home entertainment hacks

770 Articles

S-video From An Atari 2600

April 5, 2009 by 14 Comments

atari

[Ben Heck] posted this writeup about getting S-Video/composite out of an Atari 2600. This is actually the hack of [Longhorn Engineer], who showed it to [Ben] at a recent event. If any of you have tried to play these classics on a modern TV you may have found it to be quite difficult. If you manage to get it physically connected, through adapters and such, you may still have video issues. This alleviates that issue completely. After you solder this in, your Atari has native composite/S-video. As you can see in the video after the break, it seems to work pretty well.

Continue reading “S-video From An Atari 2600” →

The Dream Tablet

March 31, 2009 by 12 Comments

dreamtablet

[Matthew] has completed this Dreamcast tablet modification. That’s right, you’re looking at a Dreamcast laid out in tablet format. We’re not really sure what advantages the tablet layout has, since it’s not touch screen and you probably need to put it down to play anyway. The laptop or clam shell might have been a smart choice simply for screen protection. Putting that aside, this is really cool. He had to do some extensive re working of the motherboard in the Dreamcast to get it to fit. Interestingly, he hacked together a custom disk drive for it too. You can see detailed pictures of the entire process, including the construction of the case, on his site. Great job [Matthew].

[Thanks John, via Fusion Mods]

Banjo Hero

March 26, 2009 by 22 Comments

banjo

We’ve posted a plethora of Guitar Hero style hardware hacks, but this one is completely different than the others. Behold, the Banjo hero. This unique controller was constructed from an old banjo and a guitar hero controller. Custom software was then built with custom songs for game play. We really wish we could see it in action. There are a couple videos available for download, but they are just pictures of the build process.

[via Boing Boing]

Automated DVD Dispenser

March 5, 2009 by 24 Comments

dvd

[Andrew] made this DVD dispenser for his senior project in high school. It is using an ATmega8515 for the brains, and a custom coded driver for the LCD. As you can see in the video, after the break, you can select a DVD by various identifiers such as genre or title. It then pushes that DVD out of the rack so you can grab it. Right now, all the DVDs have to be placed in predetermined positions, but it’s not a bad start at all. Thanks for sending this in [Andrew].

Continue reading “Automated DVD Dispenser” →

Gray Hoverman UHF Antenna

February 8, 2009 by 25 Comments

ant

With the impending digital switchover, many of you will find yourselves not only in need of a new converter box, but an antenna as well. Just like everything else, there are plans out there on how to build your own. [William] has gone through the effort of documenting his design and build of a very nicely made version. He used PVC for the frame and a wire mesh or chicken wire reflector. Good job [William]

WiFi Streaming Radio Update

February 3, 2009 by 6 Comments

[flickr video=3238566442]

Since our last post about his WiFi Streaming Radio Project, [Jeff] has been hard at work to release part 8 of the project where he adds tuning control to the radio. Interestingly enough, the addition of the tuning control only requires a potentiometer and the completed AVR LCD board from part 7. After wiring the potentiometer to the analog to digital converter on the AVR and adding a few lines of code, the radio can now be tuned quickly and easily. In addition to thoroughly explaining the hardware changes, [Jeff] details the configuration changes required to the OpenWRT framework so that bidirectional communication between the router and AVR is possible, allowing the tuner to function properly. Be sure to check out the video above to see the tuner in action.