Dreamcast VGA Box Question

[bloodyarts]

Welcome to TNL, Boxthor.

Is that a Dreamcast-specific VGA box? I've never seen or heard of it..

[Lhadatt]

Nope, it's a box that converts S-video and composite to VGA. It's a pretty nice item and seems to go for under $30 on ebay.

[Boxthor]

I highly suggest getting the Jam, it makes everything look nice, even on my 27" monitor

[burgundy]

With the Jam!, isn't there a quality loss? S-video is an inferior signal to VGA.

Otherwise...what can anyone say about the official Sega box? Though I would prefer a unit with multiple outputs if I can't get one with a passthru.

[Cheebs]

Huge quality loss with the Jam thing. Right off the bat you are throwing away half of your resolution by going into interlaced mode (S-video). Then you have to fake it by upscanning to get it back. That's not even saying anything about the harm s-video itself does to the picture.

[Lhadatt]

Originally posted by Chibi Nappa
Huge quality loss with the Jam thing. Right off the bat you are throwing away half of your resolution by going into interlaced mode (S-video). Then you have to fake it by upscanning to get it back. That's not even saying anything about the harm s-video itself does to the picture.

It works with everything. That's good enough for some people.

Unless you want to start selling XRGB-2s for $30.

[salt_peanuts]

THe JAM is a waste of money...I had it hooked up for about 30 seconds before I threw it back in the box and resold it....its fine if you like your picture a blurry mess....I even tried it with Necrinomicon which is pretty high res for a Saturn game and it was like I needed glasses....

[Cheebs]

If you ask me, systems from the Playstation on back just plain don't belong on VGA monitors. They were not designed to look good with scan rates that high and phosphors that small.....Plus they have to be upscanned which hurts the picture tremendously. Play them on a television for $0 extra dollars and skip out on the Jam/xrgb/whatever entirely. If you have the money, play them on a 15 kHz analoge rgb monitor. Just keep them off of VGA (or HDTV for that matter). For DC, just get a DC specific VGA box. They're cheap and since the system outputs VGA on its own, they all look the same (that means they look great ). For a Cube/PS2/Xbox VGA can be done, but now you are getting expensive/tricky again.

[Josh]

Originally posted by Lhadatt
Nope, it's a box that converts S-video and composite to VGA. It's a pretty nice item and seems to go for under $30 on ebay.

I've seen these in action... if by nice you mean "looks terrible" then I totally agree with you.

[johnk_]

Originally posted by Boxthor
I highly suggest getting the Jam, it makes everything look nice, even on my 27" monitor

not only does jam make it seem like you're watching a tape recording of a recording of a recording of someone playing a game (quality-wise), once you've had one for a little while they'll literally start blinking out on you, which is especially annoying if you've set the volume control on it..