What's the cheapest way to play GC on PC monitor?

[Mirinee]

I want to play GC, but I don't have a TV in my college room, only a PC and internet connection. The cheapest RCA(the 3 colour plug things)-to-PC-monitor adaptor I can find is over £50. Is there really no other way?

Thanks for any help.

[jarl]

yes there is another way-get a tv card. i ahve pctv rave, not the best, quality could be about 100times better,dont even talk about the video, 1mb a second *shudders* but theyre £30, prob cheaper from ebay

[Dark Knight]

what you can do that (one sec............) holy crap you can. I never knew you could do that with the GC

[jarl]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?V...eName=WDVW thats a gd 1, doesnt seem too bad condition and £7 inc postage. sorted.

[Mirinee]

Thanks for the link.
Is 1MB a second video bad for PSO? What about the sound?

[jarl]

1mb a sec is about as bad as it gets im afraid... the sounds fine on mine, but the stuff beyon about the 3rd line were he tries to sel it to u is balls. it will play tv and gc etc etc, but just not fantastic quality. that siad its nothing you cant ignore...

[decswxaqz]

You can get a piece of software called Dscaler which works for most TV cards. The software that comes with the Studio PCTV by Pinnacle (I have) isn't very good. It didn't even do 60Hz. But it's the software, not the hardware usually, that stops you doing things.

You can also get a USB TV Tuner card that might be better since you could plug it into laptop or PC. Try and get one with S-Video as this is better than the compostie (yellow) port provided with GC. Although you would need to find a s-video cable for your GC as well but it might be worth it in terms of better picture quality.

[jarl]

pal doesnt do s-video

[Mirinee]

Dscaler works with that Pinnacle card? I'll just use the yellow composite one then, it's not a problem. When you say the quality's bad, it's not unplayably bad, right? Where does the sound plug into on that card?

[decswxaqz]

On my card it only has a stero input for external sounds (RF/TV comes through the same input). So you'd have to get a L+R audio connection -> stero input. You can get these from Maplins.
Dscaler has support for most cards. You install the drivers from your TV card (and it's software if you want) and Dscaler will just use those drivers.

I would say that most modern cards are ok. The quality on mine is fine (TV and all other inputs).

Isn't s-video format independant? ie doesn't matter if PAL or not? Not sure though...
Basically if you buy the TV card from England it should work fine. My Taiwanese friend bought TV box in Taiwan and it didn't work here because it didn't support the right PAL (there are 3 or 4 different PALs :S).

Buy from England, and get a L+R -> stero plug (few £), and everything should be fine