Consoles + PC = How?

[riff1]

Okay, so I've been saving up to buy a nice, big new TV to replace the 14" 1987 RCA CrabbyTube thats been sitting in my room (and in and out of the attic) since the day I was born.

Lo and behold, another thing on my "to-buy" list was a nice, big new computer monitor to replace the 15" 2001 Dell Bundle-in-the-Box CRT. I had an epiphany in the shower: Why not simply move the entire computer set from the office into the bedroom, replacing the old TV with the new monitor by installing a TV tuner into my PC?

But theres one snag: what would I do with my consoles? I need a place to plug in all my game consoles, but am not exactly sure how I'd manage to run them on a PC. I'm planning on buying this TV tuner:

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814122180

Would you know-it-all gurus be able to tell me if it would support such a feature? It dosn't have the standard-issue "RedWhite&Yellow" (RWY) plugs on the card, but couldn't I plug the console in with the included AV-input cables for the same effect? That's how you plug a TV's RWY cables into a computer, so theretically, if I have a TV tuner that's designed to emulate the effect of using a TV on my PC, shouldnt I simply plug the console's RWY cables into the tuner's AV-input cable, open up the software, set it to input from the AV cable rather than the coaxial TV cable (in the same fashion that one would change their TV to "Video Input" mode for gaming)?
But, I mean, that's just theretically. In a perfect world, that would work.

Just looking for some advice. Thanks!

 

[MatTheMurdera]

what consoles do you have?

 

[Nitro350Z]

I'm not exactly sure what you are getting at, but I think I tried something similar.

it worked but there was a split second lag, it got really annoying and I just gave up.

It would be easier to get a good KVM box instead.

 

[KaozDragon]

you could try a monitor that has built in tv tuner.

i have the NEC 20wmgx2, but i havent tried out plugging in my ps2 or cable yet. i love it =D

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3208

 

[Bruxbox]

Riff

Why not get a big LCD or Plasma with multiple video inputs instead of trying to run a console through the PC?

Most large panels have at least one composite in, one svideo in, one progressive scan YBrBb/YCrCb component in, one VGA in, and/or one DVI or HDMI in.

So, connect your console to one of these inputs on the panel. If you panel has PIP or split screen, more the better, if you want to do two or three different things at a time.

I have a Windows Media Center PC, an XBox console, a Sony VCR, and a DirecTV STB connected to my 30" LCD which also has a builtin dual tuner for over the air TV.

 

[riff1]

BruxBox: Two reasons: price and resolution.

A good LCD TV is way more expensive than a good LCD monitor- in my expereince, at least. But then again, in my experience, I've always found out that in the wild world of PC hardware, theres always an exception to preconceived notions.

Plus, it may be a bit uniformed of me to say this, but I once played a PC on a standard-ratio (not HD) TV, and the resolution sucked. I think it was running at about 640x480- but the moral of the story was that every ounce of text I saw was simple unreadable. Trying to render 800x600-sized text (the smallest resolution WinXP supports... I think) on a screen with a size a notch below that was unberable. It made HL2 look like crap as well.

But anyways, after researching into this a bit, I think I found a few plausible solutions:

1) Plugging the console into the TV tuner would work, but of every story I found using this method, I also found the writer mentioning that such a method causes unberable lag.

2) A S-Video to VGA adapter cable. This way, I could plug my consoles into the S-Video, and the S-Video into the VGA monitor. But there are two problems: All the products I found had male VGA ports- but if I were to plug the monitor into the adapter, it would need a female VGA port.
(the example I'm talking about: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?A=details&Q=&is=REG&O=productlist&sku=383563)
I found a few boxes that do the same function, but they were expensive. If anyone can find a nice box that can let my monitor play S-Video consoles with the VGA montior thats no more than $55, it would be appreciated.

3) Vivo. This was just something a freind vaguly mentioned to me qvery quickly. I dont know anything about it- he simply said "If you're video card supports Vivo, you can do it through that". A detailed explanation of what Vivo is would be appreciated.

Sorry for the long posts, but thanks for any help!

 

[riff1]

Heh, Great! Thanks so much, I thought that I'd only hear bad news (money sacrifices) in order to get this thing going.

So the lag I keep hearing about is simply caused from lotsa CPU activity? Hmm... I wish they made benchmakrs for these things. I hope I'm not being pestering with all these questions, but would I have to worry about that on a stock-clocked (2.0Ghz) Athlon X2 3800+?

 

[weilin]

i have no problems, had xbox hooked up to my pc, had gamecube. No issues with any of them. I use a Compro TV Tuner.. it was 20 bucks and i have to say.. the best 20 bucks ive ever spent. It even gives me cleaner tv channels than my tv does.

 

[riff1]

Well, although that took awile, I guess the deal is settled. I'll be buying the aforementioned LeadtekTV2000(http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814122180)
, all while watching it on this widescreen (and cheap!) beauty: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16824254005

Suffice to say it, the biggest thing I'm looking forward to is PiP. The awesomeness of watching Futurama re-runs while aimlessly roaming around in WoW is un-rejectable. Nor is the fact that I'll be able to lean back in bed, and switch from playing counter-strike to watching TV whenever I feel like it!