Re: Play XBox on my PC

aight so im getting the fact that i think everyone here is usiing computer
monitors... but im trying to see if theres a way to play through my laptop...
i got a brand new HP zd8000 series... its got all these plugins but now i kno
the media center thing wont work... and it does have a vga port in the back,
svideo, rca and all that, cable... buut i think there all outs and not ins...
soo is there any possiblity cause im going to college too and dont kno if i
want to bring a tv.. thanks for any help

"Peter Near [MCE MVP]" wrote:

> I've posted the answer on my blog (http://www.thenears.com/?p=141),
> pasted below but obviously hyperlinks are missing in the newsgroup
> version. See the blog for the hyperlinks:
>
> I can tell that back-to-school season is upon us because the number of
> times I’ve seen this question is on the rise. Lots of people with fancy
> new PCs to take to the dorm room, and they want to bring along the XBox
> to play with them in that small space. My usual answer is “nope, can’t
> be done” but I thought that it was enough of an issue that we should
> investigate some alternatives.
>
> So, why can’t it be done in the traditional way you might expect? The
> Media Center PC has a video input that theoretically you should be able
> to use in order to view external video signals, one would think that you
> could patch in the XBox to the MCE PC like you might patch it into the
> video inputs of your VCR. Unfortunately, the way that the Media Center
> PC works with TV signals makes this setup pretty much unusable. Media
> Center buffers all video coming in through the tuner to the hard disk,
> which makes it possible to do cool things like pause Live TV and get
> instant replays of Live TV. That buffering causes a delay of a couple
> seconds which under normal circumstances isn’t really noticeable, but
> when you’re trying to take down the Covenant Heretic with a beam rifle
> that delay makes it impossible to play.
>
> By this point in the article you’re wondering why I would bother to
> write the article if it’s not possible. Well, let’s think a little bit
> outside of the box. While you can’t play XBox through the Media Center
> PC, you certainly can use the monitor and the speakers of the MCE to
> give you a fantastic gaming experience using the MCE hardware that
> you’ve purchased.
>
> What you’ll need is a VGA adapter for your XBox, preferably one that
> will let you connect both your MCE computer’s VGA cable and your XBox to
> the same monitor. There are a few options out there, but based on my
> research today plenty of them get bad reviews. This one, the X2VGA+
> seems to get thumbs up all around. Although I haven’t tested any of
> these myself, I would probably opt for the X2VGA+ since it enables HDTV
> resolutions on your monitor (which is certainly capable of these
> resolutions and has been for years) and allows you to quickly switch
> inputs between your MCE PC and your Xbox with the press of a button.
>
> If you’re not concerned with high-definition quality, you might also
> want to think about more of an SVideo to VGA adapter, which will
> probably be compatible with not only the XBox but your PS2, your DVD
> player, and pretty much anything else that outputs a standard video
> signal. Beware though, picture quality reviews aren’t so hot in general
> for this category of devices. It’ll do the job, but it will be at a
> resolution much lower than what your monitor is actually capable of.
>
> These VGA switchboxes should allow you to effectively play your XBox
> using the key hardware from your Media Center system.
>
> Pete
>
> Setekh wrote:
> > I'm in a dorm room so space is a problem. I use my pc as my tv, but I want to
> > play my Xbox on it. I put the video in cables into the tv tuner and put Media
> > Center on channel 3, but it didn't work. Do I need a program, hardware, or
> > is what I'm trying to do even possible?
>
.