TV in card/console VGA box malarkey

[Jay]

I'd like to be able to connect some of my consoles to my PC monitor for reasons of convenience. I already have my DC connected, and am aware that as the DC outputs VGA the image is of a superior quality to that offered by other consoles connected to a monitor. BUT I still want this option for a couple of reasons - PSX link play and family arguments over the TV. Now, should I:

a) buy VGA boxes for my PSX/PS2/GC if they are available

or

b) Can I get a TV in card for my PC and connect my consoles in that way? Is that even possible?

Finally, just how bad is the picture produced by these VGA boxes? And which is the best of a motley bunch?

Cheers,

Jay

[Greng]

Those cheapy VGA boxes are awful. I've tried a few PSOne/2 ones and they all produce a flickery screen. If you are wanting a solution for ALL your consoles, you need to look into an XRGB-2 which is an upscan convertor which you can connect anything to, and output VGA [and RGB scart too maybe?]. They go for about ?150. I'm just looking into these myself at the moment as I need to get my Saturn and PS2 connected for vertical shmups.

Reviews here...

http://www.atarilabs.com/meat/2001/0120_XRGB2.shtml

http://www.atarilabs.com/meat/2002/0208_xrgb2+.shtml [review of the XRGB2+]

TV in-cards will tie up your PC, and are generally not very good quality, with some lagging of the image. Good for recording your plays, but not ideal for gaming.

[Jay]

You, sir, are a star.

Thanks.

Jay

[gIzzE]

or another option is buy the packard bell tv-100 card from pcworld ?29.99 and then d/load dscaler instead of using the capture software with the card.

the card has a superb comb filter for s-video and this gives better results with a dvd player than using the progressive out of my pioneer or using my scaler and many others i have tried.

The xrgb2 is OK for the money and the company who make it agree it is not meant to compete with products like the quadscan, vision pro, centerstage, leeza etc. which are obviously 5-30 x the price.

the capture card is well worth a try for ?30, you really need a p4 1.5 and 256meg of ram to get the most out of it.

http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/screenshots/addl_screenshots.htm

make sur it is the pacakard bell tv-100 as the others are ****e, this uses the same chip as some capture cards at ?500, the tv tuner is crap but at the end of the day you'll proabably never use that.