Retro TV

A century of TV simulated

Only for Mac

$2.99

Mac

Drop a video in. Watch it through a 1928 mechanical Baird, a 1958 Predicta, a 1985 VHS-era CRT, or a 2024 OLED. Real Metal shaders for every era — no filter fakery. A century of television on your Mac. Drop any video file onto Retro TV and watch it through six lovingly modeled televisions — from John Logie Baird's 1928 mechanical scanner to a 2024 OLED. Each set has its own bezel, its own screen geometry, and its own era-correct signal model. This isn't a CRT filter pasted over your footage. It's a real-time, two-pass Metal rendering pipeline that simulates the signal first (noise, chroma bleed, head-switch bands, hue drift) and then the display second (scanlines, shadow mask, phosphor glow, barrel curvature, vignette). THE SIX TELEVISIONS • 1928 — Baird Televisor Mechanical, 30-line, glowing neon orange on near-black. The first TV anyone ever owned. Your video, reduced to flickering horizontal strips at 12.5 frames per second. • 1939 — Early B&W Console Pure monochrome on a round-faced cathode-ray tube, with edge ringing and RF noise. The look of pre-war television, when "the picture" was a miracle. • 1958 — Philco Predicta The most beautiful television ever designed. Black-and-white, art-deco silhouette, the picture tube floating above the wooden cabinet. • 1965 — Color Console Early NTSC color in a mid-century wooden cabinet. Slight chroma bleed, cross-color shimmer, the gentle hue drift that gave NTSC its nickname: Never The Same Color. • 1985 — VHS-era Plastic CRT A boxy beige set playing back tape. Heavy chroma bleed, a head-switch noise band at the bottom of the frame, tracking jitter at the top. The texture of a Saturday-morning cartoon recorded off-air. • 2024 — Modern OLED Frameless, deep blacks, perfect color. Your video as it actually looks. PLAY ANYTHING • Drag and drop any video file from Finder. Each one becomes a channel. • Browse and play from local folders, with recursive scanning. • Search the Internet Archive's vast collection of public-domain films and stream them straight into the set. • Save favorites for one-click recall. FEELS LIKE A REAL TV • An era timeline at the bottom of the window lets you jump between sets chronologically — 1928 on the left, 2024 on the right. • A subtle CRT-collapse animation plays when you switch channels, with a procedurally generated relay click and a brief burst of pink noise. • A "CH 03" badge flashes in warm amber when you change channels. • When no video is loaded, the screen shows an SMPTE color-bar test card with the classic "PLEASE STAND BY" lettering. CONTROLS • Space — play / pause • ←/→ — seek ±10 seconds (Shift for ±60) • ↑/↓ — volume ±5% • M — mute • [ / ] — previous / next channel • B — open / close the channel sidebar WHO IT'S FOR • Anyone who grew up with a CRT in the living room. • Filmmakers and editors who want to preview footage with period-accurate picture characteristics — not a slapped-on Instagram filter. • Anyone who has ever wanted to watch the latest streaming show through a 1958 Philco Predicta. (You can.) The picture you grew up with, the picture your parents grew up with, the picture your grandparents grew up with — running on the Mac on your desk. Requires macOS 14 or later. Apple Silicon recommended.

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What's New in Retro TV 1.2 NEW • Channels list — see all your channels in the sidebar, tune with a click, drag to reorder, and remove the ones you're done with. • Runs on macOS Sonoma 14 and later. MORE AUTHENTIC PICTURE • Every analog era now looks the same whatever the resolution of your video — a 4K file gets the same period softness as an old 480p clip. • Each colour set has its own phosphor pattern: delta-dot shadow mask on the 1965 console, aperture-grille stripes on the 1972 Trinitron, slot mask on the 1985 set. • VHS now looks like tape: softer picture and smeared colour. • Static ("snow") on an empty channel now streaks like the real thing and shows the set's scanlines, phosphor pattern and curved screen. FIXES • The play button and flyback whine now stop properly when a video ends. • Playback problems — a moved file, a dropped stream — now show a clear message instead of a frozen screen. • Videos you've moved or renamed keep playing. • Two files with the same name in different folders can both be channels. • Internet Archive search: results no longer jump between searches, searches containing &, # or + now work, and server errors are explained. • Only one TV window can be open, and closing it quits the app.

The developer, Walter Tengler, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .

  • Data Not Collected

    The developer does not collect any data from this app.

    Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

    The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More

    Seller
    Walter Tengler
    Size
    13.3 MB
    Category
    Entertainment
    Compatibility
    Requires macOS 14.0 or later.
    • Mac
      Requires macOS 14.0 or later.
    Languages
    English
    Age Rating
    4+
    Copyright
    © 2026 Walter Tengler