Broadcast Your Favorite TV Show 24/7 with a Raspberry Pi

Our modern world of video streaming makes it possible to watch just about anything at any time. But “The Paradox of Choice,” as described in 2004’s The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz, states that many of us will spend more time browsing through our options than actually watching anything. That fact makes it easy to long for the days when you could just flip over to your favorite TV channel and watch whatever was on. If you’re nostalgic for that experience, you can learn from this video by YouTuber Probnot’s Tech to start broadcasting your favorite TV show 24/7 using a Raspberry Pi.

You can, of course, simply connect your Raspberry Pi to your TV with an HDMI cable and use it to watch videos like you would with any other computer, but that wouldn’t be any better than just browsing Netflix on your smart TV. This setup instead replicates the feel of having a good ol’ TV station — just one that is always airing your favorite shows. The key to this build is an RF modulator, which can take the video signal from a Raspberry Pi and convert it into an analog television signal that can be picked up by any TV. That signal can be fed into your TV through your cable/antenna coax connector, and will appear as a regular TV channel.

This is all possible because modern TV broadcasts are all digital, which won’t interfere with the analog signal put out by the RF modulator. So you can still use a digital antenna, connect it and the RF modulator to your TV through a cable splitter, and receive signals from both. The RF modulator should have RCA connector inputs for a composite video signal and left/right audio signals. The Raspberry Pi has a composite video output, and you can use a USB sound card for the audio output. Just load your Raspberry Pi up with episodes of your favorite TV show and follow the instructions to make them automatically shuffle and play on boot. You’ll then be able to switch your TV over to the appropriate channel and watch whichever episode happens to be playing!