AnalogTV: Physics-Accurate Analog TV & CRT Simulator Now for macOS

[ambanmba]

As a huge fan of vintage CRTs, broadcast tech, and retro gaming on real hardware, I built AnalogTV — a deeply technical simulator that recreates the entire analog television pipeline from first principles. It models the full signal chain: camera tube physics (Vidicon lag, Plumbicon smear, Image Orthicon halo, etc.) -> composite/RF encoding -> VCR mechanics (tape dropout, head-switching, generation loss) -> CRT with authentic phosphor persistence, bloom, shadow mask, degauss, and even magnet-induced purity issues. No cheap post-process filters; every classic artifact (dot crawl, chroma smear, SECAM "fire", ghosting, hum bars) emerges naturally from the interactions across 9 compute/render passes. This is not a "nostalgia filter" over the top of a clean image.

Key features:

• Supports NTSC, PAL, SECAM and more, with accurate subcarrier timing
• 14 historical test patterns (SMPTE bars, BBC Test Card F, Philips PM5544, Indian Head, etc.)
• 8 built-in classic games (Pong, Space Invaders, Breakout, Asteroids, etc.) fed live into the signal chain
• Libretro core support on macOS — load your own emulator ROMs (Atari, NES, etc.)
• Real waveform monitor + vectorscope
• Interactive service menu tweaks (geometry, convergence, HV regulation, etc.)

The macOS version is currently new and based off the iOS app. I have an unsigned DMG available for testing alongside the iOS TestFlight builds. It's also on the full App Store (but with lots of new stuff in the pipeline), but if you like it you can toss me a few coins that way. It's been a fun (and educational) deep dive into why old TVs looked and behaved the way they did.

Check it out and let me know what you think: https://analogtv.net

(Dev here — happy to answer questions about the physics modeling, calibration sources, or planned features!) Looking forward to feedback from the Mac community, especially anyone who still has a real CRT setup or enjoys signal geekery.

 

[AlumaMac]

This looks pretty neat, going to play around with this week.

 

[MacBH928]

can you use it as a filter for video output?

one thing that gets me, is they always add "crt scan lines" to mimic crt but honestly i do not remember you can see the black horizontal lines on a crt unless like you bring up your eye like 1 inch away from the screen.

 

[ambanmba]

can you use it as a filter for video output?

one thing that gets me, is they always add "crt scan lines" to mimic crt but honestly i do not remember you can see the black horizontal lines on a crt unless like you bring up your eye like 1 inch away from the screen.

There is a version waiting for App Store approval that will have NDI in/out to do exactly that. I needed to apply for a Multicast Networking entitlement for it to work. It should be going live very soon.