Real-Time Video Streamed to Nintendo Game Boy Color Using Raspberry Pi Pico

A few days back, renowned YouTuber ChromaLock dropped a fascinating video on his channel, diving into his latest tech venture. This time around, he’s taken a Game Boy Color and transformed it into a nifty device capable of streaming video using its original link cable, all thanks to a Raspberry Pi Pico and some cleverly designed custom software.

When it comes to video playback, simpler visuals result in smoother frames per second, offering surprising clarity when compared to using a classic Game Boy Camera. However, most clips look best in monochrome due to the Game Boy’s limited 4-color palette, which struggles with the 160 x 144 pixels of the device’s display.

ChromaLock showcased a tool named CGBLinkVideo for this streaming setup, suitable for use with a Raspberry Pi Pico, the trusty Game Boy Color, and its link cable. This creative piece of software, available on GitHub, is built on the backbone of other open-source programs. While the video quality is crunched down to 1 Megabyte per second, the link cable can only handle up to 64 Kilobytes per second. This limitation means the video frames have to be compressed even more, which occasionally leads to dropped or split frames, yet it still manages to play the video.

His complete video doesn’t stop at playing video. It delves into the technical development and challenges faced with the Game Boy Color’s hardware constraints. Impressively, it can achieve playback speeds of up to 60 FPS in grayscale or monochrome. In contrast, attempting color video caps the FPS at around 12.

ChromaLock also put some video game streaming to the test. Sadly, even classic Game Boy titles didn’t run smoothly when streamed, and trying out a modern 3D title like Doom Eternal proved even more impractical due to the Game Boy Color’s outdated display capabilities.

The core of this intriguing project was about achieving the seemingly improbable—playing the iconic “Bad Apple” music video from the Touhou Project on a Game Boy Color. Given its monochrome nature, running it at 60 FPS became a possibility, albeit with noticeable dithering owing to the streaming technique employed.

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