XBox/Gamecube. 2 in 1 VGA BOX

Customers Reviews
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Allows you to share you computer’s monitor with your games console
Reviewer: Stuart Miles From uk
Date: Monday 12 September, 2005

19 August 2005 - So, you’re off to university in a couple of weeks and know that your new room is going to be small. Packing in the all-important television and of course computer might be a bit much alongside the more important things like a beer fridge.

However, leaving out the TV will mean you won’t be able to take your Xbox or/and Gamecube and that will only lead to nights binge drinking down the pub seeing how many bottles of vodka you can drink in 15 minutes.

In steps the Mayflash Xbox and Gamecube VGA Box, a cunning device that will allow you to use your computer’s monitor to play your Xbox and GameCube.

The box is simple and effective. There is no need for an additional power supply as the unit drains power from the console and it’s even got a switch so you can swap between computer and said console without the worry of having to start dismantling your setup every time you need to jump back to a PC task.

The box also promises to deal with your audio, albeit via a 3.5mm plug rather than hi-fi friendly phono sockets, but this does mean that those wishing to plug it straight into your computer speakers needn’t worry about finding additional cables.

In our tests the system worked fine. Setup was simple, thanks to do all the cables you need being bundled in the box and this device does what it says on the tin. Our only complaint came when we wanted to connect both our Xbox and GameCube to the box at the same time.

Although there are the cables to do this dangling out the back of the box, Mayflash suggest against this. Why we aren’t sure, but like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters we are told that this would be bad.

Throwing caution to the wind for the sake of Pocket-lint readers we went ahead anyway and guess what… you can’t have both consoles connected at the same time.

A handy little gadget if you want to use a computer monitor as a screen for console games.
Reviewer: Ian Johnson From Canada
Date: Monday 15 August, 2005

ReviewMayflash Xbox and Gamecube VGA BoxBy IAN JOHNSON

Monday, July 25, 2005 Updated at 9:25 AM EDT

Globe and Mail Update



The Good: Easy setup; no external power cable needed; can use same analogue monitor for both a computer and a console, thanks to built-in AV-source switch; clean picture.
The Bad: No switch to go between consoles, so you have to swap cables manually; no digital audio option for surround-sound output.
The Verdict: A handy little gadget if you want to use a computer monitor as a screen for console games.



Available for: GameCube and Xbox




REVIEW:

If there's heated competition for the television in your house, Mayflash's VGA Box may be able to help dissipate it.

The VGA Box (which is actually more rounded than box-like) is designed to let you pump the video and audio signal from an Xbox or GameCube console into a regular computer monitor.

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There are a number of companies offering similar devices, but easy hookup is one of the more notable features of the VGA Box, sold in Canada by Merconnet. First of all, there's no external power cord - the box pulls power from your game console. Second, it has connectors designed specifically for the proprietary AV ports on the Xbox and GameCube - no fooling around with RCA or S-video patch cables. You get a signal passed straight from the console's proprietary AV port into the VGA Box, which reduces the potential for signal interference and degradation that can happen when using adapters and patch cables.

To set it up, plug the appropriate connector into the AV port on your game console, then plug your monitor into the standard analogue VGA jack on the side of the box. Then you plug your speakers into the VGA Box's audio-out jack (it's a miniplug jack, so you'll need a converter from your local electronics store if your speakers use RCA jacks).That's it for the console side of things, if you're simply using it with a spare computer monitor.

If your monitor is the one you also use regularly with your desktop computer and you want to keep the PC hooked up, you can run a cable (included) from the box's VGA-in port to the port on your PC's video card - in other words, putting the VGA Box in between your computer and your monitor. There's a pass-through for your sound-card signal as well so that you can share the same speakers. A "source" button on the VGA Box switches between your PC and game console.

There's also a set of RCA outputs for audio and video, and an S-Video out, so you can keep a TV hooked up to the VGA Box as well if you like.

The design isn't perfect, though. For some reason, the manufacturer neglected to build in a switch to go from one console to another, and in big letters on the package it warns you not to connect both types of consoles to the box at once. As a result, you can only hook up one console at a time - either a GameCube or an Xbox. If you have both consoles (which I'm assuming you do, if you're buying a "GameCube and Xbox" VGA converter...), then you'll have to unplug the cable from one and hook it up to the other console every time you want to play on your other machine. It's a really odd design for a two-in-one VGA converter ...

On the up-side, the audio and video pass-through is excellent. The video pass-through system had no detectable effect on the quality of my PC's display. It's a great feature, because it means you can leave everything set up permanently around your computer monitor.

The image displayed from the console was nice and clear, too. Even though computer monitors offer substantially better picture quality than NTSC (or PAL, the VGA Box works with both) television screens, TV signals have far lower resolution than a PC video signal. As a result, even if you hook television or a video source up to a higher-quality screen, it's not going to boost the picture quality beyond NTSC output. But the AV connector does pull the best picture possible from the console and feeds it to your monitor. The resulting image on my CRT screen was noticeably clearer, with less colour smearing and fewer "buzzing" lines in the image than my standard television screen.

There is a caveat, though. If you're sitting in a desk chair a few feet from the screen as you would when using a PC, then the picture will look awful. The high-resolution CRT screen actually accentuates the limitations of the NTSC signal at close range. But if you sit back at a standard TV-viewing distance - say, about six or eight feet from the screen or more - the image should look at least as good, and probably a bit better, than it does on your TV thanks to the quality of the computer monitor.

The only thing I noticed was that the colour on the CRT tended to be flatter and greyer than what was displayed on my TV, so I had to tinker with my monitor's video settings to bump up the reds and other warm colours a bit. But lines - and particularly text - were much sharper on the computer monitor, and it displayed little of the line-bleed common when viewing text on a basic television screen.

The audio connection is only stereo - there's no digital-out port for surround-sound, which will disappoint audiophiles with home theatre systems. But if stereo is enough for you, there's not much to pick on in terms of audio performance here. There was no static or lag, and there was nothing in the quality of the audio to give away the fact that my console wasn't directly connected to my speaker system.

The big drawback is that at $64.99 (Cdn. at www.merconnet.com), the VGA Box isn't a whole lot cheaper than just buying a low-end 19-inch TV these days. Since most people have 15- or 17-inch CRTs at best, you may be paying a lot to buy a converter box to play on a small screen - you'll have to do the math and figure out whether a VGA box or just springing for a second TV makes the most sense.

If you decide the VGA Box is for you, it does a good job of converting television signals into VGA.

http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050714.gtvgajul14/BNStory/AtPlay/

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