Connecting Xbox 360 to PC Peripherals
Hi everybody,
I have a small project which involves connecting an Xbox 360 to the PC peripherals I have. I have some doubts whether it will work nicely, so I have some questions for you:
1) Connecting the video
I have a Dell 1905FP LCD monitor, which has 1 DVI and 1 analog ports on it. The thing is, this monitor does not have a source switch button, and as far as I see that means I'll have to plug/unplug the VGA cable between the PC and the Xbox all the time... And I have no clue what happens if I connect both sources (one from DVI, and the other from VGA input) to the LCD monitor at the same time...
At this point, I remembered there are KVM switches around, which lets you connect one keyboard, one mouse and one monitor to control 2 PCs at the same time. Have you ever used something like that ? Do you think it will work in this case ? And my final question is, is there a degradation in image quality while the signals are passing through this switch ?
An example of this KVM switches I'm talking about can be seen here:
http://www.aten-usa.com/?product&cat=626&Item=VS291
2) Connecting the audio
I have a Creative T5400 5.1 speaker setup, which is not top notch, but good enough for me. This speaker setup has an mini jack aux input, which lets you connect your external device such as an ipod. If I use this input, I'll probably end up with 2 channel stereo sound. (I'm not even sure that I can upmix the sound to 5 satellites, to get a pseudo surround sound). In this case I thought about using a digital decoder which has a couple of digital and analog inputs in it. The plan is connecting the analogue speakers to this guy, and using a digital cable for the Xbox to get digital surround sound. As far as I know, Creative DDTS-100 decoder can do the trick. However it seems it's not produced anymore, or for some other reason it's very hard to get a used one (almost nothing on e-bay for example). I'm looking for one, and I have another post in the SM Deal Depot section:
http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?p=457794
Do you know a replacement (another brand) for this device, which works in the same manner, and fairly priced ?
Well, I guess these are all I wanted to learn about. Any ideas are welcome, and thanks in advance !
M
FAQ
Q: Why don't you connect your xbox to your tv ?
A: I don't watch tv a lot, and the one I have is a RCA left from the ancient times, bought from Goodwill for 20 bucks. Also my LCD monitor provides superior display compared to my antique SDTV.
Q: Why don't you switch to a 1080p HD television, accompanied with a BOSE home theather system ?
A: A grad student doesn't make a lot in a year, so I even don't dare dreaming about these stuff
I have a small project which involves connecting an Xbox 360 to the PC peripherals I have. I have some doubts whether it will work nicely, so I have some questions for you:
1) Connecting the video
I have a Dell 1905FP LCD monitor, which has 1 DVI and 1 analog ports on it. The thing is, this monitor does not have a source switch button, and as far as I see that means I'll have to plug/unplug the VGA cable between the PC and the Xbox all the time... And I have no clue what happens if I connect both sources (one from DVI, and the other from VGA input) to the LCD monitor at the same time...
At this point, I remembered there are KVM switches around, which lets you connect one keyboard, one mouse and one monitor to control 2 PCs at the same time. Have you ever used something like that ? Do you think it will work in this case ? And my final question is, is there a degradation in image quality while the signals are passing through this switch ?
An example of this KVM switches I'm talking about can be seen here:
http://www.aten-usa.com/?product&cat=626&Item=VS291
2) Connecting the audio
I have a Creative T5400 5.1 speaker setup, which is not top notch, but good enough for me. This speaker setup has an mini jack aux input, which lets you connect your external device such as an ipod. If I use this input, I'll probably end up with 2 channel stereo sound. (I'm not even sure that I can upmix the sound to 5 satellites, to get a pseudo surround sound). In this case I thought about using a digital decoder which has a couple of digital and analog inputs in it. The plan is connecting the analogue speakers to this guy, and using a digital cable for the Xbox to get digital surround sound. As far as I know, Creative DDTS-100 decoder can do the trick. However it seems it's not produced anymore, or for some other reason it's very hard to get a used one (almost nothing on e-bay for example). I'm looking for one, and I have another post in the SM Deal Depot section:
http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?p=457794
Do you know a replacement (another brand) for this device, which works in the same manner, and fairly priced ?
Well, I guess these are all I wanted to learn about. Any ideas are welcome, and thanks in advance !
M
FAQ
Q: Why don't you connect your xbox to your tv ?
A: I don't watch tv a lot, and the one I have is a RCA left from the ancient times, bought from Goodwill for 20 bucks. Also my LCD monitor provides superior display compared to my antique SDTV.
Q: Why don't you switch to a 1080p HD television, accompanied with a BOSE home theather system ?
A: A grad student doesn't make a lot in a year, so I even don't dare dreaming about these stuff
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