Pimoroni Pico DV Demo Base

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 a 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 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.

We've been using this board with Wren6991's nifty PicoDVI library, which you can use to output a bit-banged 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.

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 nor maintain. You'll 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 is required (as long as your Pico has header pins attached)
• Programmable with C/C++
• Schematic

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 use 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 hacker things like using multiple packs at once.