XBox 360 on powerbook screen

0neo8

Is it possible to play XBox 360 through the screen of my laptop. Any suggestions.

Jev/N

Nope, not unless you've got a video in - majority of laptops only have VGA/DVI/HDMI out

ZENER

If you get the Elgato EyeTV Hybrid USB TV Stick or the Hauppage equivalent you'll find they have video inputs which would enable you to use the lower quality output from the X-Box or any console for that matter.

Ken

0neo8

Brilliant 130 euro and tv on the mac with it. No shops appear listed in ireland that sell it so must find out if ill be able to get the tv channels to work here. Can ye shed any light on that part? It would be worth the money if i could. Thanks for the quick response's.

monkeyfudge

Would make more sense to get an LCD monitor if you were going for that sort of price range.

0neo8

Ye fair enough thats true ,I thought of that but I am gonna get a Mac desktop pretty soon. I'll be aiming for a big screen. I've seen the ones in PC World so I'll check and see if the EyeTv works with that. And if I will be able to get the tv channels working it will be well worth it.

J-blk

Like Zener pointed out though, you'll only get the lower quality connection (composite) for the Xbox360 - that's pretty much as good as it gets. The EyeTV Hybrid is a brilliant TV tuner (I had one) but for a high definition capable console, it's just not worth IMO. The Xbox will look terrible via composite TBH... As you're using an older Mac, you may also have a lot of issues with lag, making games simply unplayable.

Though not as neat a solution, a separate monitor with HDMI or component inputs does make a lot more sense...

Talisman

0neo8 wrote: »

Brilliant 130 euro and tv on the mac with it. No shops appear listed in ireland that sell it so must find out if ill be able to get the tv channels to work here. Can ye shed any light on that part? It would be worth the money if i could. Thanks for the quick response's.

You'd pick up a Full HD monitor with HDMI connection for €200 which would better suit your needs. If you wanted a Mac afterwards and didn't want an additional screen you could get yourself a Mac mini.

0neo8

Mac Mini with a TV is a good idea when I think about it. If I don't go for new desktop will the Mac Mini be of the same quality. Any known issue's with the Mini that i should know about?

J-blk

0neo8 wrote: »

Mac Mini with a TV is a good idea when I think about it. If I don't go for new desktop will the Mac Mini be of the same quality. Any known issue's with the Mini that i should know about?

No issues and it's a brilliant little system - I had the previous generation one and gave it to my dad awhile back. Missing it so much now, I'm thinking of getting one of the current ones .

The only issue you may find is that even if you max out the CPU, you can only get up to a 2.26Ghz Core 2 Duo, which is slower than the lowest spec iMac, which starts at 2.66Ghz and goes up to 3.06Ghz. Still, maxing the CPU and RAM on the Mini (which is not worth it IMO) is still cheaper than the cheapest iMac...

It depends what you want to do with your Mac really, but I think the current Minis especially are well up to most tasks and if you want to have something for the Xbox as well, a TV/Monitor makes more sense anyway...

0neo8

Im using my mac for Logic Express mostly.I notice this laptop can overload using it. I only have 512MB RAM.It recommends at least a 1024MB(I will upgrade). Using Logic on Mac Mini would be much better than the Powerbook G4. Would that be correct? I just checked my powerbook.It is only 1.67GHz

J-blk

Any Intel Core 2 Duo would be a major performance boost on the G4, so yeah, even a 2.0Ghz Mini would be noticeably faster (and not only because of the faster clock speed - the Core 2 Duo is a much more efficient dual core processor).

I would definitely recommend you get a Mini with 2GB of RAM though (+€45 on the base spec, so not too expensive) or even 4GB if you can stretch to it (though this would cost + €135 on the base spec - you can upgrade yourself later, but it's not as easy as it is on most other Macs to DIY).

The best performance/price ratio IMO would be the base spec Mini @ €599, upgraded to 2GB RAM for a total of €644:

http://store.apple.com/ie/configure/MB463B/A?mco=ODAxMDMzMg

0neo8

Lads thanks for the great replies:D. I'm sorted