1602 Display Plays Video

In the world of Arduino and other such hobby projects, the 1602 LCD display is popular as a user interface. Inexpensive and well-documented, it can be a great option, but it is generally restricted to simple text/numerical output. “Arduinocelentano,” however, decided to level up the venerable 1602’s abilities to allow it to play video clips.

Yes, that’s correct, this very basic display can be programmed to show low-resolution video as shown in the clip below, even when powered by a basic low-power Arduino device. The trick is that the display can load up to eight custom character bitmaps in addition to those that are built-in, so arduinocelentano’s setup simply loads custom characters over and over… and over to show video. Resolution is restricted to eight characters, or a 4x2 matrix, each of which has a 5x8 pixel resolution, giving a total usable screen size of 20x16 (23x17 if you include the dead pixels in-between).

To stream a video, one has to first convert it to the very tiny size restrictions using FFmpeg or similar, then process it via a Python script to generate an appropriate Arduiono sketch. Once loaded onto the Arduino, there’s little else to it than to watch it play.

Wiring is simply a matter of hooking the 1602 LCD up to the microcontroller board, and animation code is available on GitHub. While impressive in its own right, one might consider using this technique to spice up an otherwise dull output screen!