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Author Topic: Vga Box Issues.  (Read 234 times)

maxgeek

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Vga Box Issues.
« on: June 11, 2003, 08:51:00 PM »

Hmm thats odd. My LCD monitor can display the EVOX dash without a problem I think you should be able to aswell. The XBOX original dash doesn't show though. The Progressive patch for the MS dash only works on older versions. Make sure you play a game that supports 480p. Set 480p in dash board. Make sure widescreen is off. If normal doesn't work try letterbox. The xBlaster is suppose to support PAL. Um i don't really know what to tell you, make sure the power plug is in it comes loose easily.
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obitus

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Vga Box Issues.
« Reply #1 on: June 11, 2003, 09:28:00 PM »

QUOTE (maxgeek @ Jun 12 2003, 05:51 AM)
Hmm thats odd. My LCD monitor can display the EVOX dash without a problem I think you should be able to aswell. The XBOX original dash doesn't show though. The Progressive patch for the MS dash only works on older versions. Make sure you play a game that supports 480p. Set 480p in dash board. Make sure widescreen is off. If normal doesn't work try letterbox. The xBlaster is suppose to support PAL. Um i don't really know what to tell you, make sure the power plug is in it comes loose easily.


Ok, I've got some more info that might help you determine what is going on. I keep getting "no signal" now so I decided to hit the AUTO CALIBRATION button on my PC monitor to see what that would do. Once it auto calibrates you get a bunch of coloured lines moving up and down the screen really quickly and you can tell that it is trying to output the xbox to the monitor cause I can select something with the controller and you can see the lines on the screen change colour to represent that it is in fact outputting something.... it just can't pick up the signal properly and it can't be the monitor because I have 2 other PC monitors and it does the same shit on them too.... this is really pissing me off now, I've spent $250 Australian bucks to get the damn thing here, have had key digital technical support tell me that it will run perfectly and now it's doing just the opposite. It's kind of an expensive purchase for me to give up, so I'm hoping someone will work out whats going on and let me know how to fix that. I definately have a PAL Xbox that does have the HDTV feature in the menu, it is selected and all the cables have been plugged in correctly...
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maxgeek

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Vga Box Issues.
« Reply #2 on: June 11, 2003, 10:39:00 PM »

Okay, just something to check.

The XBOX HD AV PACK goes

Green, Red, Blue

The transcoder goes

Red, Green, Blue

So make sure cables are going to the right color
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obitus

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Vga Box Issues.
« Reply #3 on: June 11, 2003, 10:43:00 PM »

QUOTE (maxgeek @ Jun 12 2003, 07:39 AM)
Okay, just something to check.

The XBOX HD AV PACK goes

Green, Red, Blue

The transcoder goes

Red, Green, Blue

So make sure cables are going to the right color


Yeah they're all going to the right colour holes. I have no idea whats up, I've emailed key digital with a fairly annoyed email, so I guess I have to wait till they come back to me in many hours time when business opens in America on Thursday.
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Dreamcazman

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Vga Box Issues.
« Reply #4 on: June 11, 2003, 10:56:00 PM »

Just a thought, you have changed your Xbox to NTSC, haven't you?
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obitus

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Vga Box Issues.
« Reply #5 on: June 11, 2003, 11:55:00 PM »

QUOTE (Dreamcazman @ Jun 12 2003, 07:56 AM)
Just a thought, you have changed your Xbox to NTSC, haven't you?


That shouldn't be an issue, I emailed key digital before I bought it to confirm that it works with PAL systems. They said that it works 100% with PAL and that all I needed to do was to set 480p mode in the MS Dashboard and everything would be fine. I often wonder if these people even try their own products out or if they just make rough guesses on what should or should not work on other countries systems. I would hope that they actually had a PAL Xbox and tried the X-Blaster on it before making claims about PAL compatibility. I'm going to go off if they give me a half arsed response to my email. I will call them from Australia and abuse the hell out of them if they don't sort this problem out, I'm already out of pocket, it might as well be a brick or door stop at this point.
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JCDenton

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Vga Box Issues.
« Reply #6 on: June 12, 2003, 10:54:00 AM »

Make sure that you've got a 1.0 xbox if you want to use this PAL VGA-Box, since M$ dropped support for the progressive mode in 1.1 (and later) xboxes (just for PAL-devices)

You can use VideoSelector 2.0 to switch your Xbox to NTSC, this should make your Xbox compatible with the VGA-Box.
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bucko

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Vga Box Issues.
« Reply #7 on: June 12, 2003, 11:14:00 AM »

Or you could try using Pixels 8 bios  rolleyes.gif youll have to find a link. It's meant to output tru VGA signals or somthing. Hope that helps.
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maxgeek

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Vga Box Issues.
« Reply #8 on: June 12, 2003, 07:36:00 PM »

QUOTE (bucko @ Jun 12 2003, 08:14 PM)
Or you could try using Pixels 8 bios  rolleyes.gif youll have to find a link. It's meant to output tru VGA signals or somthing. Hope that helps.

VGA bios is totally different. The VGA Bios is only for a True vga cable and all it does is fix the color pallet problem with True VGA output. MS made it so when u use a true vga cable everything is green. The VGA bios corrects the color.
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obitus

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Vga Box Issues.
« Reply #9 on: June 12, 2003, 09:15:00 PM »

QUOTE (JCDenton @ Jun 12 2003, 07:54 PM)
Make sure that you've got a 1.0 xbox if you want to use this PAL VGA-Box, since M$ dropped support for the progressive mode in 1.1 (and later) xboxes (just for PAL-devices)

You can use VideoSelector 2.0 to switch your Xbox to NTSC, this should make your Xbox compatible with the VGA-Box.


I have the enigmah video mode selector application which lets you press A or B to switch between PAL and NTSC, though that doesn't seem to work. I guess I need to patch the games that are on the HDD with something to make them NTSC right? what program can I use to switch PAL titles to NTSC? I couldn't imagine just switching the video mode would work since all my games are PAL. If anyone knows this, let me know what application can patch PAL releases to NTSC.

Also, is there some software that will tell me what version of Xbox I have? I'm pretty sure I'm running an earlier version as in 1.0, though I would like to know specifically. Thanks.
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JCDenton

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Vga Box Issues.
« Reply #10 on: June 12, 2003, 11:54:00 PM »

I've had that information from http://www.digital-x.de. They also produce a vga-box, which allows progessive output of the tv-signal.

If someone is able to read german --> http://www.digital-x...a_palnachus.htm
or try to translate it, using babelfish or something.

I've also orderd a vga-box from there and I'll use VideoSelector 2.0 to switch my Xbox from PAL to NTSC
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obitus

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Vga Box Issues.
« Reply #11 on: June 13, 2003, 02:55:00 AM »


I've worked the problem out a little bit further. I found that when I use the video selector and change it from PAL to NTSC, if I boot the xbox and then turn my monitor off and on again, it will display the dashboard, as if my monitor is reinitializing  and perhaps has an issue with doing this when I turn the Xbox on initially. I tested another smaller old monitor I had laying about and it worked without needing to turn the monitor off, so that at least tells me that my monitor is doing some weird crap and wont work until I turn it off and on again to get an xbox display. The thing is though, I still can't use PAL and get it to display anything other than a completely scrambled image.... very odd.

Also, now that I have seen some games running on the key digital VGA Box, I've noted that some are awefully dark in appearance and so much so in some cases like Halo in different areas that It's almost impossible to achieve a good image without knocking the brightness way up so you can see certain things better, which ends up washing out all the colours... not happy with that. Perhaps it will work better on a different monitor and give better vibrancy. Some games looks just fine, but there are a number of games where the colours lack or areas are too dark where there are dark colours being used like blacks... GRRRRRRRR can anything just go smoothly for once? please!!!!! heh
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tech_tris

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Vga Box Issues.
« Reply #12 on: July 31, 2003, 07:33:00 AM »

Hi

I haven't got one of these transcoders to go with my monitor yet, though I have been reading up on the tech specs and requirements you need to work with them. It struck me that there's one thing no-one in this thread has suggested yet: monitor refresh rates and resolutions, especially in the case of PAL games. PAL50 games will result in a 50Hz signal coming out of whatever transcoder you use. This is a very slow refresh rate in terms of newer computer monitors, and it may be that your monitor(s) don't support that refresh rate. Add that to the fact that if the transcoder only supports 480p input and not 480i, it may not work with some games (they're not all coded for 480p, especially as MS crippled this function for later PAL machines) and it's perhaps not so surprising that  some games won't work,.
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