VGA BOX

Anyone know anything about this unit? I picked it up recently in order to be able to use my GameCube at work on quiet days. But I'm not too happy with the video quality. When I run the PC's VGA card through the pass-through connector, everything on the screen has a slight shadow. And the graphics from another source (Cube, VCR, etc.) are kinda fuzzy.

Do you think I got a defective unit? Or was it just not worth my money? Should I have just gone with the offical GameCube adapter for this purpose? Any thoughts/insights would be appreciated.

It looks like a neat gadget, but I wouldn't expect much from it. It's probably not going to get much better due to the odd resolution changes. I've tried playing my PS1 through my ATI AIW and that didn't look very good either. Very fuzzy and also didn't fill the screen. And that's with hardware and software conversion.

Somewhat similar topic that I know Tony and I are dying for: does anyone know of a GC->PC controller convertor? I would love to use my GC controller on my computer. Those Sidewinders are kinda crappy.

I can't imagine that that thing upsampling NTSC to VGA (640x480, I guess) is going to be very high quality.

As far as shadowing/ghosting on the passthrough -- that's generally due to RF interference, usually crosstalk between the different signals on the VGA cable itself. It's possible that you might be able to improve this by getting higher quality VGA cables all around, or even by installing some ferrite beads (there's potentially some black magic and/or snake oil goign on there). It's also possible that the box itself is poorly shielded. In fact, that's the guess I'd go with. But I have no experience with it, so me calling it poor shouldn't carry much weight.

Skillz Cube Connection USB

You might have more luck with one made specifically for the GameCube, like this one. Level Six carries some other nice products as well, you might want to look around.

does anyone know of a GC->PC controller convertor?

I believe I have actually seen that... probably on eBay or one of many internet electronics stores. A quick search just now yielded no results, though.

That's great, Bitt! Thanks! It would be nice if it worked with the wavebird, but that's okay. The software looks pretty good as well.

Thanks, ricin. That's exactly what I was considering. If the box really isn't shielded well (and it does have a lot of connections on the back), then perhaps a simplified, more direct version like the Redant model would work better. But first, I must speak to the store that I purchased this unit from.

No problem. Actually, I forgot about Lik-Sang until Bitt mentioned it, and they have it cheaper.

I forgot about Lik-Sang until Bitt mentioned it, and they have it cheaper.

Yes, but unfortunately it's on back order. But, I did a little more digging, and found this thread on another board which, despite it being full of plugs for specific products to get the job done, does yield some useful information about the Cube's video signal. So I've decided that the no-name or Redant boxes aren't going to be good enough, period. I'll be looking into other means.

And I was so looking forward to having something to do at work this weekend once I finished...

Very interesting. I'll have to keep all this in mind when I finally get around to getting a GC.

It is interesting. I just had to call a friend of mine to warn him not to order one of the VGA boxes. There are several versions from different companies, but they all work off of the standard red/white/yellow RCA cables. That yellow line is not how you want to connect video to your computer monitor, if you want to do it at all.

The appropriate solution for good quality video is this: a modified component video cable, such as this one. And also, if you need it, a gender changer in order to connect it to your computer monitor. The drawback is that this will only work for GameCube games that support progressive scan. There is no way to get non-progressive scan games to display on a computer monitor with any sort of good picture quality.

And let me tell you, the VGA box solution is not good quality. I wish I had done this research before buying it.

So with this progressive scan on a monitor, how does this compare to TV quality with/without progressive scan?

From my own experience, I could not tell you about the progressive scan method of connecting to a monitor.

The truth is that the VGA box worsens the video quality when using a computer monitor, because of the nature of the source video. Whereas (supposedly) using the progressive scan mode (with the appropriate modified cable) of the GameCube will get you better quality video on a monitor. But then, if you have a TV that uses component video, you could also have that same quality. It's not necessary to connect to a computer monitor. The reason I want to is because we don't have TV's at work, and the weekend 3-11 can get quite boring.

The connection/video quality issue is explained in more detail in that other thread I linked to, if you find my summary somewhat lacking.

Edit: Keep in mind that the progressive scan connection method will not work for games that are not progressive scan capable. Currently, I only have Metroid Prime, which is.

I was just wondering how this method of connecting to a monitor would compare to normal and progressive scan on a TV. You make it sound like lt may be about the same as progressive scan on a TV, which I would be skeptical about.

Have you considered buying a TV-in card of some nature for your PC and playing your console through that? You could even full-screen it in most cases. I've done that on my old Beige G3 a few times with its built-in RCA input and it worked quite well.

Have you considered buying a TV-in card of some nature for your PC and playing your console through that?

If you were reading carefully, you'd see that that is not an option. The computers at work are not mine, and thus I could likely lose my job if I started modifying them.

You make it sound like lt may be about the same as progressive scan on a TV, which I would be skeptical about.

Then be skeptical. I for one, am willing to give it a try. In truth I'd be willing to settle for standard TV quality at work. But the VGA boxes can't even do that. They severely detract from the quality of the video, and you don't need anywhere near 20/20 vision to be able to see the difference.

I am not advocating a progressive scan connection to a monitor over a progressive scan connection to a TV. In fact I'd rather have the latter. At home it is possible (when I get a new TV). At work, it's not. And it's just a little too often that I'm finished early at work.

There are others that say they prefer the monitor connection, though, when done right, for brightness and clarity. So make your own decision. I'm not trying to sell you on product. I'm trying to solve my own problem.

I understand, I understand. I suppose I can see how a CRT would differ from a television if picture quality is similar. Trust me, I know why you need to do this, I'm just saying I have doubts that is could be as good. If it is, then that's a wonderful solution to your problem, as it's the simplest and the cheapest method listed in this thread. Would they mind if you set up a little switch box for the monitor you're using. That would make it even easier!

As long as I didn't leave the switchbox behind. I'm just trying to get at least similar-to-TV quality so that I don't have to squint in order to play the game. If it comes out better - great. I could end up using my Trinitron monitor to play GC instead of the crappy 27" RCA I got second-hand.

Skillz Cube Connection USB

Bitt, I've been waiting for one of these to appear for a while. I consider the Cube's controller to be the best game controller in existence, and I've been interested in buying an extra one exclusively for use on the PC.

Thanks for linking that.

Yay someone else that doesn't want to use the PS2 one for everything. I wish there was an adaptor to use the wavebird on the PS2. The PS2 one gives me cramps.

Yay someone else that doesn't want to use the PS2 one for everything.

It still stumps me how anyone could possibly like the PS2 controller, even one tiny bit.

Hint to Sony: Four-way symmetry is a bad thing for ergonomics...

I consider the Cube's controller to be the best game controller in existence...

I definitely agree with you there. After a few hours on the Cube (I initially didn't like the new controller), I have found that it is very ergonomic. No matter how hard or how fast I hit those buttons, the fingers never get sore. Before the GC controller, guess what I wanted to be able to use on my computer?

If you were reading carefully, you'd see that that is not an option. The computers at work are not mine, and thus I could likely lose my job if I started modifying them.

Hey, now! Don't be pissy. You never said how much control you had over your PC at work. There are any number of jobs I've had where I could do exactly what I described.

Honestly, my assumption was that if your employer was going to allow you to play video games at work, what difference would adding a card to their computer make?

In addition, you could get an RCA->USB adapter and not have to ``modify'' their computer at all, other than, likely, adding drivers.

The Audio Authorities box is probably the route I will go with my 27 inch monitor, as I need a solution for both the XBox and Gamecube.

The one disadvantage right now is the lack of a component->VGA box that has a VGA input as well to pass a signal through. I still use the monitor as a TV via a PC as well, and having to disconnect and reconnect cables all the time is not my idea of fun. A cheep VGA switchbox would work as well, but I'd prefer the simplicity of the 3rd party VGA box I found for the Dreamcast. Turn on the system, the monitor springs to life and shows the game. Turn it back off, and the PC is displayed again. Two component inputs would also always be nice, but not necessary.

A better solution for me would be a component input PC board, but the cheapest ones I found ran $800.

Hmm, reading through the above linked thread (all 5 pages) revealed exactly what I wanted.

RCA->USB adapter
USB is out of the question. They're still running Win95.

And as for playing video games at work, well, my supervisor understands that quite often there isn't enough work to last the shift. That's just the way it is sometimes. He pretty much doesn't care how I keep myself occupied for the remainder of my shift, as long as the department remains the way it was when I came in.

Hmm, reading through the above linked thread (all 5 pages) revealed exactly what I wanted.

I was going to say... when I followed some of the links through that other thread, I found several different component -> VGA boxes, at least one of which I was sure could do what you wanted. I myself couldn't see how I'd use one of those boxes. But, if I had a good quality 27" monitor on my machine, I probably wouldn't even own a TV.

that thing better sing and dance and make coffee too... it's $249.00

The problem with that one is that it doesn't do any scan format conversion. Most monitors won't display 480i so you won't be able to view the XBox dashboard or GC games that aren't progressive. The upside is that you will be getting native progressive for games that support it.

If you want a good TV->VGA box take a look at this: http://www.viewsonic.com/products/video_box_vb50hrtv.htm

I believe it's only abotu $100 and it has been getting rave reviews on the A/V boards. It actually has a quality deinterlacer and scaler built in. It's not just a crappy upscan converter.

-Dylan

The problem with that one is that it doesn't do any scan format conversion. Most monitors won't display 480i so you won't be able to view the XBox dashboard or GC games that aren't progressive. The upside is that you will be getting native progressive for games that support it.

I know, but it's much more affordable then the $800 Component input board for the computer. It could do all the scaling and changes to display it, but component to VGA isn't worth that much to me.

If you want a good TV->VGA box

I already have an ATI Radeon AIW card to do this, and the quality still dosen't match my Dreamcast with actual 640x480 output. It is slightly better then a normal 27 inch TV, but not by much.

$250 seems worth it to me since it's only $50 more then the Audio Visionaries box, and will switch automaticially. (Thus eliminating the need for a cheep VGA switcher, or doing a cable swap every gaming session.) Plus, it will still serve a purpose down the road, where as buying a Gamecube or XBox VGA solution will limit me to using them with those devices only, and not other component capable devices.

I play games on my front projector which is VGA only. I own an older version of that Key Digital transcoder as well as the Holo3DGraph PCI board (the only $800 component input board I know of).

There is no doubt that that the best image quality comes from the native 480p through the transcoder. But for a while I was using a $40 vid cap card with an s-video input and deinterlacing software from www.dscaler.org . The quality of that config was surprisingly good. It was certainly far better than standard TV. The key is the quality of the deinterlacing. I don't know much about the AIW but I do know that dscaler is the absolute king of software deinterlacing. I don't believe it works with the AIW cards, though.

The point is most people would be happy with the image and it only costs $40 for the hardware to run in the PC or the Viewsonic will give comparable results for $100-150.

The Key Digital transcoder I have is, frankly, not well designed. It doesn't strip the embedded sync to create a correct RGBHV signal. Fortunately, my projector lets me force sync on green so it works for me. Many computer monitors will not do this and end up with a washed out image. Looking at the specs of the X-Blaster, it appears that they've done it correctly this time but I would confirm this or have the option to return.

Another option, If you know a bit of electronics you could buy the bare board from www.xboxvga.com and solder on your own component input jacks. No VGA passthrough and I'm not sure if it supports resolutions greater than 480p but you can't beat the price.

-Dylan