RE: Display adapter for my XBOX...

["Paul Gordon" <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'll double check later tonight when I get back to the room, but I think I
=
tried most obvious combinations I could think of..
=20
Being a "Hotel TV" it does have quite a few "oddities"
over and above what =
we might consider a normal TV...
=20
Paul G.
=20

________________________________

From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx on behalf of Simon Coates
Sent: Wed 09/11/2005 20:00
To: UKHA_D Group
Subject: Re: [ukha_d] Display adapter for my XBOX...



Can you select AV by presing '0' ???

Simon

----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Gordon <paul@xxxxxxx>
To: UKHA_D Group <ukha_d@xxxxxxx>
Sent: 09 November 2005 19:39
Subject: [ukha_d] Display adapter for my XBOX...


Hey chaps,

I'm working away from home a lot at the moment, so I'm spending most of my
life in a hotel for the next few months..

To help keep myself sane, I thought I'd set myself up an XBOX in my room,
both to play some games, watch some DVD's, and just to "tinker"
with, - wit=
h
XBMC and so on... (I have even packed my soldering iron which is now
ensonced in the drawer in my hotel room!)

Unfortunately however, although the TV in the room has an unused SCART
socket in the back, I don't appear to be making much headway with using
it... :-(

I've connected up the XBOX using the normal AV cable (i.e. composite video
only). - I have an advanced (RGB) cable at home, but I can't get that until
next week. (I assumed the hotel TV would be mere composite anyway), but I'm
not getting the TV switching to the AV input. - Obviously there are a
coupl=
e
of possibilities...

a) - The TV's SCART socket does not have auto-switching enabled, and so is
not switching to the SCART input upon the appearence of the external
signal...

b) The SCART socket is not configured to accept a composite input, and thus
is not "seeing" a signal being input from the XBOX...

One other slight problemmette is that the remote for the set has no button
for selecting the AV input - I'm guessing the set has the IR command
available in its command set, but the remote just doesn't have the button
present... - but unfortunately it means I have no way to force the input
selection...

So thinking on my feet, I wondered if I could use my laptop display
instead... - I would need a way of getting the AV signal into it... - and
i=
t
would need to be external, (USB or PC-Card). - USB would be more useful,
since I could potentially use it on desktops as well... - Then I thought to
myself, - I was already planning on getting the smallest possible USB
freeview adapter to carry around with my laptop (was planning on that tiny
little dongle one...). - the smart thing would be to immolate multiple
avines with the unitary projectile and get a box that did both...

A comprehensive scour of the local branches of PC World and Curry's turned
up:
USB Analog TV adapters that have an auxilliary AV input
PCI TV analog adapters that have an auxilliary AV input
PCI Freeview adapters that have an auxilliary AV input
USB Freeview adapters that *don't* have an auxilliary AV input
numerous USB video capture devices with plenty of auxilliary AV inputs, but
no TV reception...

... But not a SINGLE USB based, Freeview TV receiver, *with* an auxilliary
AV input...

Does anyone know of one?.... - I'd like it to be as small as possible, as
I'm planning on keeping it in my laptop bag and carting it around with me
full-time...

Other thoughts that occurred to me were to try to get the IR codes for the
set, and use a pronto to force select the right input, - but I can't get my
spare pronto until next week either... I also considered just buying an
additional LCD set. - I might still try the Pronto option, but I'm loath to
buy another LCD TV set for several reasons...
- I already have several perfectly good spare LCD PC monitors at home, and
=
I
have no need of another LCD screen beyond this limited use.
- I've just spent =A3850 on a new HiDef 32" LCD (Toshiba 32WL56) last
week,=
so
SWMBO would *kill* me...

My last thought was just to get one of those adapters that contain a TV
Tuner and have a VGA out, enabling a standard PC monitor to be used as a
TV=
,
with no PC required... - this is also acceptable, provided I could get a
freeview version, - although it has to be said, that would still require me
to hump yet another bit of kit into the room, - and thus means I can't do
i=
t
before next week...

Thoughts?

Paul G.




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]