Playing Console Games on my W3J

So I just moved into my dorm and definitely do not have room for a TV or monitor. Are there any TV tuners that will work with my XBox 360. I don't need HD, just a way to play them on the W3J. Any ideas?

 

They will probably have something soon that you can plug into your PCI-Express Card Slot. As far as I know, the technology is pretty new so there aren't a lot of options out yet. Definitely soon though.

If you don't care about TV and just want the x-box, you could get an Xbox s-video adapter. You would have to sort out the L-R Audio RCAs but that should be simple enough. The only other option I can think of would be to get some cable adapters to switch vga or s-video to RCA.

 

There are plenty of DVD makers, TV Tuners, and other video input devices by various manufacturers (such as Hauppauge), all USB (some also powered by USB), that will meet your needs. Most have at least a composite input and usually have an s-video input. You will be hardpressed to find one with component or similar unless your shell out $$$. If you don't need a TV tuner, get one that is like a DVD maker or similar because they are cheaper. You can also use programs such as Dscale to de-interlace and filter your video to make it look nice on your computer. When you are choosing one, be sure you read the reviews and see that the tuner doesn't have any input lag because you are playing games.

Here is a list to start you off:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...47+1148410234&Submit=ENE&Nty=1&Subcategory=47

As far as audio is concerned, some have the RCA inputs on them, but if they don't, you can buy a simple cable with two RCA females to one 3.5mm male (headphone jack) to stick in your laptop microphone or audio in port.

Here is a cable. You can probably find cheaper somewhere else:
http://www.mycableshop.com/sku/MUMFRCA.htm

 

You can get a USB 2.0 one for a decent price. Otherwise a PCMCIA one is more of an odd-ball thing.

If you plan on buying a tuner for that purpose, you MUST make sure that it is NOT a hardware PVR unit. Most PVR units have MPEG-2 processors onboard, which adds a ~2 second delay to the playback. For video capture, the on-the-fly audio/video compression and filtering is quite welcome, but the downside is that it renders it utterly useless for games. Usually the basic version of the cards will do, though you might want to go with a known brand to avoid returns.