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TV Tuner as a User Interface

E

EnigmaPaul

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hi Guys,

This is a little off the wall, but I am designing an interface unit for
controlling power usage in homes and the built in LCD screen can only
be utilized to display a finite amount of information and I desire a
way to interface the unit to a larger screen in some applications. The
obvious thing would be to make the application web based and the user
can utilize a PC to communicate with the controller, etc. But in cases
where a computer is not available or is considered too complex for
non-techies, I am wondering if there is a clever way to display
information on the home owner's TV screen to achieve a larger format
display. What jumped to mind were things FM audio transmitters that
are used for iPods to shuttle audio to a standard FM radio. Very cheap
and they work well. The idea is to do something like that, but for
video and use the TV tuner as a display for the user interface. The
information would only need to be basic textual information, not full
motion video.

Can anyone think of any neat, practical ways of getting basic textual
user interface information from an electronic control unit to a TV
screen? Wirelessly would be nice, but I suppose it would have to be
done like the early home computers (Commodore, etc) where a TV
modulator was wired into the RF input of the TV.

Thanks!

Paul
 
J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hello Paul,

Can anyone think of any neat, practical ways of getting basic textual
user interface information from an electronic control unit to a TV
screen? Wirelessly would be nice, but I suppose it would have to be
done like the early home computers (Commodore, etc) where a TV
modulator was wired into the RF input of the TV.

Radio Shack digitally programmable UHF modulator, laptop (or PC) with
NTSC output -> bingo!
 
J

Joel Kolstad

Jan 1, 1970
0
Paul,

EnigmaPaul said:
Can anyone think of any neat, practical ways of getting basic textual
user interface information from an electronic control unit to a TV
screen? Wirelessly would be nice, but I suppose it would have to be
done like the early home computers (Commodore, etc) where a TV
modulator was wired into the RF input of the TV.

These days it seems acceptable to just have a composite video output -- it's
only TVs manufactured better than a decade ago now that don't have composite
video inputs, and even those are likely to be hooked up to a VCR that does.

Wireless is pretty much a dead end here, since most people are on cable.

Anyway, then, to generate composite video... if you look in the ads in, e.g.,
Nuts & Volts or Circuit Cellar Ink, you'll see companies selling boards that
do just that. I'm not familiar with all the variations, but I do know that
some of them used ICs manufactured for VCR on-screen displays.

If you want to get *really* low-end, you can just use a fast microcontroller
and literally "bit bang" the TV display. For a monochrome display, you need
little more than a crude 2 bit D->A converter (use resistors) to produce sync,
front & back porch levels, and black and white. (If you add a color modulator
like an LM1358, you can get two different colors that you can use little trim
pots to control!) There are various articles on the 'net and in magazines
describing this approach in more detail... the main limitation is that the
display resolution you end up with is directly tied to how quickly your
microcontroller can shift out pixels; this can be improved by using
parallel-load shift registers to do this part, but if you need anything too
much fanciful pretty soon it's cheaper to just use an IC made for the purpose.

---Joel Kolstad
 
J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hello Joel,

Wireless is pretty much a dead end here, since most people are on cable.

Except for that "remote viewing" gizmo that X-10 sells. Not sure how
they call it but it consist of two little plastic pyramids. One
transmits (probably on 2.4GHz), the other receives and outputs composite
plus sound.
 
J

John B

Jan 1, 1970
0
EnigmaPaul scrobe on the papyrus:
Hi Guys,

This is a little off the wall, but I am designing an interface unit
for controlling power usage in homes and the built in LCD screen can
only be utilized to display a finite amount of information and I
desire a way to interface the unit to a larger screen in some
applications. The obvious thing would be to make the application web
based and the user can utilize a PC to communicate with the
controller, etc. But in cases where a computer is not available or
is considered too complex for non-techies, I am wondering if there is
a clever way to display information on the home owner's TV screen to
achieve a larger format display. What jumped to mind were things FM
audio transmitters that are used for iPods to shuttle audio to a
standard FM radio. Very cheap and they work well. The idea is to do
something like that, but for video and use the TV tuner as a display
for the user interface. The information would only need to be basic
textual information, not full motion video.

Can anyone think of any neat, practical ways of getting basic textual
user interface information from an electronic control unit to a TV
screen? Wirelessly would be nice, but I suppose it would have to be
done like the early home computers (Commodore, etc) where a TV
modulator was wired into the RF input of the TV.

Thanks!

Paul

If you're in Europe then your TV will have a SCART connector and you
can feed it an RGB signal. The STV5730 is a handy chip for this.
 
S

Spehro Pefhany

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hello Joel,



Except for that "remote viewing" gizmo that X-10 sells. Not sure how
they call it but it consist of two little plastic pyramids. One
transmits (probably on 2.4GHz), the other receives and outputs composite
plus sound.

Sony has some small screen LCD TVs that are a bit like that (base
station plus portable unit). They're not particularly cheap (12" LF-X1
MSRP 1,500 USD, 7" LF-X5 MSRP 760 USD).


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
 
J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hello Spehro,
Sony has some small screen LCD TVs that are a bit like that (base
station plus portable unit). They're not particularly cheap (12" LF-X1
MSRP 1,500 USD, 7" LF-X5 MSRP 760 USD).

Ouch! Sounds like serious nerdware.

Let's see ... ours was $20 for 13" from a yard sale. The modulator was
about $50 plus tax. So we paid around $75 for the privilege to watch the
news and the occasional tape under the stars on the deck. With a new TV
it would still have been under $150. Heck, you could even leave the TV
outside as nobody will want to steal something like that.

I still have to figure out an easy way to make the remote send back
commands to the VCR so we can stop/start it in case an important phone
call comes in.
 
J

Joel Kolstad

Jan 1, 1970
0
Joerg said:
Ouch! Sounds like serious nerdware.

I believe the Sony solution will let you pause a playback and then zoom in to
Jennifer Love Hewitt's, uh... assets... to the limits of the source material.
Can't do that with your $20 yard sale special!

:)
I still have to figure out an easy way to make the remote send back commands
to the VCR so we can stop/start it in case an important phone call comes in.

There are cheap IR<-->RF extenders out there, e.g.,
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EA1IBG.

---Joel
 
J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hello Joel,
I believe the Sony solution will let you pause a playback and then zoom in to
Jennifer Love Hewitt's, uh... assets... to the limits of the source material.
Can't do that with your $20 yard sale special!

:)

What's the ad say? I could, if I wanted to, but I may not want to.

Well, I am married. So even if I wanted to, I couldn't do that ;-)
There are cheap IR<-->RF extenders out there, e.g.,
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EA1IBG.

Thanks. It'll be another thing to plug in on the patio table but this
should enable true remote control. I never really understood why remotes
have to be IR. Wireless with a self-learning ID shouldn't be rocket
science. Even dog training collars have that.
 
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