Raspberry Pi Pico Enables Live Video Streaming on Nintendo Game Boy Color

About four days back, YouTuber ChromaLock shared an intriguing build log on his channel, featuring his latest hardware endeavor. This time around, he unveiled a Game Boy Color that could play video using its original link cable, enhanced with a Raspberry Pi Pico and some specialized software fine-tuned for this task.

For the best experience, simpler videos mean higher frames per second (FPS). Surprisingly, the clarity and smoothness when using a USB webcam stand out, particularly when compared to the classic Game Boy Camera accessory. However, to truly make the most of the Game Boy Color’s 160 x 144-pixel display, videos are ideally played in monochrome. The reason? The system’s color palette is limited to just four shades, making it even harder to run videos when color is added.

ChromaLock’s dedicated application, CGBLinkVideo, which you can find on GitHub, is designed to work seamlessly with a Raspberry Pi Pico, Game Boy Color, and the link cable. This app, crafted with the help of other open-source tools, compresses videos down to 1 Megabyte per second. That’s quite the reduction, given that the link cable can only handle 64 Kilobytes each second, resulting in some seriously compressed video frames. This setup does have its downsides, like occasionally missing or split frames, but overall, the playback gets the job done.

ChromaLock’s YouTube video not only showcases video playback capabilities but also breaks down the challenges faced in developing tools for the Game Boy Color’s limited system. While grayscale or monochrome videos can reach an impressive 60 FPS, introducing color drops the FPS to around 12.

Attempts to stream actual games were included, though the experience was far from optimal. Even old school Game Boy titles performed significantly worse compared to running directly from the hardware. As for modern 3D behemoths like Doom Eternal, the resolution was simply too much for the Game Boy Color’s low-res display.

ChromaLock’s prime motivation appeared to be making the “Bad Apple” music video, famed for the Touhou Project, work on this retro device. Interestingly, the video already being in monochrome made it possible to hit a smooth 60 FPS on the Game Boy Color. However, just watch out for some intense dithering, a side effect of the streaming method used.