Have you tried these Vga to TV converters?

[Franky~]

<http://www.antec-inc.com/product/tv_...rter/pctv.html>

If you've had any experience with these, could you please share it with the rest of us? The only person i found who (supposedly) knew these products was trying to sell them to me so..... i expect his opinion to be errr... slightly biased. Anyway, opinions anyone on output quality for fullscreen videos, windows desktops, games and vcr recording?

Otherwise, have you tried any other similar products that worked really well?

Thanks!

F.

[Brian Ellis]

Haven't tried these ones, but I've tried other makes. They seem to fall into two categories, each one worse than the other:
1. the low-cost ones keep the no. of lines of a 640 x 480 image and put them onto 480 lines of a 625 line PAL image, but keep the line width. This gives a distorted aspect ratio.
2. the more expensive ones try to interpolate the 480 lines over the 625 lines, giving some horrific moiré and pixel effects.

I was trying to make a training video for a CAD software: neither system was satisfactory.

You can do something similar with Marvel, reproducing the whole screen onto a TV format, but it sensibly does the opposite of 1. above: it compresses a 1024 x 768 format to 625 useful lines, so that it is the monitor that is distorted and the TV image comes out well. This is better, but TV is not a good medium for this kind of because you simply cannot reproduce the fine detail of CAD work.

The worst of the lot is the software that records about 10 - 15 screen captures/sec onto an AVI file, because they are so irregular (when nothing happens, you get 15 shots/sec but move the cursor and it slows down the capture).

[Franky~]

Yikes, problematic indeed. But i'm in canada, so the standard here is ntsc. I guess the same problems apply similarly to ntsc, right?

My problem is that the device would be for a portable computer. At the moment i have a s-video output only (that stinks since most places i need to give presentations have rf or rca). I already have a g400 marvel in my desktop, but i can't really carry it around like my notebook. That's mostly why i need something like that. Or i could buy a s-video to rca converter (any idea where i can find that and how expensive?). I was already planning on finding a rca to rf converter, but that's for entirely different reasons. My dreamcast only has rca outputs and i like to carry it around a bit So with a s-video to rca converter and a rca to rf converter, i'd be ready for anything. I guess there would be a bit of image degradation going from s-video to rca to rf, but that shouldn't happen too often. Well, that's another option... But i'd probably prefer a vga converter box that works well since i could use that for other computers as well.

Well, i haven't made up my mind yet. As usual, the decision will be made with the quality / price ratio. What do you think?

F.

[AndrewDV]

Consider the TView Gold product. It is capable of 1600 x 1280 res with flicker filters. Here is the listing from DVDirect:

http://www.dvdirect.com/shop/product.asp?sku=FCS5002

There is a TView XGA product as well. It uses the same processor, but it only handles 1024x768 (... only ... that's a really good res).

[Rob100]

I have an AVerKey 100 Pro which only cost me £50.

TBH it's not very good. Even at a low res text can be tricky to read on any size TV. I wouldn't recommend it. The TV out in clone mode on my G400TV is much better.

Rob.

[Franky~]

Hey AndrewDV, thanks for the reply (others too of course!). Have you tried the TView Gold you recommend? Is it as good as the description says it is?

Thanks!

F.

[Aryko]

SVideo to Composite converter

Hi,

Radio Shack sells a composite to S-Video converter (it works in both directions) for CDN16.99 - part number 15-1238. I picked up one for my Omnibook which only has an S-Video port, and it works perfectly.

- A

[Franky~]

Thanks Aryko, that tlittle inexpensive piece of hardware really did the trick. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!

F.