I've got a horrible set up, and even worse a TV that really isn't in the best of condition. I'd like to play my consoles through this PC, it would make things so much easier, plus not having to switch rooms since the only working TV isn't in here, my room. I want to know if there are any recommendations for a good card? Preferably one that possibly could be got very cheap and yet produce excellent quality. I've searched eBay trying to find the cheapest, but I don't know a thing about these cards, so knowing if I'll end up with something that's crap or not concerns me. My PC is a 1.7ghz with 256mb RAM and an old NVidia GeForce 2, if specs are of any significance in deciding this.
I use a Grabster AV 250 from Terratec for old consoles, Composite and S-Video can be connected (like almost all Video-in devices) and even supports PAL60 (next to NTSC and PAL, which do also almost all). Looks excactly like this one: AV 150 MX, and may even behave same. Works flawlessly under Win7 x64. Can't talk about Linux or MacOS. Also no special software (besides the drivers) are needed, just use MPlayer Classic or other capable software to view it. There is one problem though, the audio input is recogniced as a USB microphone, so you'd have to connect the audio directly to the line-in of your soundcard or to your speakers. new it's about 60-100 USD, I think.
I'm only intending to use this for all consoles up to the DC. Specifically with my Super A'can I just bought, I want to use that. It uses AV cables so that should be OK with all cards right? I assume they all have AV ports anyways...am I wrong? heh I've also looked around and found this thing I remember from years ago called Jam!! by somewhere called Aimlabs. This thing actually looks just like what I'd want, it's also external. Anybody use it before? Oh, and I don't suppose any of them support RF, do they? My NES is the only thing that has RF, but it'd be nice ot be able to use it too.
Well if it's a TV Capture Card you can connect the RF to the Antena input, anyways you should get a pair of composite cables for that NES. I don't know how many consoles you are planning on pluging in, but you could also get an AV selector to make it easier. And the DC could be connected to your monitor via VGA and your PC plugged to the monitor via DVI (considering your monitor has both VGA and DVI and your graphics card has DVI output). On the other hand, if you feel like changing monitors, you could get a 22-24" one with multiple inputs for cheap now. Back in 2007 I bought a 22" Westinghouse LCD Monitor which I still use and has the following inputs: Composite, S-Video, Component, VGA, DVI. It costed like $200 new. I used it a lot with my consoles till earlier this year when I moved all my consoles to my new game room and kept the monitor in my room for using it with my laptop. The only drawback is that it doesn't have a sound output so you are forced to use the monitors speakers (which are not very good) or plug your console(s) audio directly into a set of speakers. It also has a very cool PiP function.
This is more or less what I came in here to recommend, except in reverse. I used to have a setup where I had a bunch of systems hooked up to my XRGB-3, which I attached to the DVI port of my computer monitor, and hooked up the computer via VGA. Of course that was an older computer that couldn't output digital video, but...
Incredibly basic upscaler. Serviceable, but cheap for a reason. The best TV input device I've seen for a PC (zero lag) is the discontinued Adaptec game adapter. It's USB, displays (and captures) great quality video and it's petite. Sadly it's difficult to find and doesn't work under 64-bit Windows. -hl718
Looking around the net it seems like I might be best off getting an adapter for composite to VGA. You guys will have to help me out as I'm completely new to this, but what does composite, vga etc all mean? All my consoles have AV cables, as any. Is that considered composite? So lost =p
You'll need a box of some sort for this, to convert the signal. Personally I don't think it's worth the money; if you're going to go that route then just spend a little more and get something more general-purpose. Composite is the standard red/white/yellow cables - the key being that all video data is just transmitted on the one yellow wire. VGA is the 15-pin connector often used to hook up computers to monitors.
+1 All you need is a new lcd screen with both VGA for your PC and Scart/RCA/whatever you use for your video game. If you settle for a 17" you can get away with it extremely cheap.
Interesting. I honestly didn't know TVs go for so cheap these days. Last I ever looked at TVs or new consoles or anything was way back around when the DC was released. Since then I've used my PC only and have been out of touch with the electronics world forever.
