AnalogTV - a physics-accurate full composite signal chain simulator (camera tube -> CRT phosphor)
Problem: You want the Analog TV aesthetic on your Mac - to play games, watch movies, create content. You don't want cheap filters, you want the full simulation of the signal chain from base principles. Comparison: Filter apps that overlay fake "CRT Effects" over the top of your images Pricing: $4.99 App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/analog-tv-simulator/id6761325301 Web: https://analogtv.net (TestFlight version, Alpha unsigned .dmg version, iOS version) As a child of the 1970s I've been playing with analog television since 1984 (when my Dad got us our first camcorder). Since then I've been collecting vintage gear, running a home lab full of real CRTs, broadcast equipment, and VHS decks, and diving deep into the technical specs, patents, and service manuals. Over the decades I've tried to recreate that authentic "broadcast chain" feel as accurately as humanly possible. Friends have urged me to finally share my project: AnalogTV. It's a physics-based simulator that models the entire composite signal chain from first principles. No filters, no AI shortcuts. Every artifact (dot crawl, Hanover bars, SECAM fire, VHS head-switch noise, multipath ghosts, phosphor decay, camera tube lag, etc.) emerges naturally from the actual signal processing, exactly like real hardware. This isn't a filter that modifies pixels, I first convert the input into a composite signal and every part of the pipeline is working on that composite signal. It covers: 12 broadcast standards (NTSC, PAL, SECAM, 405-line, MAC/HDTV variants, etc.) Full camera tube modeling (Vidicon, Plumbicon, Saticon, Image Orthicon, early CCDs with real lag/bloom/smear behavior) RF interference, pay-TV scrambling systems, and multiple VCR formats with tape-domain effects and generation loss CRT physics down to the phosphor chemistry (real decay constants from RCA datasheets, shadow mask geometries, halation, EHT sag, etc.) Some fun Easter Egg simulations like Macrovision copy protection, Pay TV encryption, running a magnet over the shadow mask, etc. Everything runs on the GPU/CPU at 4× subcarrier sampling so the interactions are genuine. RF ghosts affect chroma demodulation the way they did on 1980s sets, VHS chroma-under drift creates the exact color shifts you'd see, and so on. It's the closest thing I've been able to build to plugging a real camera into a real transmitter, through a real VCR, and out to a real CRT. This has been a true labor of love built over a very long time using my own experiences and reference material. The level of detail is insane (for example I model the original Fujitsu MB88303 TVDC chip that was common in consumer cameras from the original technical documentation) I'd love to hear what the community thinks... especially from anyone who still runs real vintage gear or has specific memories of certain artifacts, standards, or quirks. Does this match what you remember? What would you want to see added or refined next? Full disclosure on "Is this just some AI slop?" or "Is this just vibe coded"? - The web site and icon were created from the source code by an LLM. I'm not great at that stuff and it was really easy to feed it the source and make a web site from it. The code itself is assisted with AI as most modern software development has AI integrated into the IDE. The massive amount of research material, technical documents, etc are not something an LLM can directly work with and a lot of this material isn't even available online. Where possible I cite original sources and measurements for all aspects of the simulation.
Collected discussion
the fact that "running a magnet over the shadow mask " is included as an easter egg means this dev grew up doing exactly that and getting yelled at by his mom in 1987 lol
Ummmm.... guilty. 😄
How GPU-heavy is it on Apple Silicon / Macbook Pro? Curious if real-time preview holds up at higher resolutions
My slowest test device I have is a 2018 Mini Intel Core i3 - it works ok. Any of the Apple Silicon devices should be able to eat it up no problem. The hardest thing to simulate is SECAM which cannot be done on the GPU (I do have a GPU mode but it does a bit of cheating). It's CPU-only for the fully "correct" version and Intel struggles a bit with it. The iOS version of the app works really well on the current generation of iPhones/iPads.
That looks very good but very niche market as a standalone app. Make this a plugin for video apps like DaVinci Resolve (OFX), Final Cut Pro or Premiere. If you make it an OFX plugin it could also be used in VFX compositing apps.
I totally agree... it's a bit of work and I made a shortcut of having NDI as an IAP for $9.99 as a stopgap. https://ndi.video/
I'm curious if it is an universal purchase for MacOS and iOS/iPadOS, bc the app is showing different pages for each, and if so, the in-app purchase can be shared between them?
Sadly I set them up separately at the start and I think it’s impossible to merge them now. If you get the iOS one on the App Store you can still get the DMG (fully unlocked with all features) on the web site as a free direct download.
What is the usecase for this?
It's more of a passion project for me - but throughout the course of development I've added specific features requested by people with the following use cases. [The app is in active development (most recent version went in yesterday) directly based on feature requests]. Retro TV Enthusiasts - Watch content like it used to be (you can load your own videos) Students - You can see what all the controls do, learn about different formats, etc. Video production - Apply effects to your own videos Retro Gaming - Play your video games through the simulation (it can capture any part of your screen or take video input via NDI). It can also output via NDI to any other device. Interesting integrations (e.g. into Home Assistant via the Teletext feature) Retro Camera (takes a camera input - this is more of a use case for the iOS version though)
Interesting! Love the idea, and it's a huge level of authenticity. I built an app (Retromac) and tried to emulate that "feeling" with shaders (for the whole desktop). Congrats!
Just had a look. I downloaded it and after granting the permissions it no longer loads (what am I doing wrong?)... But based on the web site: Retromac has advantages over AnalogTV: - Far more polished / mature UI - Far easier for the casual user - Free to download (but one-time payment for shaders is more expensive than AnalogTV) - Runs system-wide to alter the entire macOS experience (this might be an advantage/disadvantage) AnalogTV differences: - Not just a pixel shader - full analog pipeline simulation - Far more settings based on documented technical documents and real-world measurements - Does not affect other applications in macOS (a key conceptual difference from Retromac) - NDI input/output (use as a tool to add effects to existing content and export) - RTSP output - Simulates more aspects of AnalogTV like Teletext, Tube effects, Mechanical TV, etc. - All settings are real in the sense that they control the underlying composite signal I really like Retromac though I think it's for a different use-case.
Sony Trinitron?
You can choose “Aperture Grill” as the CRT mask for a Trinitron look.
Can you export video from it? Ie, if I output a video from FCPX, can I run it through AnalogTV as a final step and "record" the CRT output as a new file? Thanks much!
Absolutely*. That was a frequently requested feature early in development. Several ways to do it. Import and Export (at the top where you select source) Use NDI - https://ndi.video (this is an IAP) but it will let you stream in and out whatever you want. Import and use RTSP to stream out *I haven’t yet made an actual plugin for video editing software. It’s on the backlog though a bunch of things ahead of it.
The fact that you're modeling the actual composite signal chain instead of slapping a pixel filter on top is what separates this from every "CRT shader" I've ever tried. Also, the Macrovision easter egg made me laugh out loud. Anyone who remembers trying to dub a rental tape in the 90s knows exactly that "brightness pumping" nightmare. One feature request if you're taking suggestions: the warm-up phase of an old CRT, that 10 second period where the geometry slowly settles and the colors stabilize as the EHT comes up. Hitting the power button and hearing the thunk was half the experience. Genuinely impressive work.
Thanks for the feedback - there are a few more easter eggs in there 😉 .... and I have a few things like your suggestion in the backlog: Sound of the degaussing coils on power on (as you requested) A bit of "rolling" as you change source (like changing channels on an old TV) Improve the realism of the vertical blanking area (currently it's real for Macrovision) but I don't simulate that aspect of the broadcast yet "Holding the antenna" effect that lets you virtually manipulate rabbit ears and affect the signal (like multi-path distortion) As you can tell my focus has been on realism, but many of the comments here (and elsewhere I've shown it) point to people wanting a much better UI which admittedly was not my focus and I understand is a limitation.
OFX this!!!
I had a look into what it would take to OFX it and some parts simply cannot be done. The number of controls would have to be dramatically slimmed down and some of the deeper parts of the simulation would have to be approximated. Maybe that doesn’t matter? The app does have NDI capability so the alternative is you run your video in and out using NDI and then work on the result?
There’s one app someone made I forgot the name already for gaming on Mac that does this and it’s free why would I pay for this plus I can do the real thing on my crts idk Man U got some competition already
Obviously a real CRT is best but not as portable or usable with a battery. I’m going to guess the free app is a pixel-domain filter which may be good enough for many people.
It is such a breeze to see an app like this in here. Hope you'll make it even awesome.
Great nostalgia, it makes me want to get another screen for the office and just play videos using the CRT overlay in the background while I'm working
nice