Adaptec Gamebridge 1400 (play console games on your PC!) - Now $10 at Fry's - review!

hmm somehow I can't get the audio to work in media player classic. I chose the audio device for the gambridge for capturing.

I plugged my system back into the video input on my tv input card (I couldn't get it to work properly before), and for some reason or another it decided to work right this time. Even though I got video and audio to display though, I still can't capture the video. Virtualdub captures audio, but not video. Media Player Classic through Gambridge completely failed to capture anything...
 
The 1410 does not seem to be offered online anymore. The 1400 however is now at $4.90.

By the way, it does say that the 1400 is incompatible with Windows Vista...does anyone know if this is true for the 1410 also?
 
dunno...my vista automatically detected and installed the gamebridge drivers for it from windows update but I couldn't get audio to work. Seems though that other people have been getting audio problems too.
 
Could be the realtek audio stuff built into my mobo (ECS kn1 sli). When I installed vista it said that there were no drivers found, so I downloaded Vista drivers from the realtek site, but even those had some problem installing i forgot what it was, but I just know that installation for my audio did not go smoothly.

Aside from the gamebridge though, sound's been working pretty much without a hitch
 
I never did get mine to work satisfactorily. The picture is GREAT, to say the least, despite not being component video. However, it never looked very smooth. For instance, when bringing up the menu in Tales of the Abyss, it would randomly switch from blur-fest in motion to looking quite good. The same happened in other players, as well. And Dscaler made the image jump all over the place, at the same time as the blur-fest movement. I think it's something to do with the temporal ordering of the fields...

...which I found the setting for in Winamp TV. However, while passable, it's still a little choppy, and SNES stuff doesn't look NEARLY smooth enough for my tastes. And don't even TRY to hook up a Genesis, it doesn't like the signal much at all.

In any case, it's collecting dust right now. Maybe when I've got an even faster computer, it'll work. But I couldn't even get it to function correctly with a clean Windows install. And this is with a dedicated USB 2.0 card and an Athlon XP 2200+. Bleah.

Although it's not as clear, the Game Elements VGA Box that was available at Surplus Computers is pretty decent, although the colors are a little too washed out on my monitor. And you don't get the nifty recording.
 
[quote name='SargeSmash']I never did get mine to work satisfactorily. The picture is GREAT, to say the least, despite not being component video. However, it never looked very smooth. For instance, when bringing up the menu in Tales of the Abyss, it would randomly switch from blur-fest in motion to looking quite good. The same happened in other players, as well. And Dscaler made the image jump all over the place, at the same time as the blur-fest movement. I think it's something to do with the temporal ordering of the fields...

...which I found the setting for in Winamp TV. However, while passable, it's still a little choppy, and SNES stuff doesn't look NEARLY smooth enough for my tastes. And don't even TRY to hook up a Genesis, it doesn't like the signal much at all.

In any case, it's collecting dust right now. Maybe when I've got an even faster computer, it'll work. But I couldn't even get it to function correctly with a clean Windows install. And this is with a dedicated USB 2.0 card and an Athlon XP 2200+. Bleah.

Although it's not as clear, the Game Elements VGA Box that was available at Surplus Computers is pretty decent, although the colors are a little too washed out on my monitor. And you don't get the nifty recording.[/QUOTE]

I wonder if the chipset can make a difference? I'm just using it mostly on a lowly Pentium 4 2.4GHz/533Mhz, but it works fine. i845 chipset.
 
That's the only thing keeping me from ordering. I'm not sure how well it would run on my computer, but for like 6 or 7 bucks I wouldn't care if it was a bust. But with that high shipping I'm not sure.
 
[quote name='FFBlitzace']That's the only thing keeping me from ordering. I'm not sure how well it would run on my computer, but for like 6 or 7 bucks I wouldn't care if it was a bust. But with that high shipping I'm not sure.[/QUOTE]

7 dollars = okay bust
10 dollars = not okay bust?

C'mon.. you can find some loose change to take advantage of it :)
 
Anybody know where i can download the cd that came with this? I cant seem to find mine & i want to install this to my other computer...thanks
 
If I can find it (doubtful and unlikely), I'll rip it and upload it somewhere for you. Don't expect this to happen though unless I'm really bored and I can actually find it.
 
I broke down and ordered one. Came in yesterday and works fine except for one thing. When I go to view my recorded content, it's just a black screen. Audio works, but just a black screen.

Not a big deal for me if I can't get it fixed though. I'm only in it for the gameplay.
 
Now that the price is down to $2.90 for the 1400, I was going to break down and buy one. That is, until I saw the $19.59 shipping cost to Alaska. Blasted "Airborne Ground Delivery Service".

Sometimes, its hard to be a CAG up here...
 
[quote name='rcaido']Anybody know where i can download the cd that came with this? I cant seem to find mine & i want to install this to my other computer...thanks[/QUOTE]
Check back through this thread. I'm almost positive someone posted a link to the ISO a while back.
 
[quote name='homieg']Now that the price is down to $2.90 for the 1400, I was going to break down and buy one. That is, until I saw the $19.59 shipping cost to Alaska. Blasted "Airborne Ground Delivery Service".

Sometimes, its hard to be a CAG up here...[/quote]

You're not missing out. I bought the 1400 and its...meh, ok. Video quality isn't the greatest and thats on my laptops LCD. Thinking about selling it on eBay :p
 
tried it out w/resident evil 4 on gamecube w/the s-video input.

the picture is a little washed out looking and there is definitely some motion blur. however overall it looks good enough to play, but definitely a step down in quality from a normal tv.

if you don't have a tv then i think this is a good option, but otherwise...

whatever it was only $8.93 shipped :)
 
[quote name='RonnieWrecked']for some reason my cd/dvd rom drive can't read the installation CD.

i checked the product's company website for drivers/install file and came up empty.

can someone point me to a link where i can d/l the nessessary files to run this thing? or can someone upload the files. someone at Woot.com was kind enough to upload the ISO for me.

thanks[/QUOTE]
I'm in sorta the same boat., I lost the cd/dvd; Can someone plz upload the CD, or know where I can find it... my google skillz are weak...

thanks in advance.
 
Anyone interested in this kind of stuff should consider the KWorld TVBox 1440. Very nice for the price, and it even takes component inputs, and handles progressive scan up to 1080i.

They sell them on Newegg for 55 dollars or so, but I managed to get to it when the 36 dollar rebate offer was going. The device works QUITE well. Way better than the 15 dollar Game Elements box I've got, and much, much better than the GameBridge. I've had nothing but trouble with that...

I'm sure my issues are with my PC, though, which is why a dedicated VGA box seems to be a much more prudent route. You would THINK that an Athlon XP 2200+ with a Geforce 6800 Ultra and a fresh install of XP would handle this thing properly.
 
So the video quality is really good with that KWorld TVBox 1440? I'll make a note of it for future reference.

Regarding the Gamebridge, my gut instinct is it's an issue with a buggy non-Intel chipset :whistle2:/
 
I also believe that there is some sort of chipset compatibility problem with non-intel mobos.
Not even a clean install of windows on my nForce4-based desktop could get this thing to work properly, so I thought I had a defective unit.
However, just a few days ago, I tried it on my Macbook, and it worked without much hassle.
I didn't install the intervideo thing and just used Dscaler. Although the picture quality appears better than a hardware decoding TV tuner card I eventually bought for my desktop (could just be the crappy monitor I currently use for it), there was quite a bit of input lag. Setting it to only display odd or even scanlines fixes it, but of course makes everything look blurry. Considering how they stopped supporting this product a long time ago, I'd assume it's because they never wrote drivers optimized for dual core processors, since I dont believe much of the deinterlacing is done by the video card

Edit: also, is the gamebridge out of stock at outpost? I keep on getting redirected and I can't find the product on their website
 
Any idea why one day, after installing FFVIII PC, my gamebridge would stop working? It has a solid green indicator LED until I click Gamebridge in Home Theater, when it starts to blink green. I suspect a video codec from FFVIII. I tried System Restore and uninstall, but I didn't have a working restore point before the install and the uninstall did nothing. In fact, I don't remember if I installed FFVIII after or before I used it last, but I'm just throwing it out there as a potential cause. It was working fine last night, no other changes to my computer.
 
[quote name='Escargoexpress']I also believe that there is some sort of chipset compatibility problem with non-intel mobos.
Not even a clean install of windows on my nForce4-based desktop could get this thing to work properly, so I thought I had a defective unit.
However, just a few days ago, I tried it on my Macbook, and it worked without much hassle.[/quote]

I assume you're running it through Windows, right? Or did you find a way to get it working on OS X? :)

I didn't install the intervideo thing and just used Dscaler. Although the picture quality appears better than a hardware decoding TV tuner card I eventually bought for my desktop (could just be the crappy monitor I currently use for it), there was quite a bit of input lag. Setting it to only display odd or even scanlines fixes it, but of course makes everything look blurry.
Click to expand...

On my system, I prefered the included software to dscaler. Dscaler seemed way slower, and to me didn't really look any better, even after messing with trillions of settings, versus nothing to mess with on the included software.

[quote name='johnsmith89']Any idea why one day, after installing FFVIII PC, my gamebridge would stop working? It has a solid green indicator LED until I click Gamebridge in Home Theater, when it starts to blink green. I suspect a video codec from FFVIII. I tried System Restore and uninstall, but I didn't have a working restore point before the install and the uninstall did nothing. In fact, I don't remember if I installed FFVIII after or before I used it last, but I'm just throwing it out there as a potential cause. It was working fine last night, no other changes to my computer.[/QUOTE]

Have you tried uninstalling the Gamebridge software, and reinstalling it? Might fix a possible codec problem. I think there's some generic codec pack that sometimes helps with weird situations like this too.
 
[quote name='johnsmith89']Any idea why one day, after installing FFVIII PC, my gamebridge would stop working? It has a solid green indicator LED until I click Gamebridge in Home Theater, when it starts to blink green. I suspect a video codec from FFVIII. I tried System Restore and uninstall, but I didn't have a working restore point before the install and the uninstall did nothing. In fact, I don't remember if I installed FFVIII after or before I used it last, but I'm just throwing it out there as a potential cause. It was working fine last night, no other changes to my computer.[/quote]Not as familiar with VIII since... well, it's FFVIII, so that should be self-explanatory, but I know FFVII PC does install some codecs and I believe they are older versions of the same codecs the Gamebridge uses.
 
I've found the TVBox quite spiffy, for the limited amount of time I've had to play with it. It's definitely not jerky, and looks similar to some results that you might obtain with Dscaler, in that I've noticed some artifacts left from the deinterlacing.

I also noticed an issue with SNES S-video, it works but looks kind of... well, it's hard to describe. Checkered on colors? That might be close enough. Very similar to what a friend of mine's older Sony projection LCD does. The issue is not there in Composite, so that's a good thing.

PS2 looked quite spiffy, from what I can tell, and it processed 480p from Radiata Stories with no problems.

Castlevania: SotN looked a bit jittery, not sure if that's specific to its video mode or not, as some other games like Alundra looked fine to me.

You can probably expect a LITTLE distortion from resolution, although it's really not noticeable at the higher resolutions. There's also a 16xx model, which I don't necessarily know the differences of, other than it being labeled HD and supporting 1650x1050 (or whatever that common LCD resolution is). For me, it's definitely better than anything I've picked up so far, and it may not be Dreamcast VGA Box quality, but I figured I couldn't go wrong for the price.
 
I'm using Virtualdub to capture video, it works great

I tried Dscaler and it sucks, it dropes frames and the audio & video keeps going out of sync

Gamebridge's Intervideo software is ok but its too dumbed down for me, it doesn't give you much options on your video
 
I'm trying virtualdub and dscaler and I can't seem to get a good recording from either yet. virtualdub seems to be less lag during preview, but the resultant video file the audio is out of sync and the framerate is all over the place.

With dscaler, when I stop recording the program hangs and the video and audio just goes crazy.
 
[quote name='o_O']It works fine for me using CCCP's Media Player Classic[/quote]

How are you guys getting audio to work in Media Player Classic. The video is definately the best of dscaler and the pack in home theatre, with no noticable video lag, only problem is I can't get any audio.. In order for me to get a picture I must chose audio any other setting wont' show video. I can't get any audio working through MPC.. Please help?
 
Worst case you can always run the audio directly in to your computer with an adapter thingamajig like what comes with the X-Box 360's VGA cables.
 
Okay, this is lame. I haven't used my Gamebridge in a few months. Tried using it today, and it's not working (I assume just the software). The bundled software doesn't render anything, nor do dscaler or that Media Player Classic.

The only thing I can think is that it's because I reverted my MPEG codec to my old PowerDVD one using Microsoft's Video Codec Checkup Utility. I've tried using that to set it back to the included intervideo one (and tried rebooting after that), but it doesn't help.

I guess tomorrow I'll try reinstalling the original disc if I can find it. I just preferred my PowerDVD codec for video playback than the Intervideo one that comes with the Game Bridge.
 
I got this and it works perfectly, however, I have a question...

The included software works quite well but it's all interlaced and looks awful.

snapshot20070815155008.jpg


Poor Takuma's got a ghost!

Anyway, I tried DScaler and I'm not getting any audio with it, and can't figure out what's going on. Any help?

Edit:
Wait, I rebooted my machine (more like, it CRASHED when trying to use Media Player Classic with the Gamebridge) and the audio works now. Not bad, it looks a bit clearer than the included program.
 
[quote name='Wolfpup']What's your hardware? I didn't notice anything like that.[/quote]
I have a Rosewill Radeon 9600XT, 1GB RAM, Windows XP, Athlon XP 2500+ (1.8 Ghz?). But my system gives me lots of trouble and I'm supposed to get an upgrade (new computer) soon... that is if I didn't have to keep loaning money to my family.

Edited to add:
The problem appears to be related to the Gamebridge's audio capture features. If I try to capture video only it works fine in Windows Movie Maker and Movie Edit Pro 11, but if I try to add audio, it freezes my system HARD. I don't get why it's doing this. It works great, except for this. :(
 
[quote name='Kitsune Sniper']I have a Rosewill Radeon 9600XT, 1GB RAM, Windows XP, Athlon XP 2500+ (1.8 Ghz?). But my system gives me lots of trouble and I'm supposed to get an upgrade (new computer) soon... that is if I didn't have to keep loaning money to my family.

Edited to add:
The problem appears to be related to the Gamebridge's audio capture features. If I try to capture video only it works fine in Windows Movie Maker and Movie Edit Pro 11, but if I try to add audio, it freezes my system HARD. I don't get why it's doing this. It works great, except for this. :([/QUOTE]

I think it's your system, not the Gamebridge. Most likely it's a USB issue with your motherboard. What chipset do you have? Upgrading to the newest drivers for your board MIGHT help. If it's a VIA chipset though just give up ;)
 
[quote name='Wolfpup']I think it's your system, not the Gamebridge. Most likely it's a USB issue with your motherboard. What chipset do you have? Upgrading to the newest drivers for your board MIGHT help. If it's a VIA chipset though just give up ;)[/quote]

It's an NForce2 motherboard. Its drivers haven't been updated in two or three years. Programs like Virtualdub work great, but others just don't like the card that much.

Ah well, I'll just have to use the included software to capture or something.
 
Can I output a PAL console with this gamebridge? Theoretically, could I use the VGA in port on the back of my TV and plug a PAL console into that?
 
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