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VGA Box,which is the best?

A

_Angelus_

Banned
Normally I'd GOOGLE something like this first ,but I wanted to get some views from the pros here at the forum first. Does anyone own one that works as an all in one for the Cube,PS2,and Xbox? My budget is to go no more than say 100 dollars for one.


Thanks.
 
I think your best option is to get a component to vga adapter.
 
Stinkles said:
Sounds too good to be true. Anyone used it? My XVGA box just died on me.
Click to expand...

Actually, yeah. My full impressions.

The gist of it? Works as good as you should expect for a VGA transcoder, and comes with a cable that's generally not cheap. If you like VGA boxes, it's a good idea. Keep in mind it doesn't work with 480i though, which means it's far more useful on the Xbox and Gamecube than it ever will be on the PS2 (unless you're a GT4 fanatic, I suppose).
 
I also have a Vdigi and recommend it.

My gripes with it though:
As everyone mentioned, 480i won't work, so your PS2 would be out of luck with it. (I use a video capture card for 480i stuff).
Widescreen/HD (720p/1080i) resolutions won't be proportioned correctly on your monitor unless you can adjust it on the monitor itself.
Some games seem a bit dark, and the brightness screw on mine doesn't seem to help too much.

On a loosely related note, does anyone know if soundcards with optical in will keep the 5.1 data sent out from an Xbox?
 
Ok,ok,some of this is confusing. I need to ask this,one of the playing modes I'm concerned with here,because my monitor doesn't output to 720,its 768.

And on one of the VGA boxes I've been looking at http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=219&products_id=4233&all_reviews=1#reviews

A few people mention this problem. That if youre monitor doesn't dislay in 720,and instead does 768,then game is surrounded by black bars on each side to compensate for this. Which also results in an odd shaped screen. That you'll need to resize your monitors screen to correct this? Ok am I reading this right then? Just resize and youre ok? Just how large are these black bars by the way? I'd hate for it to take a large portion of the plaiying screen.

I appreciate all the help. And to the folks who left links to their prefered VGA boxes,I'm going to check them out really quick

Thank you.
 
The most powerful and versatile is probably the Micomsoft XRGB-2 Plus. Google it.

I would not consider one without Component or RGB input. What's the point?
 
So can someone answer me this all important question-my monitor doesn't do 720,more along the lines of 768. Would a VGA box play it in 720 anyway? Such as the VD-Z3 VGA Transcoder that someone left a link to earlier. So if this box does 720 and my monitor only 768,the difference would result in black bars added to the picture with a slightly off centered picture? I'm thinking you would just tweak your monitor some by centering your screen. Am I right here? Thats what I've read with some of the written consumer reviews.
 
What about VGA for Cube? The VDigi looks good, but I'd still have to buy the cable for Cube right? It looks like that VGA box comes with the Xbox cable you need, but not the Gamecube cable.

I've seen a Gamecube component cable modified for pc monitor use... would that be better?

Any other suggestions?
 
Gaia Theory said:
What about VGA for Cube? The VDigi looks good, but I'd still have to buy the cable for Cube right? It looks like that VGA box comes with the Xbox cable you need, but not the Gamecube cable.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you still need the component cables for PS2/GC.

It would be really interesting to see the digital out on the GC used for a native digital cable, but I have no idea how exactly these modified types you mention would work.
 
This is the modified one I'm speaking of. I've seen it in use on a REALLY nice projector, didn't seem to have any problems - though it only works with pro. scan games.

What do you think?
vgacable.jpg

http://www.goldenshop.com.hk/AI-trad/gc/vgacable.htm
 
The Faceless Master said:
on both of my monitors, 720 isnt listed as a supported mode

auto tuning on my CRT works perfectly, on my LCD i have to manually adjust it a bit
Click to expand...

Allright this is very nice to hear. Thanks for the confirmation.
 
Gaia Theory said:
This is the modified one I'm speaking of. I've seen it in use on a REALLY nice projector, didn't seem to have any problems - though it only works with pro. scan games.

What do you think?
vgacable.jpg

http://www.goldenshop.com.hk/AI-trad/gc/vgacable.htm
Click to expand...


Please, fix your links next time. The URL goes inside the brackets....-_-;

Anyway, looks like that is a legit modded D-Terminal cable. So technically speaking, yeah, you're going to get a true VGA image. But apparantly there are some insulation problems...(Edit: and for that matter, is d-terminal really putting out a VGA quality signal? I've been starting to wonder if it's just a component alternative.)
 
Uncle Dukey said:
Widescreen/HD (720p/1080i) resolutions won't be proportioned correctly on your monitor unless you can adjust it on the monitor itself.
Click to expand...

Would using a widescreen monitor like Sony's 24" GDM-FW900 correct this issue?

b4_12_sb.JPG
 
Yes i do, unfortunately i don't have a monitor that can handle that frequency. I do however recommend this product, its a load better than any other on the market due to it being able to handle anything be it a console or dvd player that has progressive scan.
 
BenT said:
The most powerful and versatile is probably the Micomsoft XRGB-2 Plus. Google it.
Click to expand...

XRGB-2+ only upscans an interlaced signal, which is a pretty big limitation. It's a good VGA option for PS2 and older consoles though.
 
It doesn't work w/ PS2 at all? (Vdigi) Man, I wanted to play GT4 on it so I can have a Wheel setup on my desk.
 
hanzo said:
It doesn't work w/ PS2 at all? (Vdigi) Man, I wanted to play GT4 on it so I can have a Wheel setup on my desk.
Click to expand...

Sure it does. Vdigi works with ANY 480p/720p/1080i source. There's no game system detection circuitry or whatever. It's just transcoding the signal.

The problem with GT4 is that the menus are 480i and only the races are 480p/1080i. So unless you have a monitor capable of showing 480i, you won't be able to see a damn thing until you start the next race.

As for aspect ratios, you won't get digital bars. On a typical monitor the picture might look wrong but you just have to use the monitors stretch controls to manually restore the kind of aspect ratio you're looking for (obviously leaving a letterbox effect on a non-wide monitor). Behavior is going to vary between monitors, though. Some might take it fine, others may not be able to handle the frequency at all. And apparently the vdigi does support widescreen PC displays.
 
Are all Xbox games compatible with 480p? Because any game that I will pop into my machine that's plugged into the VGA box will work. And I set the dipswitches to force 480p mode.

That's really sad for GT4, I wanted to play it on my LCD screen. Thought the menus would be 480p as well... :(
 
Gaia Theory said:
This is the modified one I'm speaking of. I've seen it in use on a REALLY nice projector, didn't seem to have any problems - though it only works with pro. scan games.

What do you think?
vgacable.jpg

http://www.goldenshop.com.hk/AI-trad/gc/vgacable.htm
Click to expand...
I have that cable and it works ok I guess. I don't really notice a difference between the pro.scan on the monitor v. the S-video on my television. Is it supposed to be a smoother image? Maybe it's just me though.
 
I've got the Key Digital XBlaster. On a monitor of decent size, it looks spectacular. Dead on colors with a sharp pixel perfect display. It's a delight to be able to play the frame buffer grabs.
 
Ghost of Bill Gates said:
Would using a widescreen monitor like Sony's 24" GDM-FW900 correct this issue?

b4_12_sb.JPG
Click to expand...

I'd suspect it would, but I don't have one to try myself. On a 4:3 CRT, I used the vertical resize to squash it to widescreen proportions, but on my 4:3 LCD, there was nothing I could do. On both, it filled the screen by default, so I would think filling the widescreen monitor with a widescreen picture would cause it to be proportioned properly.

Ghost of Bill Gates said:
Would you say HD looks better on your vd-z3/monitor than HDTVs?
Click to expand...

Depends on the monitor and HDTV. I think HDTVs in general would probably look nicer, since they tend to appear less sharp than PC displays, and can hide the flaws better. 480p sources on CRT look better than LCD, since it doesn't have to deal with the scaling associated with LCD (Often generates more pronounced jagged edges). 720p Soul Calibur on the LCD did look quite nice though. I've also tried it on a projector, and that looked the nicest due to the large picture and the "softness" of the picture. I haven't really had the opportunity to see it on any other displays.
 
Armedia VGA BOX 9 - is da best. Resolution up to 1280 x 1024. Nice digital TV tuner. And you don't need the PC to use it with your LCD monitor :)
 
Uncle Dukey said:
Depends on the monitor and HDTV. I think HDTVs in general would probably look nicer, since they tend to appear less sharp than PC displays, and can hide the flaws better. .
Click to expand...

But on 720p/1080i signals you would want greater sharpness, right? because there's no flaws like jaggies from a 480p signal.

Comparing HD signals (720p/1080i) from your monitor to a HDTV, I would believe the monitor is better.

Monitors are the only place to get true High Definition..These HDTVs have some strange resolutions... like 800x1080i..what is that?

I've have yet to see 1920x1080i on a HDTV.
 
So are you guys saying that the VDigi does not support 480i signals and i will not be able to see menus etc... in GT4?
Can all the Xbox menus be set to 480p? I'm looking to pick up whatever is best as well so I can use an Xbox at my computer desk for when my wife wants to watch TV.
 
The Vdigi does support 480i, but it doesn't matter as in most cases people don't have monitors to support the frequencies of that resolution. I had a link to an old monitor db that helped me find and purchase a sizeable monitor, 27 inches, so I could use that with the vdigi and always have good graphics in games. Isamu why would one buy such a high price device when an hdtv in certain size ranges are an easier buy?
 
Is there any VGA box with SCART inputs for us Euro pals?
I don't really want to go trough the hassle of buying S-Video cables for all my consoles, and I don't want to loose picture quality either.
 
I have one of these:

nextvisionn5_us_eng_lrg.jpg

NextVision N5


It came with my new PC and I just got around to setting it up yesterday. Works with 480i-1080i but I may have a broken unit because when I enable anything in progressive scan the screen get is an overwhelming green hue to it.

I am going to call Viewsonic today to make sure this is a defect than I will contact my PC retailer for a replacement.


Anyone know of a similar solution that works? I want a box that I can plug component in to (along with audio) then out that to my PC via a secondary VGA input and a headphone style RCA jack into my PC. I am game up to $300 as long as it works with 480i for PS2 games and 480p for Xbox and GC. No need for multiple inputs because I already have a great quality switch box.
 
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