I want to use my laptop screen for console gaming. Able to do HD?

I've been doing some hard Googling the last few weeks. I'm looking for a way to connect my large collection of video game consoles (SNES to 360 spectrum) to my laptop in order to display audio and sound from my laptop. Please do not recommend just buying a tv.

It would be nice to be able to transport an HD image to my laptop through a usb video-capture device. I am currently looking at some HD capture-devices, the Hauppauge HD PVR and Diamond's new-released GC1000 which both claim the ability to capture 1080i through usb2. However, I have heard rumors through Google that these HD devices have a few seconds of delay from the 360 machine to the laptop screen. I intended to use the Preview-mode of these video-capture devices (which I know are mainly intended for recording footage rather than playing back live images on laptops). Is the delay on the Preview display true, as this would make the whole point of purchasing one of these $200 devices moot.

If the HD capture devices truly do introduce lag to the laptop's display, my next best move is to get a standard definition capture device which capture 480i at most through composite or s-video, and should sufficiently capture my older consoles. The 360, ps3, and I think the ps2(what is the max output on the ps2 anyways?) will suffer a degraded quality using a device but it's my hope that they will atleast be of playable quality. Anyways, same with the HD-capture devices, I want to use this device to be able to play my consoles on my laptop screen as a substitute for a tv screen. Does anyone with experience with this standard-definition capture device know if there is display-lag? Amazon.com: Ezcap116 USB 2.0 Video Capture Device. Convert video+audio From vhs, V8, Hi8, All Camcorders, Video Recorder, DVD Player, Satellite Tv, Freeview Etc. Capture Xbox360 & Playstation3 in Color. Includes Arcsoft Showbiz 3.5 Editing Software.

Also - a bonus question - I'm thinking that for displaying older consoles such as the N64 - which can only display 480i at max - the image on my 1080p laptop screen would look the same as my 1080p tv screen, correct? I predict the older consoles would be a bit strange-looking due to overscaling but the quality between the laptop and tv screen would be the same?

 

No matter what you do it will suffer lag regardless of resolution because it has to convert the input. Only real solution is to buy a laptop with HDMI input wired directly to your laptop's LCD that way it would function like a regular TV/monitor. And even then it hasn't been that successful in the Alienware M17x that carried it. Results in general from anyone I've heard that use a tuner card or otherwise are pretty dismal.

 

Only device that would kinda help you would be the Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle over USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt.
Its not made for showing games on the notebook screen but rather record video off HDMI and similar ports.

I had the same decision as you a while back and i settled on getting a TV but my new desktop monitor can use HDMI equipped consoles and probably the older ones if i had a VGA box.

 

What do you mean by it? I tried my 360 only once when I first got my R3 and it worked just fine. I didn't play long though, just tried 2 games for about 5-10 mins each.

 

So even the standard-definition Ezcap won't display realtime?

Man...

 

I think Alienware are the only ones with a solution. The HDMI in works perfectly on non-3d notebooks and works with a little tinkering on all notebooks. It provides full resolution 1080P onto your laptop screen. Any external solution is going to cause lag, it only works on Alienware because they added a path on the motherboard from the port to the display and don't really do any processing on the signal. All the external recorders and such are decoding and re-encoding the signal to be captured, thus giving several seconds of lag in the best case.