Connecting Games Consoles to Macbook?

[dannewell15]

My first Mac is arriving soon - see my sig. and I have read that the GMA 950 isn't great for gaming so i would like to be able to connect my ps2 or xbox360 (if i get one) to my mac and use the built in display to play the consoles on. i have found this

http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyetvhybridna&newlang=en#

and would like to know if anyone has it and what they think. also, is there a better way of doing this?

ps. i don't want to use an external screen b/c i don't have room for one.

thanks

 

[Silver-Fox]

i dont think you can actually do this because the macbook doesnt have the right input

 

[MacAnkka]

I would like to be able to connect my ps2 or xbox360 (if i get one) to my mac and use the built in display to play the consoles on. i have found this

http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyetvhybridna&newlang=en#

and would like to know if anyone has it and what they think. also, is there a better way of doing this?

I don't have that particular tv-tuner, but my old PC has an old Hauppauge tv-card. Like that elgato hybrid, it has a S-video/composite video input. I use it to play my PS2 with the PCs monitor and it works quite well, but remember, s-video and composite are both only capable of carrying a 480i signal, so if you decide to get a xbox360, you won't be able to use 480p/720p/1080i-resolutions. Basically you are limited to old SDTV-quality. With PS2 this doesn't really matter that much, though, as it can't output HDTV anyways.

 

[Killyp]

Don't you get quite bad latency (delay) with those?

 

[dannewell15]

i dont think you can actually do this because the macbook doesnt have the right input

Did you even look on the link that I posted?

I don't have that particular tv-tuner, but my old PC has an old Hauppauge tv-card. Like that elgato hybrid, it has a S-video/composite video input. I use it to play my PS2 with the PCs monitor and it works quite well, but remember, s-video and composite are both only capable of carrying a 480i signal, so if you decide to get a xbox360, you won't be able to use 480p/720p/1080i-resolutions. Basically you are limited to old SDTV-quality. With PS2 this doesn't really matter that much, though, as it can't output HDTV anyways.

So regarding the xbox 360, it would be like playing it on a regular TV? But it would work? do you think i would notice the difference much? Would the macbook support all of those high resoulutions anyway? Thanks!

 

[kolax]

I'm sure if you spoke to your local retailer of the Elegato product what you want from it, they'd let you return it if you didn't get the quality you were after.

But nevertheless, the ability to watch TV on your Mac with the EyeTV software is fantastic even if you didn't get the best quality through the composite port.

 

[highres]

Nice gadget, I like the fact that it records in a lossless format that can then be stored directly on your HD and if I'm not mistaken, negates the need for a video capture card?

 

[MacAnkka]

So regarding the xbox 360, it would be like playing it on a regular TV? But it would work? do you think i would notice the difference much? Would the macbook support all of those high resoulutions anyway? Thanks!

It would look like playing it on a LCD-TV, inputting the video via S-video. Old CRTs tend to be more forgiving with 480i than LCD-TVs (CRTs can display interlaced video just as it is and the softness really helps to hide the "ugliness"), so it wont look as good as with "old tv's". You would notice the difference between 480i and 720p on your MacBook.

480i has a resolution of 640x480 and it is interlaced. 720p would be 1280x720 and progressive. MacBook's display has a resolution of 1280x800, so 720p would be the perfect resolution to use with the MacBook.

Besides better resolution, using 720p (or 480p) would also look better because there would be no deinterlacing, which can cause annoying artifacts sometimes (deinterlacing is the process of making interlaced image progressive, which is needed to display it on the MacBook screen, or on any other LCD-screen). On the PC, I use an app called Dscaler, it's great at deinterlacing, don't know if there's a mac version.

 

[dannewell15]

It would look like playing it on a LCD-TV, inputting the video via S-video. Old CRTs tend to be more forgiving with 480i than LCD-TVs (CRTs can display interlaced video just as it is and the softness really helps to hide the "ugliness"), so it wont look as good as with "old tv's". You would notice the difference between 480i and 720p on your MacBook.

480i has a resolution of 640x480 and it is interlaced. 720p would be 1280x720 and progressive. MacBook's display has a resolution of 1280x800, so 720p would be the perfect resolution to use with the MacBook.

Besides better resolution, using 720p (or 480p) would also look better because there would be no deinterlacing, which can cause annoying artifacts sometimes (deinterlacing is the process of making interlaced image progressive, which is needed to display it on the MacBook screen, or on any other LCD-screen). On the PC, I use an app called Dscaler, it's great at deinterlacing, don't know if there's a mac version.

So do you think it is worth getting?