Show HN: ASCII TV – Stream ASCII movies in your terminal with curl (opens in new tab)

(github.com)

108 pointsmraison7y ago24 comments

24 comments

23 comments · 8 top-level

graetzer7y ago· 9 in thread

I think you can also just use telnet to see star wars:

  telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

mraisonOP7y ago

Indeed, I came across this project while googling the idea! I figured out SSL would be a nice feature to have - surely you wouldn’t want your Star Wars ASCII stream to be tampered with, would you? ;)

colinbartlett7y ago

To think that anyone on the wire could manipulate the stream so that Greedo shoots first... horrifying.

darkpuma7y ago

You laugh but terminal emulators have been found to be exploitable in the past: http://www.securiteam.com/unixfocus/3P5PQRPPPO.html

_underfl0w_7y ago

I'm very surprised to see this is still around! They must've had this up for decades.

warent7y ago

When I discovered this as a youngling it totally opened my mind to the crazy possibilities of computers and the internet. Love to see it posted here after all these years!

twtw7y ago

This is still my goto diversion whenever I end up in an Apple Store - trying to get Star Wars going on as many computers as possible.

potiuper7y ago

both of these need seek functionality

mraisonOP7y ago

PRs welcome :) I guess for the curl version it's gonna be tough because you can't really interact with the stream that you receive. You should be able to do it with the telnet version, though

2 more replies

rzzzt7y ago

https://asciinema.org/a/8

1 more reply

CloudNetworking7y ago· 3 in thread

A colleague and I did this at uni in 2001 or so. SSH to his box at home with a TV receiver and a video library that output ASCII graphics.

fsiefken7y ago

yes, but what about the audio?

CloudNetworking7y ago

No audio over SSH :(

isostatic7y ago

aatv was a command line program, worked fine with my (analog) tv capture card (with built in mpeg2 encoder). May have been part of mythtv.

jamiek887y ago· 2 in thread

Now this is hacker news!!

Ludicrous on the surface yet brilliant.

Kudos to the creator, and it’s great that such a senior engineer with his track record and contributions still has that spirit in him.

mraisonOP7y ago

Thanks for the kind words :) I do try hard to "keep the spirit" as much as I can. Like everyone on HN I need to balance that with many other things, but I figured out a few lines of Go + a heroku app wouldn't be too time-consuming :)

silur7y ago

It's not. The "author" simply stole towel.blinkenlights and wrapped it in golang. I bet he updated himself to senior go engineer on linkedin after this. None of the "cool" stuff in this is martinraison's work.

userbinator7y ago· 1 in thread

It's surprising that with the ultra-high-resolution monitors common today, this might actually be on the verge of being practical.

ineedasername7y ago

I would think its compression rate would be pretty good too.

m45t3r7y ago

Not ASCII, however a cool hack using mpv is that it can display actual videos in a terminal emulator that supports true color output [1]. Just run the following command:

  mpv -vo tct video_file.mkv

Reduce the font size to increase resolution. Also, a GPU accelerated terminal like Kitty [2] is recommended, or the video will be painfully slow.

[1]: https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728

[2]: https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/

ineedasername7y ago

Practical applications are irrelevant, this is a fun, cool project. I love seeing this sort of thing on HN.

O1111OOO7y ago

Really like the format of the "movie" file. Very easy to work with:

Line 1: time.Duration

Lines 2-14: frameHeight (currently set to 13 lines in the code on this and the original[0])

Options for (1) pause/play (2) back: frame by frame (3) forward: frame by frame : could make this a pretty good presentation app, ebook tool, story-teller...

[0] https://github.com/nitram509/ascii-telnet-server

hsx7y ago

This is really neat!

While we're on the topic of neat things you can do with `curl`, check out:

  curl parrot.live

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

24 comments

23 comments · 8 top-level

graetzer7y ago· 9 in thread

I think you can also just use telnet to see star wars:

  telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

mraisonOP7y ago

colinbartlett7y ago

To think that anyone on the wire could manipulate the stream so that Greedo shoots first... horrifying.

darkpuma7y ago

You laugh but terminal emulators have been found to be exploitable in the past: http://www.securiteam.com/unixfocus/3P5PQRPPPO.html

_underfl0w_7y ago

I'm very surprised to see this is still around! They must've had this up for decades.

warent7y ago

When I discovered this as a youngling it totally opened my mind to the crazy possibilities of computers and the internet. Love to see it posted here after all these years!

twtw7y ago

This is still my goto diversion whenever I end up in an Apple Store - trying to get Star Wars going on as many computers as possible.

potiuper7y ago

both of these need seek functionality

mraisonOP7y ago

PRs welcome :) I guess for the curl version it's gonna be tough because you can't really interact with the stream that you receive. You should be able to do it with the telnet version, though

2 more replies

rzzzt7y ago

https://asciinema.org/a/8

1 more reply

CloudNetworking7y ago· 3 in thread

A colleague and I did this at uni in 2001 or so. SSH to his box at home with a TV receiver and a video library that output ASCII graphics.

fsiefken7y ago

yes, but what about the audio?

CloudNetworking7y ago

No audio over SSH :(

isostatic7y ago

aatv was a command line program, worked fine with my (analog) tv capture card (with built in mpeg2 encoder). May have been part of mythtv.

jamiek887y ago· 2 in thread

Now this is hacker news!!

Ludicrous on the surface yet brilliant.

Kudos to the creator, and it’s great that such a senior engineer with his track record and contributions still has that spirit in him.

mraisonOP7y ago

silur7y ago

userbinator7y ago· 1 in thread

It's surprising that with the ultra-high-resolution monitors common today, this might actually be on the verge of being practical.

ineedasername7y ago

I would think its compression rate would be pretty good too.

m45t3r7y ago

Not ASCII, however a cool hack using mpv is that it can display actual videos in a terminal emulator that supports true color output [1]. Just run the following command:

  mpv -vo tct video_file.mkv

Reduce the font size to increase resolution. Also, a GPU accelerated terminal like Kitty [2] is recommended, or the video will be painfully slow.

[1]: https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728

[2]: https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/

ineedasername7y ago

Practical applications are irrelevant, this is a fun, cool project. I love seeing this sort of thing on HN.

O1111OOO7y ago

Really like the format of the "movie" file. Very easy to work with:

Line 1: time.Duration

Lines 2-14: frameHeight (currently set to 13 lines in the code on this and the original[0])

Options for (1) pause/play (2) back: frame by frame (3) forward: frame by frame : could make this a pretty good presentation app, ebook tool, story-teller...

[0] https://github.com/nitram509/ascii-telnet-server

hsx7y ago

This is really neat!

While we're on the topic of neat things you can do with `curl`, check out:

  curl parrot.live

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse