📺 Welcome to ASCII▶TV

ASCII▶TV is a fully interactive, real-time retro media console that transforms video feeds into moving text.

Unlike simple overlay effects or fake filters, this is the real deal: every single pixel is analyzed, dithered, and mapped to a specific text character in real-time to reproduce the image feed.

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🌐 Play / Visit Directly (100% Free!)

You can watch and play with the web app directly in your browser here:
👉 https://ascii-tv.vercel.app/

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⚙️ Technical Verification Protocol (How it Works)

ASCII-TV does not apply a post-processing visual shader or video filter. The stream is translated frame-by-frame into live text character arrays.

📡 Playback Pipeline:

1. HLS Decoder: Feeds video stream chunks into an offscreen video element.
2. Pixel Sampler: Captures video frames onto a tiny grid.
3. Character Mapping: Luminance values are calculated. Braille mode maps a 2x4 sub-pixel grid to specific Unicode offsets (u2800-u28ff).
4. GPU Render: Paints text directly via the Canvas API.

🛠️ Try it yourself to verify:

1. Click the 🔍 INSPECT button on the player to freeze the feed and inspect live character and color details under your cursor.
2. Click the 📥 SAVE FRAME (.TXT) button to download the active frame as a plain-text file. Open it in Notepad to verify it is 100% text!

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⚡ Technical Details & Features

• GPU Hardware Acceleration (WebGL): Features a custom WebGL fragment shader rendering pipeline that runs at a locked 60 FPS on both desktop and mobile screens.
• OS-Native Vector Engine (Canvas 2D): A fallback CPU rendering engine that leverages sub-pixel font anti-aliasing for that warm, slightly blurry, authentic VHS/CRT electron-gun bleed.
• Dual IPTV Core Merger: Pulls over 11,500+ live television streams worldwide across news, sports, movies, music, and cartoon channels.
• 📼 VHS Player (Local Files): Bypasses internet restrictions entirely. Drag and drop any local movie or video file (.mp4, .webm) from your computer to watch it in gorgeous glowing phosphor text.
• Custom M3U Lists: Add or import your own private streaming playlists.

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🛠️ Built With

• Next.js (React) & TypeScript — Core application structure
• WebGL / Canvas API — Real-time GPU & CPU text rasterizer engines
• hls.js — HTTP Live Streaming client-side decoding

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🔬 Credits & Sources

This project is built using free, open, public-domain streams and data curated by:

• iptv-org ( curated API and channel lists )
• free-tv/iptv ( global public streams database )
• charmbracelet/vhs ( inspiration for the retro CLI tape deck / VHS styling )

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☕ Support the Project

ASCII▶TV contains zero ads, and does not track your data. If you enjoy the retro aesthetic or want to support future web experiments, feel free to leave a small donation! ❤️

How to Donate ? Click Download Now!