A timeline of six televisions, from the 1928 Baird Televisor to a 2024 OLED, each showing era-correct content on a warm wood-panelled wall

RETRO TV

A century of television, on your Mac.

Play any video through nearly a hundred years of TV history — from a 1928 mechanical Baird receiver to a modern OLED. Era-authentic CRT effects, a chronological timeline, and a built-in browser for your local movies, Internet Archive videos and favourites.

Mac App Store · macOS 14+ · SwiftUI · Metal

Eight televisions, one century

Each era plays your video through the right signal model and CRT for that decade. Click a TV in the app's bottom timeline to switch.

Baird Televisor 1928
1928
Baird Televisor
1939 B&W console TV
1939
B&W Console
1946 RCA round-tube tabletop TV
1946
RCA Round-Tube
1965 color console TV
1965
Colour Console
1972 Sony Trinitron TV
1972
Sony Trinitron
1985 portable CRT TV
1985
VHS-Era CRT
Modern OLED TV
2024
Modern OLED

Screenshots

What it looks like in action.

Retro TV screenshot 1 Retro TV screenshot 2 Retro TV screenshot 3 Retro TV screenshot 4 Retro TV screenshot 5 Retro TV screenshot 6 Retro TV screenshot 7 Retro TV screenshot 8 Retro TV screenshot 9

What it does

Six eras, signal-accurate

From the 30-line mechanical scan of 1928 to the near-perfect picture of a 2024 OLED. Each era runs your video through a per-decade signal model (NTSC, VHS chroma, MPEG-2, passthrough) and a CRT display shader with the right scanlines, phosphor mask, beam glow and barrel curvature.

Photographic bezels

Each TV is a real photograph or render — the iconic Philco Predicta, a wood-cabinet console, a 1985 plastic cube, a near-frameless OLED. Your video plays inside the screen face with the correct aspect for each set.

Chronological timeline

Switch eras by clicking on a TV in a horizontal timeline at the bottom of the window. Markers sit on the years they belong to — not evenly spaced — so you see television's actual history.

Three sources, one menu

A side menu lets you scan local folders for movies, search the Internet Archive for vintage public-domain footage, or pick from your saved favourites. Click anything to add it as a channel.

Channel surfing

Drop in multiple videos and switch between them like real channels. Keyboard shortcuts, transition animation, relay-click sound effect. The channel number flashes briefly on screen.

Native Mac, Metal-fast

Built in Swift + SwiftUI, with the CRT pipeline running entirely on the GPU via Metal shaders. 60 fps even on M1, regardless of how heavy the era's effect chain is.

Watch it again, the way you remember it.

Get on the Mac App Store

Get in touch

Questions, feedback, bug reports — drop a line.

Walter Tengler
walter.tengler@gmail.com
Moledo, Portugal