🎉  Happy 13th Birthday Raspberry Pi!   🎂   1,000+ deals in store!   🥳
🎉  Happy 13th Birthday Raspberry Pi!   🎂   1,000+ deals in store!   🥳

Pimoroni Pico DV Demo Base

by Pimoroni

A demo board for exploring the digital video and audio capabilities of Raspberry Pi Pico, with HDMI connector, SD card slot, line level I2S audio and buttons.

Intrigued by the possibilities of VGA Demo Base but no longer own a D-sub cable? No problem! This board is an all-digital conversion of Raspberry Pi's VGA reference design, great for if you want to start hacking on video and/or audio output from a Raspberry Pi Pico and piping it straight into a modern monitor.

Please note that DV Demo Base is an experimental dev board for intrepid AV haxxors, which relies on third party software that we neither fully understand or maintain. You'll probably need prior experience with Pico projects and C++ to do anything useful with it.

Raspberry Pi Pico is not included. Your Pico will need to have pin headers soldered to it (with the pins pointing downwards) to attach to our add-on boards.

Features

  • HDMI connector
  • PCM5100A DAC for line out audio over I2S (datasheet)
  • SD card slot
  • Reset button
  • Socket headers to install your Raspberry Pi Pico
  • Three user-controllable switches
  • Rubber feet
  • Compatible with Raspberry Pi Pico
  • No soldering required (as long as your Pico has header pins attached)
  • Programmable with C/C++
  • Schematic

Software

We've been using this board with Wren6991's nifty PicoDVI library, which you can use to output a bitbanged digital video signal from an overclocked RP2040. To demonstrate the additional functions of this board, we've put together an AV player example that lets you read video files from the SD card and output video and audio simultaneously.

It's now also possible to use this board with CircuitPython's fancy new DVI stuff, thanks to RetiredWizard on our forums!

Perhaps you'd like to use it to play NES games? Check out Adafruit's Learn Guide:

About Raspberry Pi Pico

Raspberry Pi Pico is a flexible, low cost microcontroller development board from the folks at Raspberry Pi, based on their very own chip - the RP2040. It's easily programmable over USB with C/C++ or MicroPython, and ideal for using in all sorts of physical computing projects, devices and inventions - we're so excited to see what you make with it!

We've called our Pico-sized add-ons packs, as they're designed to attach to the back of your Pico as if it were wearing a very stylish backpack (or a miniature jet pack, if you prefer). We've also got Pico bases (larger add-on boards with a space to mount your Pico on top) and some other boards that let you do interesting hackerly things like using multiple packs at once - click here to view them all!

25 customer reviews

7 months ago
It's a very nice little gaming console with a decent display and an aluminium case that looks and feels quite sturdy and durable. You can find some games for it on the internet - but the real fun could be writing those by yourself. When I tried I found a reason that makes me write this four-star-only rating. To access the debug pins of the built-in RP2040 you have to open and remove the case. It would have been much nicer if there was one removable panel with those pins behind...
by Thomas about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
7 months ago
Well built, feels very premium. There's a decent little community making games for it, and it can run things like an NES emulator without too much issue. I am not currently a skilled enough C++ developer to make anything worth playing for it, but I did manage some basics reasonably quickly.
by Ed about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
9 months ago
I'm really impressed by what this tiny thing is able to do! I was able to write a simple game in a matter of hours... You can even upload a NES emulator on it.
by Benoît about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
An awesome system based on RP2040. Build quality is very solid and the device has a very nice weight to it. Battery life is also very good. Comes with a nice platformer pre-installed. I haven't made anything with it yet but look forward to adapting my Pico Display games to this one.
by Mircea about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
I am very happy and also surprised, I received all the material in eight days from the order, congratulations! Everything arrived in perfect condition and Pimoroni products are always of excellent quality. Thank you!
by Giuseppe about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Small, cute and very nice hardware. Especially aluminium body is great.
by Anonymous about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Great device but haven't got it working on my linux mint install yet.
by Daniel about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Very clicky buttons, bright screen and looks good in motion. The build feels very solid.
by Matthew about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Very comfortable in hand. Seem sturdy enough to lend it to my small children. I am in the process of porting one of my web game to it. Very easy to program for it, or, if that's not your thing, to load the few available games on it.
by Julien about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Amazing little gizmo. Really well made and feels solid. Need to learn about writing my own games and such for it but the hardware and possibilities are fantastic
by Fiona about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
It’s a nice little handheld with a good sdk though I wish the debug pins were more accessible
by Henry about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Simply amazing! The quality of this product is off the charts! The rest is up me, getting my programming skills to a level where I can make a game worthy of the system.
by Luke about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
The ordering experience was very quick. The delivery to the USA was fairly quick using Royal mail during this time of Covid.
by Gelsomino about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
This is an incredibly well made system. I hope to be able to develop some nice games with it.
by Michael about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
First impression of the RP2040-based tiny game console PicoSystem is really positive. Ridgid build quality, robust FPS and responsive buttons!
by Johannes about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Oh yeah going to get my game programming on. Default games on the Pimironi website are good too. 10/10 would recommend.
by Rohan about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
System works well, instructions are good. I had issues with tool chain on windows for raspberry pico sdk. Once I switched to Debian in virtual box everything worked fine. I recommend using putty and ssh for programming to get copy paste functionality and winscp to copy files. The hardware is very well built and I highly recommend it.
by Todd about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Amazing little video game machine in your pocket where programming is as easy as editing a text file on a USB drive!
by Chipp about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
It looks like a commercial games device, it looks really good. Solid build and I cannot wait to start building games and apps for it.
by Stephen about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
The build quality is extremely good. Especially the aluminium case makes it feel great. The screen has a good quality but it’s pretty small which kind of makes the charm of the PicoSystem. The 32blit SDK is great for developing own games and it has an active community behind it. There are also other SDKs available which I haven’t had experience with yet. Overall the PicoSystem is great for getting into retro game development.
by Anonymous about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
A very cool little device. I love the metallic body and front plate.
by Anonymous about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Great little device! It feels super solid and high-quality, and looks fantastic. The RP2040 is very nice so far, and importantly, both the PicoSDK and the PicoSystem SDK are very easy to use, especially the examples in the PicoSystem repo. If you've dabbled in retro console game dev, the PicoSystem is something like a GBA packed into the size of a GB Micro, and has similar limitations in RAM and ROM, just with a smaller screen (but roughly twice the pixels of the original GB at 240x240 vs 160x144), same button count as the original GB, a much faster CPU, and MUCH better documentation. Highly recommend it; it's a lot of fun.
by Ulises about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Very nice build quality, but the game library is quite lacking right now.
by Anonymous about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Fantastic pocket-ready build, both C++ and CircuitPython ready. 32blit SDK has been great to work with so far!
by John about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
The fit and finish in the PicoSystem is outstanding and the SDK tools provided to get started provided everything I needed to start tinkering.
by Matthew about PicoSystem via REVIEWS.io

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