this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2026
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Converting HDMI to composite (piefed.blahaj.zone)
submitted 3 days ago by cloudskater@piefed.blahaj.zone to c/retrogaming@lemmy.world
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This may seem like a dumb idea considering how bad composite is, but I have a couple CRTs that I'd love to use as computer monitors, and I'm not in the position to mod them for component or RGB. I want them to "just work" for the time being. I'm looking for a device that converts modern HDMI to analog, but the only good options seem to be really high end devices with support for every format under the sun, which are great, but way more then I need. Otherwise, what am I left with? Cheap, no-name boxes that'll die in two weeks and add half a second of lag? I'm not sure if the product I need exists, but I figured this would be a good place to ask since I can't find a dedicated CRT community. Any help is appreciated!

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[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Does it take VGA? And do you have a spare PCIe slot in a desktop?

You can slap in an old GPU to power it directly, with no latency or conversion issues. I know my old Nvidia 980 TI supports VGA directly, albeit with a passive dongle. As a bonus, this would save VRAM for your other displays, and (if you wish) offload whatever you do on your CRTs from the main GPU.

Now, if you want a GPU with composite output, you have to go waaay back to the GTX 200 series or the Radeon 4000 series. Getting working drivers for these on linux might be an... adventure.

[–] cloudskater@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Sadly it does not take VGA but I do have an old laptop with native VGA out so I could convert that to composite easier. VGA is already an analog format, right?

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

Mmmm, yes, but for composite it's not trivial like it'd be for S-Video. To quote some random Redditor:

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/comments/usr9su/is_there_a_known_working_way_to_convert_vga_to/

You need a device called frame buffer. VGA signal are sampled (ADC) and store in a memory. This memory is read by another circuity, at NTSC/PAL frame rate, and RGB converted to NTSC/PAL. For a standard VGA (640x640@60Hz) a line converter (only a FIFO memory) can be used to convert to NTSC. More details here.

https://www.epanorama.net/circuits/vga2tv/vga_to_tv_techniques.html