A Very Small HDMI Display

With dozens of pocket-sized ARM boards with HDMI popping up, we’re surprised we haven’t seen this before. [Elias] made a custom driver board that takes an HDMI input and displays it on a very tiny, high-resolution display from a cell phone.

The display used is the same as what comes stock in the HTC desire HD. With a resolution of 800×480, it’s more than enough for a basic desktop, and while it’s not a 1080p monster from a few flagship phones, it’s more than enough for most uses.

[Elias]’ board consists of a Himax display driver and a TI DVI receiver. Included on the board is an MSP430 microcontroller used for initializing the driver and display. This build was originally intended for the Replicape, a 3D printer driver board for the Beaglebone, but because the only connections to this board are HDMI and an SPI to the ‘430, this also works with the Raspberry Pi.

26 thoughts on “A Very Small HDMI Display

  1. This won’t handle the HDMI HDCP keys since it’s just DVI, but should be perfect for hobby projects. I’m thinking that this plus a lager display would make a wicked in-car monitor.

    1. Luckily, you can get away without HDCP in a great many cases. BD-ROM players almost certainly do care; but it’s hard to imagine a situation where you’d want to watch a blu-ray on a screen smaller than your blu-ray player instead of on the cheapest 20-odd inch LCD-TV on the shelf(or better).

      Some, but not all, tablet/phone apps that handle precious, precious ‘premium content’ are touchy about it; but those devices also have their own screens, so not a big deal.

      I don’t know of any proper, general purpose computers, even ones that can demand HDCP under certain circumstances(eg. recent Windows flavor with ‘legitimate’ blu-ray player software) that will simply refuse to work, for non-crippled applications, without it.

      And, of course, I’ve heard from, an, um, friend, that there are bad, wicked, people out there who have their ways of making the MPAA cry by using unblessed playback methods…

      1. Well .. i did not notice it says that the HDCP is not supported , and the fact that this goes through DVI does not mean it’s without HDCP either. Please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong; however, as mentioned above… with the proper fresnel and 1080p 5inch LCD, you may wish to watch blu-ray by instant

        1. That Fresnel does of course require you to be a one-eyed person to appreciate it, but those are details I expect.

          And pirates already wear an eyepatch anyway I think.

      2. Honestly, who cares a flying frack about HDCP. This would be really useful for electronic instrumentation, homemade projectors, document readers etc.

        Hello chinese cheap board makers and arduino cloners, why don’t you make some of these to sell on ebay?

  2. one of my major gripes about the pi was that you needed a display with an hdmi port to use it. you couldn’t just grab an old vga monitor from your scrapheap and use that. did get a hdmi->vga adapter, but that was beside the point.

    you couldn’t just by a display, let alone a portable display, that was cheap and useful (those $30 composite rearview displays aren’t very useful). now this display is perfect. this is the last piece in my portable pi project.

    tldr:
    shut up and take my money

    1. or just buy any portable TV with an RCA connector, that have been around for the last 20 years and have batteries, 12v car adaptors, solar powered the list goes on. But otherwise I totally agree with you.

    1. That was my exact thinking. You can get an OK 5-7″ display for like $150-$200 but this would make for a killer EVF. I wouldn’t need many fancy features for it. Just a nice way to see the display through a loupe during outdoor shoots. I already comented on the other site that i would be buying 2 if they are available. One for an EVF and one with a touch overlay for my rPi system. Even if this were available as a kit and you supply your own LCD, you can easily pick up a replacement screen from something and then package it all up yourself.

  3. Great work! But anyone who’s looking for a cheap, small HDMI monitor and can deal with a 7″ screen size, search eBay for AT070TN90. You can get a panel and driver combo shipped by slow boat for around $40.

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