Dreambox 500s or c to Laptop Monitor or LCD monitor

Hi,

I have two questions.

1. Can anyone tell me if there is a hardware (cable) solution to hook the Dreambox to the laptop and use the laptop plasma screen as the TV monitor?. I have used BitControl and ethernet connection which works quite well. Is there another way?

The laptop does has
IEEE 1394 firewire
PCMCI slot
USB
S-Video TV-out connecter

2. Connect the Dreambox to Dell Widescreen LCD PC monitor that has a D-DVI port and the standard VGA port.

Many thanks,

Madasafish2

You could do it with a video capture card

It's an idea,

I thought there may be straight foward cable route - as an example "scart to DVI" cable if there is such a thing or take advantage of the Phono connectors on the back of the Dreambox.

Like I said earlier, the laptop or any PC for that matter does work well with BitControl and the ethernet connection. I still have'nt found a solution for the Dell PC monitor. Would save me a bunch of money if I could hook the Dreambox straight to a wide screen LCD PC monitor via the VGA or D-DVI connection.

Afterthought, The PC monitor does not have any speakers - How would you get the sound? Can you hook in a normal pair of PC speakers to the Dreambox?

Thanks for the Video capture card idea.

Madasafish2

madasafish2 said:

It's an idea,

Afterthought, The PC monitor does not have any speakers - How would you get the sound? Can you hook in a normal pair of PC speakers to the Dreambox?

Madasafish2

Click to expand...

Do you have Stereo nearby, you could use the phono connections on the dreambox?

madasafish2 said:

It's an idea,

I thought there may be straight foward cable route - as an example "scart to DVI" cable if there is such a thing or take advantage of the Phono connectors on the back of the Dreambox.

Like I said earlier, the laptop or any PC for that matter does work well with BitControl and the ethernet connection. I still have'nt found a solution for the Dell PC monitor. Would save me a bunch of money if I could hook the Dreambox straight to a wide screen LCD PC monitor via the VGA or D-DVI connection.

Afterthought, The PC monitor does not have any speakers - How would you get the sound? Can you hook in a normal pair of PC speakers to the Dreambox?

Thanks for the Video capture card idea.

Madasafish2

Click to expand...

scart to vga lead and then use the 2 audio rca connectors into an amp.

Thank-you for your answer.

I had a look at the Scart to VGA cables. They are certainly not cheap at around £60 from Maplins and come with a disclaimer that it will not work on PC LCD monitors. Somthing to do with the SCAN rate. A further google did come up with a similiar cable that has the "SCAN rate" electronic support for LCD monitors. Again, not cheap.

I did find this hxxp://www.tvcables.co.uk/cgi-bin/tvcables/5m-component-dvi.html which is component to DVI and only £20.00 plus this hxxp://www.tvcables.co.uk/cgi-bin/tvcables/YUV-RGB-SCART.html which is only £6.00.

The only question here is... it also states
"This cable allows a component video signal to be connected to a compatible DVI-I input."

Dreambox (SCART) to Dell E207WFP widecreen LCD monitor (D-DVI) - will it work? Does anyone know what it means by compatible DVI-I input? Is this the same campatiblity problem as the SCART to VGA?

I look forward to your reply,
Madasafish2

I phoned the website up and checked with them. DVI-I and DVI-D are physically different and will not work.
Ah well.....never mind.

Thank you to all that responded to this thread.

Madasadish2