Recommend a VGA box?

[Eight Rooks]

Okay, I'm in a bit of trouble; I have no TV - not getting one, either - I have no desire to pay a license for something I'm never going to watch. I have a Japanese PS2 I'm currently trying to get a screen of some kind for. I tried the little flip-top LCD things they sell here (already got one for my XBox and Gamecube) but they're PAL, and don't work at all with the machine.

So I'm trying to find a VGA box that'll take a PS2 connection. I'm not bothered in the slightest whether it's true or fake VGA - couldn't care less, as long as it displays a legible picture on my PC monitor. I tried one of the RedAnt ones with my Gamecube a while back and it was a complete mess. The picture was hardly there at all... so I thought I'd go for something different. I've got my eye on this:

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-86-70-4s4.html

Anyone know whether that's any good or not, or can suggest (or sell me! ) anything different? Any help much appreciated.

[Wild_Cat]

I'll second that question, as I'm in the exact same situation and considering buying the exact same VGABox. I intend to use it on a 1024*768 15" LCD monitor.

[lostn]

I have the Sagestar YPsPr VGA Box which I think was rated the highest. It's made specifically for PS2 (and PS1). I don't recommend it. The darker games are too dark, and the color isn't as rich as it would be if you played it on your TV. Component mode's color is actually worse than S-Video mode for some reason. Oh and you can't keep the sound plugged into both your PC and PS2. It requires a passthru cable from sound card into the VGA Box, which means you get no sound on your PC. And that also means that you need to have your PC on when you play if you want sound since your sound card requires power, you can't plug the speakers in directly to the VGA Box. So you need to put up with the humming of your PC's fans and other noise.

If you wanna play it on PC, I recommend a TV Capture card instead, which is about the same price and additionally you can record with it. VGA Boxes will run in 640x480 full screen and that doesn't look too good. At least with a TV Capture card, you can run it in a window, and thus it's much sharper than something low res (640x480 is low res for monitor standards) stretched to full screen, assuming your desktop res is high. Plus setting up a VGA box is a pain in the ass, and if you leave it set up, when you're in desktop mode (i.e. not playing a game), you can see artifacts in the image. I'm too lazy to set it up, and I'm not willing to live with ghosting, so I just stick to my capture card.

I have tried other VGA boxes also, and they all suck in the same way. Except DC VGA boxes. That's the only one I can recommend.

[Eight Rooks]

I might consider that, though I'm not sure if I have the space in my PC... it's pretty bloody cramped in there...

Though I used to have a VGA box for my old XBox and Gamecube; no PS2 support, but I wish I'd never got rid of it. It did absolutely everything I wanted; I could run sound from it into my PC and use the PC's speaker setup for the console (and have sound through the PC at the same time); it wasn't as good as a DC VGA box but it was still perfectly clear enough for me, even though it probably was 640x480 res blown up to fullscreen. Colour was a little tuned up, resolution a bit fuzzy, but I could see what was going on fine.

Your reply does partly still make me suspect most people on this board would turn their noses up at everything but a TV capture card, because of nothing being good enough bar true VGA, even though what you describe might well have been good enough for me (I'm pretty tolerant of audio/visual standards). The sound through only one channel (either PC or console) is something to note, though, and the TV capture card is a perfectly good idea which I may go for, so thanks for that.

I'll wait a little while first to see if anyone else suggests the same or different, though.

EDIT: And also the only one on PlayAsia I see labelled as SageStar says it's by RedAnt, so I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. The RedAnt one I tried was hideous, even by my lax standards. I'm not buying anything from them ever again without a damn good reason to do so.

[Wild_Cat]

Actually, the VGABox Eight Rooks is pointing to in the first post seems to be able to output 1024*768.

[Lyris]

If you wanna play it on PC, I recommend a TV Capture card instead, which is about the same price and additionally you can record with it.

Sadly, since these can pick up TV signals, BBC and their robbing thugs have made these illegal to own without a TV license as well.

If you were really rich, you could always look for a Plasma setup that had no TV tuner - as it wouldn't be able to pick up UK TV signals, it would be exempt. But again that's probably not an option.

You could look around www.avforums.com for devices that convert Component video to VGA. Google brings up this: http://hardware.teamxbox.com/article...oder-Review/p1 which is a Component-to-VGA converter that can also let you watch Interlaced stuff on your monitor (instead of only Progressive Scan games).

[VR46]

just get a 14" portable from Comet for ?60 and give a false address, easy, cheap solution

[Lyris]

You have my full respect (whatever that's worth)

[lostn]

Actually, the VGABox Eight Rooks is pointing to in the first post seems to be able to output 1024*768.

That's probably for DVDs or something... video games don't output at that resolution, and even then, it wouldn't look that good (it would be like stretching your capture card's image into full screen).

It's a sad thing about the capture cards being banned. I think that's pretty stupid honestly. I use mine to watch FTA tv, which is no less legal than buying a real TV. The other nice thing about playing in a window is that you can have Gamefaqs in the background and you can refer to it and back quite easily. That's for cheaters of course... not me... honest.

Another thing I forgot to mention about VGA boxes, and this is a very big one: They don't support PAL60. I have not seen a single VGA box (and I've played with about 7 of them for various consoles, and universal ones) that supports PAL60, except the DC which is really outputting a VGA signal already. So if you own a PAL console and need to play in PAL60, then it's going to be black and white. They only seem to support NTSC and PAL50. Though incidentally, the PS2 does support NTSC as its 60hz mode, so I guess that's fine...

[Eight Rooks]

Thanks for reminding me about the video capture card needing a license... I think I'll give that a miss - ditto picking up a cheap TV and crossing my fingers; I've got enough IRL to worry about at the moment with adding dodging a TV licence to it.

I guess it's out with the debit card and hope to God whichever VGA box I choose is at least watchable. Although I have a Japanese machine, so I don't have to worry about PAL60, anyway.

Thanks for all the suggestions, anyhow. Much appreciated.

[ElAlcesDiablo]

PAL 60, 60hz modes on PAL games, NTSC games on a PAL machine... will most likely result in messed up or no colours UNLESS you use component or RGB. These do not encode the colour in any regional way.
I have this one:

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-86-70-2cs.html

And a TV card.
The TV card has S-Video in and suffers from the aforementioned pal 60 issues. The image is more stable but also kinda dirtier, not as sharp. The box looks better except it red shifts on high contrast images and flickers on low contrast. Depending on the game these flaws may not be noticable or can be quite pronounced. It has component in though so is happy with whatever I throw at it. Except my Saturn which doesn't have component and oddly/fortunately works ok with the TV card. So each have their uses for me and neither are entirely ideal but quite workable.
I also have a DC vga box and a prog scan to vga converter which are vastly superior for that which supports it.

[lostn]

About your TV card that doesn't do PAL60... I thought mine didn't either. But it's actually in the software, not the hardware. Your card should support PAL60. Use Dscaler instead of whatever software comes with the card. It supports PAL60, and it actually looks better than the software I was using before.

Dscaler is awesome.

And you are right also about the color varying from game to game. Some are perfectly good looking, others not so. Mainly the ones that are too dark, or too bright. You need to do some adjusting with the brightness and contrast.

Also, I've been of the impression that multi purpose VGA boxes don't look as good as dedicated ones... although will be cheaper than buying one for every console.

[edandersen]

Okay, I'm in a bit of trouble; I have no TV - not getting one, either - I have no desire to pay a license for something I'm never going to watch.

Um, if you have a TV but don't recieve a TV signal on it (i.e. don't watch telly), YOU DON'T NEED A TV LICENSE.

They don't tell you this in the scare-mongering adverts.

[Wild_Cat]

Yeah, great... And how exactly do you prove to those nice government fellows that you don't ever watch television?

[Eight Rooks]

Meh, I bought it anyway. My PC is jammed full of stuff as it is, and I decided I'm not keen on trying to get something else in there. I just prefer the idea of using a box. So I ordered it. Fingers crossed, I guess. I'm sure it'll turn up, be utterly unworkable and you can all laugh at me , but until then... <shrugs>

EDIT:

And how exactly do you prove to those nice government fellows that you don't ever watch television?

Yeah, this would be my worry, too. I wouldn't put it past them at all to flat out disbelieve you no matter what, even if (as in my house) the aerial has been pulled out of the wall. We get enough hassle from them as it is, so yes, even though technically it says you need a license if you plan to receive TV broadcasts, I'd rather not be weighed down with the onus to prove I don't.

On top of that I would have thought it'd be cheaper to pick up a VGA box than a decent 19" or greater TV that can do NTSC no hassle. Oh, well, if I'm wrong, that's more of my money down the drain. <shrugs again>