca-pi-zero

It wouldn't be a huge box with just a Pi Zero so maybe this would fit the bill?   It could even fit in the TV cabinet for a completely hidden build.

One could also use the Pi Zero with WIFI and expose a webpage to remote admin it and upload video files.

[SleepingInRlyeh]

Thinking about it more, it might be easier to do with a RPi4.  That has 4 pole out that includes audio.  A bit bigger than the zero, but still not huge.

I'm thinking this might be much easier than the Zero.  Here's a video that shows how to do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m8ScViTZi0