We are not breaking anything in this DIY work. Suddenly I found that I purchased a JXD 661 Media Play near a decade ago. At that time, it was quite decent at that price. Nokia N73 Music Edition replaced that stuff. I found that, it is basically easy to use it as display of Arduino. We talked about Arduino displays before and also how to use mobile phone’s display as Arduino’s display. We Can Use Decent Quality Made in China Media Player Like JXD With TV Input as Arduino Display Without Buying Anything. Code & Lib Included. If you really have one such media player or may be, if you found a cheap stuff, it is not exactly bad. We are actually against making AdaFruit’s lady richer!
This is a recovered post/article/guide after disaster. Contact us if you find any odd thing!
Media Player With TV Input as Arduino Display : What My JXD 661 Has Extra Things
JXD 661 has RCA jack for TV input. Read about connectors later. RCA are those Red & White male connectors for Audio and Yellow colored connector for Video input. JXD is a standard company. You can probably buy their new models. I am huge fan of good quality Made in China stuffs now.
Apple is also Made in China. After 5-6 years continuous usage, $2500 MacBook Pro also become like a Made in China stuff – cursor of trackpad dancing, magic mouse connecting & disconnecting etc. becomes normal matters, battery indicator gives threat – “Condition: Replace Soon”.
---
Media Player With TV Input as Arduino Display : Wires and Resistors Are Only Stuffs You Need
For this project, to make such Media Player with TV input as Arduino display, you will need :
- Arduino Board (we are using UNO)
- It is better to have some jumper wires, breadboard etc. Not exactly mandatory.
- Any conductive wires – copper, tin, aluminum, gold – anything. You’ll understand why later.
- 2 resisters – one 1000 Ohm and another around 470 Ohm. Actually you can add two 220 Ohm resisters to make around 470 Ohm. If you have a bargain electronics kit set we suggested to have, it will not have 470 Ohm resister but 220 Ohm resisters. Buying a cheap multimeter is a good idea (you can buy later). Else you have to fight with color coding of resisters to get the value of resistance.
- Obviously that JXD 661 like some Media Player and its RCA cable.
- Hands.
- Your computer.
Connecting Arduino With Media Player’s RCA TV Input
Insert the male connector to the JXD like Media Player’s input. Obviously, Red & White male connectors for Audio – we need to use the. We need that Yellow colored connector for Video input. That is why we need any conductive wires – copper, tin, aluminum, gold. Wrap the outside of the yellow RCA with one wire and cut one end. Wrap another wire to the middle pole of the Yellow RCA jack. Do not short circuit. In other words – cheapest, easiest way to connect.
That wire from outside is Ground or Negative. It will go to Arduino’s GND. It is better to plug that wire’s end to a breadboard and use a jumper to connect from that breadboard to Arduino’s board. Everything has a minimum decency!
Now, 2 jumpers from Arduino’s digital pin number 7 and 9 will go to the breadboard. We tested the Pin numbers, many are saying that number 8 works not number 7, but for us – 7 and 9 worked.
That pin number 9 on breadboard will get a 1000 Ohm resister.
That pin number 7 on breadboard will get a ~ 470 Ohm resister.
Then, both the output of these will get connected to become one jumper wire. That jumper wire will get connected to the middle pole of the Yellow RCA jack. Factually, a kid can make this setup. Here is official documentation of Pins :
1 | http://playground.arduino.cc/Main/TVout |
Downloading and Installing Arduino Libraries
Original code is here (you’ll not use it, but use read the documentation) :
1 2 3 | https://code.google.com/p/arduino-tvout/ # or clone of the above https://github.com/AbhishekGhosh/arduino-tvout |
Now, download my modified stuffs :
1 | https://github.com/AbhishekGhosh/Arduino-JXD-Display/releases/tag/1.0 |
You’ll see that there are four directories :
1 2 3 4 | TVout fontsALL pollserial video_gen |
For OS X, frankly, if you cd to :
1 | cd $HOME/Documents/Arduino/libraries |
…and drop those TVout, fontsALL, pollserial, video_gen directories (not zip) and launch Arduino app, those libraries will get included. Officially, zip each of them separately, so that they become :
1 2 3 4 | TVout.zip fontsALL.zip pollserial.zip video_gen.zip |
Then, here is written on Arduino’s website how to upload those Libraries :
1 | https://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/Libraries#toc2 |
Tested Sample Codes with JXD 661 as Arduino Display
Tested, 100% warranty that it will work with JXD 661 or such stuffs :
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 | // coded by tronixstuff.com #include <TVout.h> #include <fontALL.h> TVout TV; unsigned char x,y; void setup() { x=0; y=0; TV.begin(PAL); TV.select_font(font6x8); } void loop() { TV.clear_screen(); x=0; y=0; for (char i = 32; i < 127; i++) { TV.print_char(x*6,y*8,i); x++; if (x >= TV.char_line()) { y++; x=0; } } TV.delay(1000); TV.clear_screen(); TV.println("Fill the Screen\nPixel by Pixel"); TV.println("thecustomizewindows.com\nPixel by Pixel"); TV.delay(1000); TV.clear_screen(); for(x=0;x<TV.hres();x++){ for(y=0;y<TV.vres();y++){ TV.set_pixel(x,y,1); } } TV.delay(1000); TV.clear_screen(); TV.print("Draw some lines"); TV.delay(1000); x = TV.hres() - 1; for(y=0;y<TV.vres();y++){ TV.draw_line(0,y,x-y,y,2); } TV.delay(1000); } |
