A few days ago, a YouTuber named ChromaLock shared his latest project on his channel. In this video, he introduced viewers to a Game Boy Color that can play videos through its original link cable with the help of a Raspberry Pi Pico and some tailored software to handle the task.
The simpler the video, the higher the frames per second, allowing for surprisingly clear and smooth playback when compared to using a traditional Game Boy Camera. However, most videos perform best in monochrome since the system’s color capability is limited. With only four colors available, running videos on the Game Boy Color’s 160 x 144-pixel screen becomes quite a challenge.
This innovative streaming tool is designed to work with a Raspberry Pi Pico, a Game Boy Color, and a link cable, all powered by an app named CGBLinkVideo. ChromaLock uploaded this app on GitHub, and it’s constructed upon a foundation of open-source software. Despite efforts to compress the video to a data rate of 1 MB per second, the link cable can only manage up to 64 KB per second. As a result, the video is highly compressed, leading to frequent occurrences of issues like dropped or split frames—but with a little patience, you can get it to play.
If you’re curious, you can check out the full ChromaLock video linked above. It goes beyond just showcasing video playback; it dives deep into the development journey, particularly how they navigated the Game Boy Color’s system limitations. By choosing grayscale or monochrome, you can push video playback to an impressive 60 FPS. Adding color, however, drops the frame rate to around 12 FPS.
ChromaLock even experimented with streaming some games. Running original Game Boy games wasn’t ideal, with the quality taking a significant hit compared to playing them natively. More modern games, like Doom Eternal, didn’t fare well on the Game Boy Color due to its outdated, low-resolution screen.
The primary inspiration for ChromaLock’s endeavor was to achieve a smooth playback of the well-known Touhou Project music video “Bad Apple” on a Game Boy Color. Since the video is monochrome to begin with, running it at 60 FPS on the Game Boy Color was actually quite viable, despite some noticeable dithering due to the streaming technique.
