Widescreen Gaming Forum

So my TV is about to die and I'm too cheap to buya new one when i have a second 22" monitor that i only really use for watching downloaded shows, so I figure I should grab myself a VGA box so i can hook coxial cable and DVD players into it. Of course this monitor has no A/V inputs other than DVI and VGA..

So has one had experience using VGA boxes? I've been looking around and the reviews for every one i find are a real mixed bag...

I'd prefer one that has resolutions to match my monitors' 1680x1050 but I guess I'd settle for 1440x900. My monitor also has a built-in 4:3 option.


Any help would be great.

Could one be made from scratch? I assuem they need more than jsut wire conenctions, but soem kind of converter.... I dunno..

No NO-ONE has used a box to turn their monitor into a TV?

Well whenever I pick one I'll post some info on it.

I've not used those 50-100$ 'vga boxes' I have however 2 scalers similar in function but much pricier:

startech VGA2TV2WAY
and
gefen home theater scaler

both allow me to take a tv box component signal and output vga on the VGA2TV2WAY and hdmi on the scaler.

Now they do work,

worth the price? not really.

And they do have severe limit like not being able to specify a custom resolution which works as long as the one you want is on the list.

Those cheap vga boxes should be cut down versions which should work as long as you don't ask too much of em, they likely have poor black/white color range too.

Should be fine for gaming but not much else, but then that's what they were designed for.

Thanks for the info.

I don;t expect anything to great as far as picture goes. I have no HD coming into my house, as i download all the shows i like to watch. As long as it looks at least as good as my large-pixeled CRT television I'll be happy with it. I also won no consoles so that's not an issue. I'm jsut too cheap to buy a TV.

I found a box that supports 1680 and 1440 resolutions and has PIP, so i may go for that one.. it apperently has aweful speakers but hta's easy to get around.