Analog TV Simulator - accurate nostalgia FTW

Playground
#1

Found this on Reddit this week, and it's silly, ridiculous fun. Analog TV has an assortment of interesting features but the ability to simulate old-fashioned video feeds is what sparked my curiosity most.

I realize this is very niche but also know there's an audience here that might be interested. Currently I'm feeding it classic content (like MST3K) via m3u8's produced from FastChannels, and watching those channels exactly how they looked on analog CRT TV sets back in the 1980's :joy:

This page has fully functional TestFlight versions that you can try for free on every platform (AppleTV, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro) before you buy:

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FastChannels - FAST Channels aggregator/manager
#2

I'm the dev of this app, if anyone has any ideas / feature requests / criticisms, let me know.

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#3

This is amazing! Direct HDHomeRun integration (including channel changing) would be pretty great, unless that's already in there and I'm missing it...

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#4

How about direct integration with channel collections sourced from Channels DVR? :heart_eyes:

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#5

It's not in there. I'd need to get an HDHR box to test. I'll have a look on eBay to see if I can get one locally.

#6

Latest TestFlight build has FastChannels and Plex support: Join the AnalogTV for TV beta - TestFlight - Apple

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#7

very cool!

fyi, FastChannels has built-in HDHR support so you may not need to build anything there.

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#8

FastChannels is built and shipped. Let me know if it's working well, I was able to test it and it played all the streams that I tried, though I'm not an expert user.

#9

Version 1.5 (tvOS) just dropped:

Bypass Mode

Watch a source exactly as it arrives, with the CRT simulation switched off, so you can confirm what's actually coming in before deciding how to age it. Available from the NDI page, with a persistent badge while it's on.

CEEFAX-style weather art

Four new weather Teletext pages, redrawn from scratch in the style of real 1980s/90s CEEFAX weather art instead of plain text: a weather symbol page, a 24-hour temperature chart, a rain-chance bar chart, and a local map with city markers for wherever you are. All four render through the same
mosaic-graphics Teletext renderer as the rest of the app, not a bitmap overlay.

Top Shelf

The Apple TV Home Screen now shows a live carousel of test cards when the app is installed. Select one to jump straight into it.

Also

NDI sources now default Sound on, the same as streams and FTP playback already did (previously the only source on tvOS where you had to find the Sound toggle yourself). Fixed a rare crash when an NDI source disconnected mid-receive. Fixed teletext mosaic graphics rendering with visible gaps in what should be solid colour blocks. Small decoder-accuracy fixes shared with the rest of the app.

#10

Is there a way to sync .m3u feeds so I don't have to manually enter them on all my ATVs?

#11

Like a shared profile that auto-syncs all the looks, stream settings, etc across the AppleTVs?

The security issue is that the user credentials are stored encrypted on the device. If I sync via iCloud then it's weaker. I could sync the playlist and leave the credentials local-only.

#12

Right now I'd be happy with just the playlist syncing, but I imagine over time (as I explore the app more) that sync wishlist will probably grow. Not sure what the best path forward is, but I appreciate security being taken into consideration.

Thought: Instead of entering individual playlist paths, what if I pointed your app to FastChannels host and it parsed the available playlists and allowed me to choose? @KineticMan Perhaps this could be the beginning of a sort of auto-config API for third party apps to instantly pick up FC's offerings, making FC the source of truth and no longer needing 3rd party apps to implement their own sync mechanism.

#13

You should be able to already point it to a FastChannels host. It's in the IPTV Playlists section, add New Playlist and you can add a FastChannels M3U.

#14

Sorry I should have been clearer. What I was suggesting is pointing it at the host only (i.e. host.lan:5523) and getting back a list of all available playlists, hence the idea about an auto-config API on the FC side to allow 3rd party apps to automatically integrate.

#15

If someone implements that on the FC side, I'm happy to build out my side. Just point me to the spec.

1 Like
#16

Sharing with the group as I came across an actual working analog TV......

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