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62 items tagged "entertainment"

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February 24, 2010
10:30
A second life for dead hard drives
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[AndyUU1CC] has put together directions on how he built an Iambic Paddle out of some old hard drives. The iambic paddle is a device for telegraphy. More specifically, it is that piece that you always see people clicking with their finger when they send a telegraph. We hadn’t seen an iambic or “dual lever” style [...]
February 17, 2010
7:16
Repairing your TV EDID
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[Andreas] found that his home theater PC would not boot one day. Oddly, if he disconnected his HDMI cable from his TV, it would boot fine. While most of us would have dug into the PC, he realized that it was a signal from the TV that was incorrect. Luckily, LG had included a full [...]
February 13, 2010
10:00
Propeller arcade
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

This arcade cabinet has been saved from a gruesome death. [Oldbitcollector] picked the broken rig up for $50 and is building a Parallax Propeller based arcade machine. This began back in October and he’s just dropped in a newly painted control panel to replace the NES controller seen above. He pulled the replacement screen out [...]
February 08, 2010
10:46
Built-in hex editor unlocks plasma TV features
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[Nick] tipped us off about a guide to unlock extra features on Panasonic televisions. The hack works on the G10 models of plasma TVs and uses the service menu to gain access to the EEPROM memory. With a few quick steps you can change some data with a built in hex editor, unlocking several new [...]
January 25, 2010
8:41
Automated Super8 film scanning
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

For those of you who have been dreading the day that you have to dig out those old family films in Super 8 format and take them to get digitized, dread no more. Now you could turn it into a cool project. [Photobsen] has posted pictures of an automated system for scanning and compiling the [...]
January 18, 2010
8:03
More AVR Tetris
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[Ben] built an AVR based Tetris game that uses a TV as the display. He linked his project in a comment from the AVR Tetris project featured last week. His work taps the power of his own tvText library to handle the composite video out. Using a TV takes all of the hardware work out [...]
January 13, 2010
13:00
MythNetVision to cure borked MythTV hacks
» ‎ hack-a-day

Enclosure: [download]

Tags: home entertainment hacks

Another group of developers has stepped up to the plate in the never-ending attempt to integrate online streaming video with MythTV. The new plugin is called MythNetVision and aims to bring streaming and downloading video functionality both easily and legally. That means without violating the terms of service of the providing website. We’ve seen so many [...]
January 06, 2010
15:00
Pong, for real
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

Over at EvilMadScientistLaboratories.com they’ve asked a question that many of us have never thought to ask. What exactly is Pong supposed to be? Instead of assuming it was ping pong like the rest of us, they decided to build a literal physical interpretation. They may have taken some liberty, using solenoids as the paddles, but [...]
January 01, 2010
10:13
Hey man, you seen my turntable around here?
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

It’s all fine and dandy to have a turntable that sounds great, but [Mike] wanted one that looks great too. He build the transparent record player above and loved it for a little while. When his interest in it waned he built another, then several more. They all have some element of transparency to them, [...]
December 22, 2009
11:00
Fix a projector on the cheap
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[j] sent in this nice writeup on how to revive a dead projector. he managed to pick one up for $20 that had a broken bulb. While the prices of bulbs have come down considerably, they can still be a couple hundred dollars. Being resourceful, he decide to just use a halogen bulb that he [...]
December 21, 2009
14:11
Four generations of motion simulators
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

We like a good flight simulator but often find the available control schemes lacking. [Roland] not only builds his own controls, but creates full cockpits that add physical motion to the mix. He completed his third generation cockpit last year. It’s pictured above as well as in video after the break. That design uses a [...]
December 16, 2009
8:23
Scan room, explore virtually
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[Patrick] directed us to his project for alternate realism. The final goal is to be able to walk around in a space wearing a head mounted display, exploring a virtual representation of that space. This virtual representation could be altered, stylized, augmented and modified in countless ways. It is an exploration in perception, similar to [...]
December 15, 2009
15:50
IntoDream, the ‘portable’ Dreamcast
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

What looks like an absolute mess of wires,5 fans,3 batteries, and other miscellaneous equipment squeezed into a Tupperware box on the left? At first we didn’t believe it, but it is actually [John's] fully functioning slick-looking portable Dreamcast on the right. The system runs Quake 3 for a little over 2 hours, not too bad [...]
December 14, 2009
7:50
New pet, Project 413
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[Jacob] sent in his teams final project, Project 413. While sounding like something straight out of an action movie, don’t worry, it’s not the next terminator. Rather a combination of an eBox (in place of an EEE pc), omni wheels, motors, batteries, and the finishing touch – a hamster ferret ball. If this is sounding [...]
December 11, 2009
9:55
Bender keg cooler
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

What? Another Bender project? This almost went in the trash since it looks so much like the bender brewer from earlier this week, we thought it was the same tip. This isn’t a brewer though. This is a keg cooler, made to look like Bender. You can follow the build process to see exactly how [...]
December 04, 2009
8:31
Movie mover: a mobile theater
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[Electricunicycle] put together this radio controlled mobile theater system to amuse his neighborhood pals. It is a projector and what looks like an electric wheelchair base. He has managed to fit a decent sound system in there as well, which required a second battery. This is pretty cool, though we could see ruggedizing it a [...]
November 19, 2009
13:00
Complete the maze, get a gumball
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

This neat accelerometer controlled marble maze adds a level of fun to retrieving a gum ball. You have to first navigate the maze using a controller that has a dual axis accelerometer in it to control the angle of the platform. Though that does look like a wii accessory, there is no wiimote in there. Only after you [...]
November 17, 2009
8:15
Omni-car
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

We stumbled onto one of [Nik Melton]’s projects, an Omni-car. It is omnidirectional, meaning it can go any direction at any time without having to turn. The body was designed by him, then printed with a 3D printer. The control scheme is what interests us though. He has found a simple way to wire it [...]
November 16, 2009
10:48
Tauntaun costume
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[Scott Holden] went all out this year and built an amazing Tauntaun costume. The Tauntaun from Star Wars was massive, standing 8 feet tall, and usually carrying a rider. [Scott] wanted to make it the correct size, and ultimately pulled it off. He had to build custom stilts to get the leg angle correct as [...]
November 09, 2009
14:00
Coaster Controlled HTPC
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

These days, HTPCs are becoming more and more common, however controlling the content elegantly can be a painfully annoying problem. Roteno Labs have come up with a wonderful solution they call the RFiDJ. Similar to the RFID phone we covered earlier, they used a set of picture frame coasters and mounted descriptive pictures as well [...]
November 05, 2009
15:49
UDK: Make the next Gears of War
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

Ever sat down from a long day of hacking and thought to yourself “I wish there was a cool video game out there made just for me. Better yet, made by me!” Today is your lucky day with the release of UDK – Unreal Development Kit. In days of old, the only solution to satisfying your [...]
November 04, 2009
17:00
Mac Mini – getting a little more useful
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

We’re pretty sure Apple decided to implement an IR sensor in their Mac Mini line simply to mock the user. For those who are unaware, the built in sensor only works with the standard Apple Remote; unless you happen to have a programmable PDA or similar you’re SOL. An alternative solution would be to install [...]
October 31, 2009
8:15
Broken TV brought to life in LEGO body
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

After letting it sit around for about 3 years, [Blake] decided it was time to fix his broken 15″ television. A little trouble shooting showed the problem was with the inverter. The backlight would come on for a few seconds, off for a few seconds, then repeat. By freeing the Magnavox 15MF400T from its metal [...]
October 30, 2009
15:34
XBMC running on ARM
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

The XBMC team has posted a teaser showing the current state of the ARM port of this popular open source media software. We’ve embedded it after the break where you can see the package boot up and playback HD video. In it we see that the system is decoding the signal well, but image rendering [...]
October 21, 2009
8:00
Bouncy iPhone controlled dance lights
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[John Boiles] introduces us to dimlet, his portable network controlled light dimmer. Inside the box is a fonera 2100 router that is running openWRT connected to an unnamed AVR microcontroller. Right now, he’s controlling the unit with his iPhone. It has three modes of control; a manual “slider” mode, an accelerometer controlled “dance” mode, and a programmable [...]
7:13
Ps3 laptop courtesy of Ben Heck
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[Ben Heck] may be the coolest person ever (take that [Adam Savage]). You would think that after producing so many laptop versions of gaming consoles he would grow tired or we would be bored of them. But no! We love each and every new production – including his latest laptop-ified Ps3. Not too much in [...]
October 18, 2009
14:00
Samsung TV firmware hacking
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[Erdem] is leading up the efforts to reverse engineer Samsung TV firmware with a project called SamyGo. Official Samsung firmware uses the Linux kernel, making it a familiar system to work with for many developers. So far they’ve implemented NFS and SAMBA for sharing files over the network, improved playback from USB devices, and unlocked [...]
October 14, 2009
15:21
Snega2usb preorder now available
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

We’ve been watching the development of the snega2usb since it’s debut on Hackaday. Now it’s grown up and is ready to be manufactured. In the low quality video above [Matthias] shows some of the latest high quality additions to the board. It now has a case, shiny new firmware, production made PCB, and game pad ports. The snega2usb is shipping [...]
October 13, 2009
10:00
Haptic Halluc 2
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

We can not express the childlike glee that we experienced watching this video. We want so badly to have one of these setups. What you are seeing is a half dome projected cockpit with two haptic controllers in the style of a delta robot. This is controlling the Halluc robot which is a hybrid wheeled [...]
October 08, 2009
11:35
ik-a-sketch collaborative scribbling
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

At this year’s PICNIC conference [Neil Mendoza] and [Edwin Dertien] built a giant Etch-a-Sketch to help bring attendees together. The drawing area is a rear-projection screen, rather than a physical powder based setup, and is surrounded by the familiar red frame with vertical and horizontal control knob. Because the two knobs are too far apart [...]
October 07, 2009
13:00
TV-B-Gone-zilla! Rawr!
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

TV-B-Gone: antisocial nuisance or harmless prank? Whatever your feelings, there’s no denying this device has become a staple of the DIY hacking crowd, as evidenced by the countless derivatives since hatched. This latest mutation crushes them all. [manekinen] from the Polish electronics blog Elektroda (“Electrode”) wasn’t satisfied with high-power TV-B-Gone designs using multiple 5mm infrared LEDs, so he [...]
12:00
Hardware HD decoder in a netbook
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[banzai] wasn’t happy with the performance he was getting out of his Samsung netbook. He decided it was time to do something about it. He noticed that Dell and HP both sell an optional HD decoder card for their netbooks. After a short search, he found one on ebay for only $24. He had to [...]
October 03, 2009
15:00
Office warfare
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

a Ruler, rubber band, and a pen make a bow and arrow? How about tape, a ping pong ball, and a lighter coming together to make a ‘Zooka. We didn’t think such destructive weapons could possibly be made from office supplies, but the famous [John Austin] is here to prove us wrong. He’s been miniaturizing [...]
October 01, 2009
14:00
TV hack bypasses HDCP
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

Reader [GRitchie] wrote in with an interesting find in his new TV set: with just some minor soldering it was possible to tap into an unencrypted hi-def video stream. HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection), used by Blu-Ray players and cable or satellite receivers, normally ensures a DRM-protected link between the device and a compatible display. Any [...]
September 26, 2009
15:47
Frankenstein has a thing for coin-op
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

The amount of detail [Doug] put into his Dr. Frankenstein MAME cabinet is outrageous! Usually we’re more interested in the guts, but in this case the real story is the cabinet itself. Painted to resemble weathered metal, the effect of dripping water is visible on every rivet. There are illuminated portals on either side: one [...]
September 24, 2009
11:00
Edison cylinder recordings need more cowbell
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[Norman] spent three years developing and building his own Edison cylinder phonograph with electric pickup. We’re glad he did, and that he shared it with the world because the product is a thing of beauty. Every part is clean and precise with plenty of room for adjustments to accommodate differences in media. He’s reused the [...]
September 21, 2009
18:53
Six monitors, one video card
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

With most of us utilizing at least two monitors these days in our day to day operations, six monitors, while an awesome thought, might seem a little too excessive. After all, do we really have space for multiple video cards? AMD has a new setup in their testing lab that is running six Dell 30inch displays [...]
September 15, 2009
8:25
Nixie Plasma ball
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

This one came out over a year ago and we missed it. [Daqq] has made a plasma ball out of a nixie tube. All that was required was the transformer from a cold cathode meant for computers and a nixie tube. He did have to do a tiny bit of modification to the power supply, [...]
September 12, 2009
13:44
Tube amplifier in a PSU
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[Niclas] sent us his home made tube amplifier. For the case he used a computer power supply unit, took out the guts and replaced them with the amplifier board. He based this build off of an existing design but took a more minimalist approach. The wooden face plate has an on/off switch, an audio jack, [...]
8:53
Controlling an R/C car with a pic16F84
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[GuySoft] sent in this project. He doesn’t normally mess with electronics, but decided to give it a try. He chose a fairly complicated project to be his first, but seems extremely comfortable with it. This project was to control his R/C car with a pic16f84. That chip was chosen simply because it was the only [...]
September 11, 2009
8:58
Rock Band drum set remake
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

We’ve seen some impressive mods for the popular video game Rock Band, from new cymbals to an air powered kick pedal, but we cant say we’ve seen someone go as far as the folks over at EDrums. They start off making their own mesh heads, a junction box to connect everything, and then a base [...]
September 10, 2009
9:00
Uzebox video player
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

Everyone’s favorite open source game console, the Uzebox (also cloned as the Fuzebox), just got a new feature hacked into it – a video player. At reduced quality (8-bit color), the Uzebox was able to play ‘The Matrix’ off an SD card @ 30fps plus the audio @15kHz. That’s a pretty impressive feat when one considers it is running [...]
September 09, 2009
17:00
In-depth MAME cocktail cabinet build
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

Recently, a friend of ours got married who is a Ms. Pac-Man fanatic. His best man set out to fulfill the groom’s dream of owning a Ms. Pac-Man cocktail cabinet. The problem is that the unit he was after was selling for $2500. It’s great to buy the real thing (and with guest contributions he [...]
September 07, 2009
16:19
snega2usb update: usb snes and sega cartridge reader
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

When we first posted [Matthias_H]’s USB reader for SNES game carts, it was met with enthusiasm. The snega2usb allows you to play SNES and Sega games on your pc right off the cartridge. The latest revision is even more amazing than the first. [Matthias] has added the ability to read Sega Genesis/Mega Drive cartridges as [...]
September 04, 2009
11:00
Mini MAME cabinet
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[luis] added to the collection of MAME projects we’ve covered with his mini MAME cabinet build. This is his 5th mini cabinet and features a 5″ PlayStation LCD screen, a joystick, four control buttons, player 1 and 2 start buttons, speakers, and a lighted marquee. The controls are interfaced through an I-PAC and the system [...]
September 03, 2009
18:57
NES on ZipIt
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

Going even further back in time than 4th gen, [Kevin] tipped us off to this project by [Hunter Davis]. It is a collection of software mods for Zipit’s Z2 instant messenging device. Some of them include allowing it to run (ports of) the Fluxbox window manager, FCE Ultra NES emulator, and (most impresively) the Java framework. The [...]
11:24
Guitar Hero strum bar as guitar kill switch
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[Ray] had a Guitar Hero controller for PlayStation 2 sitting around. Because he moved on to playing the game on Xbox 360, he decided to cannibalize the older controller for its parts. He removed the strum bar and fit it inside of a mid-1980’s Peavy Patriot electric guitar. Once wired up, it works as a [...]
September 02, 2009
19:30
Neo-Geo case mod
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

What do you get when you cross a Neo-Geo and a Sega Genesis? A pretty vintage case mod. [Brett] used a variation of the 16-bit console (known as the Mega Drive II) as the base of his project. With an original Neo-Geo motherboard and a few other components (such as a power indicating LED), the ‘Geosis’ was born. [Brett] [...]
August 28, 2009
17:15
Apple TV with Boxee and more update
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

In November, we covered installing Boxee on AppleTV using atv-usb-creator. [Danny] has written a tutorial on installing Boxee, XBMC, NitoTV, SSH access, and external USB hard drive support. His method installs most of the software via the USB patch stick, then uses the SSH support to enable the external drive and install NitoTV. The tutorial [...]
August 26, 2009
15:28
PS3 Slim Teardown
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

The new PS3 Slim has just been released, and ifixit has already posted a teardown. First, they easily removed the included 120GB hard drive, suggesting that upgrading it shouldn’t be too hard. In order to get inside the cover, however, they needed to use a security Torx screwdriver. In the end, the Blu-ray drive turned [...]
August 24, 2009
8:53
Autogiro POV nostalgia
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

This bit of nostalgia really caught our attention. A german hacker or “inventor” as we were called back then, came up with this interesting concept. He would project an image on to the moving blades of an Autogiro, relying on the POV effect to make it appear complete. While this is not the same system [...]
August 21, 2009
14:30
OpenPogo, an alternative to Pogoplug software
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

Many of us heard the news of Marvell’s SheevaPlug plug-in PC being released alongside its consumer solution counterparts. One of the prominent products based on the SheevaPlug hardware is the Pogoplug. The Pogoplug is essentially a no-configuration media server that allows you to plug in a hard drive and network cable to make data readily [...]
August 19, 2009
16:10
Xbox crammed into inch-thick package
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

Reminiscent of [Ben Heck]’s portable and laptop console mods, [Bandit5317] over at Xbox-Scene managed to fit the guts of an original Xbox into a custom-built slim case that measures just 2.5 centimeters thick. In his post, he describes some of the difficulties of cutting down a behemoth Xbox to a third of its original size, such [...]
August 16, 2009
17:09
Colored pyrotechnics
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

Regular submitter [Jared Bouck] from Inventgeek.com has sent us this cool project. He wanted to make a fireball cannon, but didn’t want to settle for plain old fireballs.Instead of using a common propane system, he built an alcohol based one so he had a “blank slate” to start with. He then applied some copper chloride [...]
August 12, 2009
12:55
AVGA: The AVR based video game platform
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

We’ve seen our fair share of AVR projects, but this one’s pretty cool. AVGA is a color video game development platform based on the Atmel AVR family of microcontrollers. As seen in the picture above, one of the AVRs that the project uses is the popular ATMega168. There were several technical hurdles to using the [...]
August 11, 2009
12:29
Dry Ice Cannon
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

sent in his entry into a “creativity contest” at his university. He and some friends put together this dry ice cannon. Take note of the creative mechanism they used to mix the water with the dry ice. A large amount of gas is expelled as soon as the two begin to meet. If the [...]
August 09, 2009
17:01
Neo Geo mini arcade
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[Pocket Lucho], the builder of mini arcade cabinets, is back with another build. This time it’s a miniature Neo Geo arcade machine (translated). The build is very compact and neat. He attached the control panel and the PS one display using magnets to make the wiring more accessible. It has video out and second player [...]
August 06, 2009
7:14
Serial hacking with an ATtiny2313
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[Sprite_tm] automated a portion of serial hacking by sniffing out the baud rate using an ATtiny2313 and FT232 breakout board. The firmware assumes 8 data bits, no parity, and 1 stop bit (8N1). This is pretty much defacto among serial ports so it should work well, though some devices do use different settings. The auto [...]
August 03, 2009
17:41
BPSK on 433 MHz European ISM band
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

[WaveRider] is using a type of phase shift keying called BPSK to transmit digital sound and video for remote telemetry. Though a higher signal to noise ratio (SNR) is generally sought after with communications, legal limitations are imposed on total radiated power. To balance the two headed beast, he opted out on frequency shift keying [...]
July 29, 2009
14:52
1-Wire HVAC monitoring system
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

The 1-Wire HVAC monitoring system is for residential Geothermal HVAC systems. This project utilizes the so called 1-wire temperature sensor. A single board computer handles the brunt of the work including web accessible trend data. With access to the underling temperatures, the over all system performance may be gauged. Earlier this year we covered a [...]
12:48
Music Visualizer (oscilloscope)
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

The Music visualizer is actually a second build based on an earlier design[Thanks Roger]. The build was influenced by Zyra’s How to make an oscilloscope out of a television. The hack is quite simple, patch the output of an amplifier into the vertical deflection coils of the CRT. This is a good use for that [...]
10:14
Perpetual Ball Roller
» ‎ hack-a-day

Tags: home entertainment hacks

This interesting little sculpture caught our eye. Called the Perpetual Ball Roller, it simply rolls a ball on a track. It has both manual and automatic modes with variations in the automatic mode to keep it amusing. This is very elegant, and would be fun to have sitting around to play with. The only problem [...]