Xbox --> Monitor = X2VGA or VD-Z3?

[Spudd]

I wanted to see if any fellow Anandtecher's had any personal experience or good info on these 2 products; both are apparently vga transcoders that allow you to play your Xbox on a pc monitor at near HD TV visuals (and for most games enables beautiful graphics and colors at 480p). Anyway, the links are:

X2VGA and VD-Z3

I wish Microsoft would just make a vga adapter for the dang xbox so that prices for these things wouldn't be so high (granted before these 2 came out, anything near their output quality was running $150-$300!!). :beer:

 

[Amrcell]

I believe there is away to make your own for a few bucks. Check xbox-scene.com for a tutorial.

 

[Kraft Single]

I have the x2vga on a 19" monitor, it looks beautiful. It as inputs for those 5.1 speakers but I haven't bought one yet. Never heard of the VD-Z3

 

[Spudd]

Originally posted by: Kraft Single
I have the x2vga on a 19" monitor, it looks beautiful. It as inputs for those 5.1 speakers but I haven't bought one yet. Never heard of the VD-Z3

Yeah, the VD-Z3 thing just popped up middle of December of this year. There are shots and stuff over here. How long did it take them to ship your stuff to you from China?

As for making my own, thanks for the link Amrcell--I'll check it out. I saw some stuff about that before, but it got uber complicated. lol

 

[Kraft Single]

Originally posted by: Spudd

Originally posted by: Kraft Single
I have the x2vga on a 19" monitor, it looks beautiful. It as inputs for those 5.1 speakers but I haven't bought one yet. Never heard of the VD-Z3

Yeah, the VD-Z3 thing just popped up middle of December of this year. There are shots and stuff over here. How long did it take them to ship your stuff to you from China?

As for making my own, thanks for the link Amrcell--I'll check it out. I saw some stuff about that before, but it got uber complicated. lol

It took exactly 1 week from the time i ordered it(using paypal) to recieve it(Texas) usps.

 

[Spudd]

Originally posted by: Kraft Single

Originally posted by: Spudd

Originally posted by: Kraft Single
I have the x2vga on a 19" monitor, it looks beautiful. It as inputs for those 5.1 speakers but I haven't bought one yet. Never heard of the VD-Z3

Yeah, the VD-Z3 thing just popped up middle of December of this year. There are shots and stuff over here. How long did it take them to ship your stuff to you from China?

As for making my own, thanks for the link Amrcell--I'll check it out. I saw some stuff about that before, but it got uber complicated. lol

It took exactly 1 week from the time i ordered it(using paypal) to recieve it(Texas) usps.

Wow. That's pretty fast! Hehe. In your opinion, was it $72+ well spent? Is it really that good looking? I haven't seen anyone post shots from a X2vga (only vd-z3 shots from supposed users). Thanks for the info.

 

[Spudd]

Just ordered an X2vga...I'll report back with details. :beer:

 

[Spudd]

Ok, order process was simple. Email confirm came a day later. The don't seem to answer emails very quickly (haven't responded to mine yet), so I sent them another one in Chinese. Hehe.

 

[Nab]

what about those Multi AV SAV Out that they sell for about 25-30 bucks? I saw it on ebay, supposedly they convert ps/ps2/gamecube/n64 and xbox so that it can be played on a monitor. Anybody know if those are any good or not?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3069367218

that's the link for the auction. Let me know what you know about this, because to me it looks very useful and much cheapter than above.

 

[Spudd]

Originally posted by: Nab
what about those Multi AV SAV Out that they sell for about 25-30 bucks? I saw it on ebay, supposedly they convert ps/ps2/gamecube/n64 and xbox so that it can be played on a monitor. Anybody know if those are any good or not?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3069367218

that's the link for the auction. Let me know what you know about this, because to me it looks very useful and much cheapter than above.

Those are line doublers, like the Advent one. You might as well plug your console into the back of your tv tuner card and use Dscaler--you'd probably end up with better results! The x2vga is a vga transcoder; the difference in quality from what I've heard and seen is like night and day. Originally, those boxes for the xbox cost as much as $350+. There used to be one called the Xblaster by Key Digital that cost that much. Recently (within the last year+ or so) there have been a few companies and even small businesses/entrepreneurs who have been selling vga transcoders at a fraction of the cost--usually by using the bodies of Xbox AV/HD packs. Do a search at xbox365.com and teamxbox.com for "vga" to see some pics of the results of vga transcoders with Xbox.

 

[Nab]

Originally posted by: Spudd

Originally posted by: Nab
what about those Multi AV SAV Out that they sell for about 25-30 bucks? I saw it on ebay, supposedly they convert ps/ps2/gamecube/n64 and xbox so that it can be played on a monitor. Anybody know if those are any good or not?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3069367218

that's the link for the auction. Let me know what you know about this, because to me it looks very useful and much cheapter than above.

Those are line doublers, like the Advent one. You might as well plug your console into the back of your tv tuner card and use Dscaler--you'd probably end up with better results! The x2vga is a vga transcoder; the difference in quality from what I've heard and seen is like night and day. Originally, those boxes for the xbox cost as much as $350+. There used to be one called the Xblaster by Key Digital that cost that much. Recently (within the last year+ or so) there have been a few companies and even small businesses/entrepreneurs who have been selling vga transcoders at a fraction of the cost--usually by using the bodies of Xbox AV/HD packs. Do a search at xbox365.com and teamxbox.com for "vga" to see some pics of the results of vga transcoders with Xbox.

oh ok....so basically get that cheap 25 crap will give you crap......makes sense. thanks for the info.

 

[Spudd]

Originally posted by: Nab

Originally posted by: Spudd

Originally posted by: Nab
what about those Multi AV SAV Out that they sell for about 25-30 bucks? I saw it on ebay, supposedly they convert ps/ps2/gamecube/n64 and xbox so that it can be played on a monitor. Anybody know if those are any good or not?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3069367218

that's the link for the auction. Let me know what you know about this, because to me it looks very useful and much cheapter than above.

Those are line doublers, like the Advent one. You might as well plug your console into the back of your tv tuner card and use Dscaler--you'd probably end up with better results! The x2vga is a vga transcoder; the difference in quality from what I've heard and seen is like night and day. Originally, those boxes for the xbox cost as much as $350+. There used to be one called the Xblaster by Key Digital that cost that much. Recently (within the last year+ or so) there have been a few companies and even small businesses/entrepreneurs who have been selling vga transcoders at a fraction of the cost--usually by using the bodies of Xbox AV/HD packs. Do a search at xbox365.com and teamxbox.com for "vga" to see some pics of the results of vga transcoders with Xbox.

oh ok....so basically get that cheap 25 crap will give you crap......makes sense. thanks for the info.

No prob. Here's a link to some pics on people's comps of the xbox using a vga transcoder (you'll see it looks about as good as HDTV): Linky 1, Linky 2, Pics of VD-Z3 in action, and finally a short review at Gamepro on X2VGA.

 

[Spudd]

Still no X2VGA...these people are slow as hell, and don't answer their emails quickly. Arg.....classes have already started again too.

Better drown my sorrows.....:beer::beer::beer::beer::beer:

 

[zzzz]

for anyone interested VD-Z3 is having some promotion now.

 

[TerryMathews]

To anyone reading this thread, keep in mind that the Xbox Dashboard and DVD playback do not output in anything except 480i. Which means your VGA monitor will choke using these transcoders until you insert a game.

A more elegant (and expensive) solution is to use a Viewsonic NextVision N6. It understands and scales all SDTV and HDTV resolutions to whatever resolution and refresh rate your computer monitor expects. Also has an integraded (analog) cable TV tuner and normal array of video inputs (composite, S-Video, component).

I use one and a VGA monitor as my TV. Have an LCD projector for parties. Xbox looks very pretty at 480p.

 

[Spudd]

I've been using my X2VGA now for a week...this thing is sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. The above poster mentioned that you can't watch DVDs or see your dashboard properly with these transcoders. That's not exactly correct. The X2VGA uses something they call EasyVIeW to allow you to see your dashboard and adjust your video to output in all video modes (480p, 720p, and 1080i) in whatever screensize you want (I chose widescreen). After that, when your game starts you have a crystal clear picture of your game--far beyond the quality of a television and on par with HDTVs. Right now I'm enthralled playing Shenmue 2, and I never knew it could look so good!!

As for not being able to see DVDs through your Xbox, I'm fairly certain most of you have a DVD drive so that's a moot point. Are you going to blow $300 so you can see your dashboard??? The more economical and in my opinion best solution at the moment is either an X2VGA (which I can obviously vouch for its quality) or a VD-Z3 (which I obviously can't vouch for).

Anyway, I'm in Xbox heaven...I'm glad I didn't buy the PC versions of my Xbox games!! Don't need 'em!! Hehe. :beer::beer::beer::beer:

 

[JackBurton]

Awesome man. I'll have to check those out. I'd like to play my XBOX on my monitor.

 

[Spudd]

Originally posted by: JackBurton
Awesome man. I'll have to check those out. I'd like to play my XBOX on my monitor.

I'd recommend that if you have the cash to burn on it that you order it asap because they take their sweet time to process your order and then it'll take a while to get here from the "Far East." Highly recommended. :Q:beer:

 

[Jennerstein]

Ooh, if only they had a DVI connector on these VGA transcoders. I guess I could always plug in the monitor using VGA (since my 1800FP has both DVI and VGA connectors), but DVI would be sweet. TheVD-Z3 is selling for 49.99 plus shipping and handling and they throw in a free XBOX Controller to PC USB cable. Tempting.

 

[zzzz]

just reviving this thread to say the VD-Z3 has been awesome. Also it arrived within 10 days of ordering.

 

[sonambulo]

Slightly off topic, but I just bought a generic "Multi-Purpose VGA Box" and whenever I turn the thing on, my monitor displays in a completely smushed widescreen style view. This is the box.

Any ideas on how to fix this? Oh, one more thing. Documentation: none.

 

[Spudd]

Originally posted by: sonambulo
Slightly off topic, but I just bought a generic "Multi-Purpose VGA Box" and whenever I turn the thing on, my monitor displays in a completely smushed widescreen style view. This is the box.

Any ideas on how to fix this? Oh, one more thing. Documentation: none.

Did you do your homework as to what works and what's crap? Can't make crap work properly you know. There are tons of warnings to folks about these cheesey "vga boxes" that don't do squat. As more and more people, like VD-Z3, get into the game, the prices for proper xbox vga (and other consoles) prices will come down. Before X2VGA, people who didn't know how to make their own were shelling out as much as $300 for a vga box.

 

[sonambulo]

Honestly, I didn't do my research (I know, I know, I'm an idiot go ahead and say it).

The VD-Z3 looks hot, though and everyone says it works well. I'm going shopping for new monitors tomorrow anyways, so I'll drop a post when I get it all working. Thanks for your help.

 

[Spudd]

Originally posted by: sonambulo
Honestly, I didn't do my research (I know, I know, I'm an idiot go ahead and say it).

The VD-Z3 looks hot, though and everyone says it works well. I'm going shopping for new monitors tomorrow anyways, so I'll drop a post when I get it all working. Thanks for your help.

No prob. I've got personal experience with the X2VGA and it works flawlessly, but I see it's about $12 more than the VD-Z3 (used to be $30 more) which is a new comer (relatively speaking). Someone posted in this thread that they went with a VD-Z3 and it works. Over at xbox365.com forums they had many long threads on these 2 vga adapters. Best of luck getting them working, and try not to let the drool fall out of your mouth when you do. :beer:

P.S. So far, the most beautiful and addictive game I've played on my xbox with an x2vga was Shenmue 2....damn that game was awesome. I can only hope that there will be a 3rd installment to finally tie up the story.