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

Just a few days ago, YouTuber ChromaLock dropped an intriguing build log on his channel, displaying his latest gadgetry marvel. This time, he introduced a Game Boy Color set up to stream video using its original link cable, a Raspberry Pi Pico, and some cleverly tailored software crafted for this purpose.

In essence, simpler video content means you’re likely to experience smoother, higher frame rates. It’s a surprisingly clear and fluid experience, especially if you’re comparing footage streamed from a USB webcam to what you’d get with the old-school Game Boy Camera. However, videos generally run best in monochrome because the Color palette is limited to just four shades, which complicates things on the Game Boy Color’s 160 x 144-pixel screen.

The key to making this streaming setup work is ChromaLock’s app, CGBLinkVideo, which is accessible on GitHub. It’s designed to run on a Raspberry Pi Pico, linked via a Game Boy Color’s cable, and built atop some existing open-source projects. While the video data is squished down to a megabyte per second, the link cable can only manage a transfer rate of 64 kilobytes per second—leading to some serious compression on those video frames. This setup can cause common issues like dropped or split frames, but it does function overall.

ChromaLock’s full-length video isn’t just about watching video playback—he takes you through the development process and challenges imposed by the Game Boy Color’s hardware limitations. On the lighter side, video playback can hit 60 FPS if you stick to grayscale or monochrome, but with color, you’re looking at nearer 12 FPS.

He even tested video game streaming. However, even retro Game Boy titles felt noticeably less responsive than running them directly. As for modern 3D games, like DOOM Eternal, their high-res graphics became practically unviewable on the venerable Game Boy Color’s low-res screen.

The main driver behind this project for ChromaLock seemed to be the challenge of playing the well-known Touhou Project music video, “Bad Apple,” smoothly on a Game Boy Color. Since the video is originally monochrome, achieving 60 FPS playback on the device surprisingly proved achievable, though the process did lead to some intense dithering due to the streaming method.