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

[quote name='BIG5']I bet it would be fun to have... for at least a couple days.[/QUOTE]


o_O, try a couple years. your taking the tv out of the video game equation, with a laptop, this makes your consoles extremely more portable, hell you could take your laptop and plug the xbox in the electric shaver outlet and play xbox in your bathroom. add $10 for the tv tuner and now you can watch and record tv shows, hey dont have enough space, get you an external hard drive and store em in there.

the potenial for a device like this is amazing.

and for $15/$25, can i get a hells yea?
 
[quote name='Jr7891']50 bucks. Comes with the 8 button Hori stick and some cases for all the Tekken Games.[/quote]

Dude.. if you have a GS/EB games nearby .. They have this for 29.99..
 
I ordered mine yesterday, and they cancelled it today due to a "discrepancy in [my] shipping and billing information." Which are both correct, and the same. I emailed them back and received an automatic response telling me they would respond in 48-72 hours and am currently on hold with their customer service department and have been for nearly an hour. I most definitely will not be ordering from outpost again.


--edit--
typo.

--edit--
Everything was resolved and they didn't charge me shipping :)
 
I went ahead and bit. I've found lately that I never play my console games bc it is just more comfortable to be at my computer desk and use the computer.

Well, hello there, Mr. Best of Both Worlds!
 
[quote name='halu102']When I called a bit after Tuesday, they said it was 19.99, most likely because the sticker says 19.99. But in my case, I actually went there on Friday and they rung it up. Again, it came up as "special order" and they checked the "real" price [which I presume was off the net] and made it 14.99 instead.

So when you call, I'm assuming they'll just read it off the sticker price over the phone. Maybe you can ask them to see if it rings up as a special order and then check the "real" price. But usually those guys are lazy bastards *no offense to Fry's*. Warning though, this most likely was a YMMV case with me, I don't want you guys to waste a trip all the way to a Fry's.[/quote]

That could be true as even when I bought it before tuesday, it was price tagged at $19.99 but rang up for sale price of $14.99. Still, I honesty would have paid $19.99 for it, as that's still a markdown.
 
[quote name='souNReAL']o_O, try a couple years. your taking the tv out of the video game equation, with a laptop, this makes your consoles extremely more portable, hell you could take your laptop and plug the xbox in the electric shaver outlet and play xbox in your bathroom. add $10 for the tv tuner and now you can watch and record tv shows, hey dont have enough space, get you an external hard drive and store em in there.

the potenial for a device like this is amazing.

and for $15/$25, can i get a hells yea?[/quote]

Hells yeah... I was thinking of the potential for this as well. Like if I'm talking about some rare game I got on CAG and they ask me what its like - well then I could take screenshots or do a small movie and show them. If I had a laptop (maybe some day...) I could play stuff in bed - that's probably the only reason I have a GBA.
 
If anyone wants to respond to my questions that would be, you know, cool I guess....

I'll try to sum them up again:

-How does the TV tuner version work with plain ol broadcast tv, if anyone knows.

-Is this worth me getting if my monitor has component, composite and s-video inputs? It's a 21inch widescreen lcd with a native res of 1680x1050 so ps2 and gamecube look really crappy even with progressive scan simply because 640x480 scaled across 1680x1050 will naturally look bad.

I know a device like this doesn't really "enhance" the picture quality of the games but my thought is since it runs through your pc rathe than directly into your monitor you have more control over the displayed resolution and some filtering etc. But it may very well be that I experience just as bad a picture with this device.

It's a great price but I'd still rather not take the chance of completely wasting my money.

Thanks.
 
Sorry, I didn't get the one with tuner - and I don't know enough about the product myself (I don't have an LCD monitor like you) to asnwer the other questions - I've seen your posts and would have answered if I knew but sorry someone else will have to answer that actually knows - or you could try looking up product reviews on Google, searching "gamebridge" and "1410".

[quote name='writimagination']If anyone wants to respond to my questions that would be, you know, cool I guess....

I'll try to sum them up again:

-How does the TV tuner version work with plain ol broadcast tv, if anyone knows.

-Is this worth me getting if my monitor has component, composite and s-video inputs? It's a 21inch widescreen lcd with a native res of 1680x1050 so ps2 and gamecube look really crappy even with progressive scan simply because 640x480 scaled across 1680x1050 will naturally look bad.

I know a device like this doesn't really "enhance" the picture quality of the games but my thought is since it runs through your pc rathe than directly into your monitor you have more control over the displayed resolution and some filtering etc. But it may very well be that I experience just as bad a picture with this device.

It's a great price but I'd still rather not take the chance of completely wasting my money.

Thanks.[/quote]
 
Well, I'm happy to say I am very pleased. Works great (the 30fps is annoying at first, but then you reailize it dosnt matter. Looks fantabulastic). I screwed around with it on the lowest settings to see how good it can be and it's great! I uploaded my two tests of my PS2 and DC onto youtube, so check them:

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbpPeDC_ypc[/media]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76wih6Pf7IA[/media]

I'm going to see how the 360 is, but I realize I dont really need to >_
 
I picked up the 1400 today at Fry's in Woodland Hills, CA. There were plenty of 1400s and 1410s, all located in the games section. The price tags read $20 and $30 respectively, and there were signs indicating the same. Once you get to the register, however, scanning the item prompts the cashier to enter a code which will then deduct another $5. So the sale price is definitely still in effect.

The product works competently enough. For $15 I didn't expect much.

I tried hooking up my GCN, N64, and SNES through S-Video, and while the picture quality certainly isn't as good on my LCD monitor as through my CRT television, I guess that's just the way these things are... Dscaler certainly helps, though not dramatically if that's what anybody was hoping. I'd say that using S-Video on a monitor is on par with using composite on a TV.

Of course, if I'm being a complete idiot about how this thing works, I'd appreciate if somebody could let me know what I've done wrong.
 
[quote name='RelentlessRolento']Well, I'm happy to say I am very pleased. Works great (the 30fps is annoying at first, but then you reailize it dosnt matter. Looks fantabulastic). I screwed around with it on the lowest settings to see how good it can be and it's great! I uploaded my two tests of my PS2 and DC onto youtube, so check them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbpPeDC_ypc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76wih6Pf7IA

I'm going to see how the 360 is, but I realize I dont really need to >_
 
[quote name='Z-Saber']What two games are those? Neither looked familiar.[/QUOTE]

Urban Reign for PS2 (very good beat-em-up... one of the few good ones)

and

Project Justice (rival schools sequal) for Dreamcast
 
I received my Game Bridge today and have to admit that it's a very impressive, tiny piece of hardware. In fact, it gave me one of those "Gee whiz, isn't technology amazing" moments today, and I really don't have those often.

I bought a somewhat similar product a few years ago called Dazzle Fusion. It's about the size of a VHS tape, USB (1.1?), and has a power brick on top of that. I bought it to encode VHS videos. It could only do very low res (320 x 280 or so), and only had sound support in record mode. You could preview the video, but without sound. Basically worthless in terms of live video. I paid about $70 for it at the time and thought it was a steal then.

Needless to say the Game Bridge is just a huge step up over that. The slight drop in framerate is noticable, but does not take away from any game's playability. Otherwise, I couldn't possibly be more impressed for $15.

I've got stacks and stacks of rare material (interviews and stuff) on VHS from my favorite bands (Radiohead, Bjork, The Cranberries, etc) from back in the 90s when people actually traded homemade copies thru the mail. Seems so anachronistic now. Anyway, I think this little gem will motivate me to encode more of that and share it with people. (Since the quality on the Fusion was lacking) Sort of OT, sorry, but thought I'd share.
 
[quote name='RelentlessRolento']Urban Reign for PS2 (very good beat-em-up... one of the few good ones)

and

Project Justice (rival schools sequal) for Dreamcast[/quote]Huh. I always thought Urban Reign sucked... probably because of the word "Urban."

And I think I have Project Justice, but I never played it.
 
[quote name='Z-Saber']
And I think I have Project Justice, but I never played it.[/QUOTE]

sacrilege!!!! you must play it now!

still screwing around with mine....realized i had dscaler scaling up to 1600x1200, so i bet that caused some lag there....too bad i'm at work now...
 
wow i'm tempted to get this... orginally when i got my laptop a month ago, i was going to get a internal tv tuner for it as well but i heard that most usb tv tuners have a delay when you play games on it.

i was all ready to get a $70 tv tuner but then i realized that i had a express card, and the only tv tuner available for the express slot is a $200 tv tuner :bomb:

the only thing thats stopping me from getting it is that i can't test it out when it arrives :whistle2:# i didn't bring my gamecube up to college because i figured that i won't have a TV anyhow.

/edit how high can you put your resolution at and still make the game playable? i'm on a 17 inch laptop, and some of the video posted are small as heck on my monitor
 
I'll ask a second time, as no one answered the first time.

ahem. Is there any way to set this up for older (pre- N64/PS1/DC) consoles? If not, does anyone here know of a similar product for older consoles?
 
[quote name='guinaevere']I'll ask a second time, as no one answered the first time.

ahem. Is there any way to set this up for older (pre- N64/PS1/DC) consoles? If not, does anyone here know of a similar product for older consoles?[/quote]

It depends on the output of the video from the consoles. The lesser device talked about here (the 1400) only has composite cables (or is it component? I always get confused... it's the red, white and yellow ones :) ) so I don't think any systems prior to N64/PS1/DC did that as an output. However, the more expensive of the devices talked about also has a coaxial-style hookup (think cable television). If the system had that as an output then you could use that device with no additional hardware.

I have something like this so I can game on an old TV with an Xbox. The Xbox does composite while the TV only has a coaxial hookup.
 
[quote name='guinaevere']I'll ask a second time, as no one answered the first time.

ahem. Is there any way to set this up for older (pre- N64/PS1/DC) consoles? If not, does anyone here know of a similar product for older consoles?[/QUOTE]

I've used it with my Dreamcast, it works fine.
 
[quote name='MC Hampster']it's the red, white and yellow ones :) ) so I don't think any systems prior to N64/PS1/DC did that as an output.[/QUOTE]
my nes (original model) had composite out (mono yellow and 1 audio)... so it's something that's been around for decades, so make sure you get rca cables if you want to use the avc1400

[quote name='MC Hampster']I have something like this so I can game on an old TV with an Xbox. The Xbox does composite while the TV only has a coaxial hookup.[/QUOTE]

wouldn't it have been cheaper to get this?
http://www.amazon.com/PELICAN-PL-93...1/ref=sr_1_4/102-9279739-7542537?ie=UTF8&s=pc

[quote name='guinaevere']I'll ask a second time, as no one answered the first time.

ahem. Is there any way to set this up for older (pre- N64/PS1/DC) consoles? If not, does anyone here know of a similar product for older consoles?[/QUOTE]
get the 1410 (one with tv tuner) then....it will work with rf and composite inputs
 
Just got mine today and I think the price was right for what you get. I can't believe how hot this thing gets though! I'm going to use it to warm my hands up once winter rolls around.

Anyone know where to get a cheap PS2 S-video cable? I checked eBay, but the shipping prices are crazy.
 
[quote name='greattastic']Is anyone else having a problem with the audio not recording when you record a tv show?[/quote]I don't have the TV tuner version, but I did have a problem with not recording audio, though I know it was because I directly plugged the audio into my soundcard and not through the Gamebridge.
 
[quote name='Z-Saber']Huh. I always thought Urban Reign sucked... probably because of the word "Urban."

And I think I have Project Justice, but I never played it.[/QUOTE]


If people refer to urban reign as sucking, they need to find me a better beat-em-up of this generation... I still don't know of any.
 
[quote name='RelentlessRolento']If people refer to urban reign as sucking, they need to find me a better beat-em-up of this generation... I still don't know of any.[/quote]Nah, it wasn't some giant internet consensus. I personally immediately dismissed the game by name only simply because it was urban something. I've seen it cheap so I might have to try it out.

And we'll see if Godhand ends up being better. Hoping it rocks because it sounds great.
 
You could more than likely hook up an RF switchbox to the COAX-in on the Gamebridge, and then tune to channel 3, just like with an old TV.

I've never tried, though.
 
Just picked this up at Frys today but it was rang up $20m still picked it up since it was the last one they had in stock. Might take it back, since I think I would of rather had gotten another ds game like Megaman or something.....
 
[quote name='Z-Saber']Nah, it wasn't some giant internet consensus. I personally immediately dismissed the game by name only simply because it was urban something. I've seen it cheap so I might have to try it out.

And we'll see if Godhand ends up being better. Hoping it rocks because it sounds great.[/QUOTE]


don't worry, God Hand will be great. Its MSRP is $29.99, so it's a winner already.
 
I ordered the GameBridgeTV and it arrived a couple of days ago. After installing the drivers and getting ready to rock n' roll, I was greeted by a "No Adaptec device has been detected. Setup will end..." message. After multiple tries, the software just didn't want to detect my card. I downloaded Dscaler, which reads the tuner just fine, but I am having terrible sync problems where the video falls out of sync after a couple of minutes of play and I constantly have to "reset card". I also didn't have audio, but I reckon that's because I'm not using the first-party software.

The quality is decent. Certainly not mind-blowing, but you can't complain with the price.

Anyone with any solutions?
 
Yeah I got mine and it works ok with Dscaler but I can't get the Software that came with it to work. I'll open it and it'll show up for a second then close down. Is there any options you have to change before it works? Thanks
 
Need help! I cannot even start Dscaler, as the error says 88760168, meaning that my overlay is allocated somewhere else...

I looked everywhere (Task Manager, msconfig, task menu) to look for any video programs, but I am not running any...So what is the problem?
 
Holy crap shipping is $40 to Canada. Screw it >_>; For Canadians, NCIX has the 1410 for $40 CDN plus shipping ($10) or free if you pick it up in store. 1400 is $25.
 
I just picked up the 1400 today, before I open it does anyone know if the 1410 can record TV shows? If so I might return the 1400 one to get that since my TIVO can only record one show at a time.
 
From the posts here, I assume it can record TV shows. Read the "product specification" thing for the 1410 on the first post.

Anyway, I just ordered this from NCIX for around $55 Canadian (~$50 US). You guys are lucky with your great deals. I figure this might come in use for when I blog or maybe over the course of the next four years in school (I'm in a program that might benefit from this).

Well, that's what I'm saying to justify the purchase anyway. I just want it since, like a poster before me said, I've found myself not willing to go upstairs to play games because I'm too lazy. It's kind of like inertia. "An object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an external force" ;)
 
[quote name='Firestorm']
Well, that's what I'm saying to justify the purchase anyway. I just want it since, like a poster before me said, I've found myself not willing to go upstairs to play games because I'm too lazy. It's kind of like inertia. "An object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an external force" ;)[/QUOTE]


That could almost be taken as peer pressure as well. So if you haev some mental breakdown, just blame it on CAG I guess ;)
 
I got the non-tuner version two days ago. I haven’t had a chance to use it with s-video yet, and I’ve only used it with Final Fantasy II on the Playstation 2, which probably isn’t the greatest test for multiple reasons (older game, lag wouldn’t be as obvious), but here’s my thoughts so far:

When I first installed it and started up the included software, I’d get a blue screen of death every time. Turns out it doesn’t like my old USB HP CD-RW drive. Unplugging that makes it work.

The included software is super easy to use. No settings to mess with besides selecting “composite” or “s-video” as the input source.

There SEEMS to be little or no lag (audio or video), but as mentioned it’s hard to tell with the only game I’ve tried so far. It seems like the video jumps slightly when I’m running in castles. The video quality in general is… “eh”. Again, not a great game to test this on, but I know it looks worse than the same game running on the Gameboy Advance would (although also it’s not really fair unless I backed up so I’m further away from the screen).

I’ve tried d-scaler, but I have no idea what all the settings do, and nothing I tried improved the image any, some settings just introduced a ton of lag without fixing anything. So I went back to the included software.

I don’t know…so far I’d recommend it for the price. I’ll post back once I’ve used it with s-video and more games.

Regarding CPU power, in windowed mode, it seems to take less than 20% power on my Pentium 4 2.4Ghz/533Mhz which has 512MB (around 11% normally?). I moved it over to another system with a Pentium D 2.8GHz/800MHz with 1GB, and it seemed like it stuttered slightly less when running in castles? Hard to say-but at any rate, CPU power won’t be an issue for most people. The second computer is connected through VGA rather than DVI, and I almost think VGA gives a slightly nicer image, just because it hides the flaws slightly better than DVI.
 
[quote name='guinaevere']I'll ask a second time, as no one answered the first time.

ahem. Is there any way to set this up for older (pre- N64/PS1/DC) consoles? If not, does anyone here know of a similar product for older consoles?[/QUOTE]

I think this was basically answered, but AFAIK all consoles since the NES support at least composite, so they'd work fine with this.

Regarding the question about resolution-the included software can go full screen, so the resolution dosen't really matter. I think it can resize a windowed screen too, although I didn't really try that.
 
Ordered one, 15$ is cheap enough to let my curiosity to get the best of me.


Second question: If the device isnt very good at recording has nayone tried using Fraps and see how it runs?
 
To anyone that has one already:

I need some help. When I go to install the drivers, everything goes fine until the hardware wizzard pops up. I tell the wizzard to automatically install the drivers, but it says it can't find them. I then try ot manually point it to the drivers on the CD, and that doesn't work either.

Adaptec technical support won't help without me paying, and the drivers aren't anywhere to download online.

Can anyone help?
 
I ended up buying the tv tuner version at fry's for ~30 bucks. I was hoping it would be 25 like some had said but I didn't feel like arguing my case with the cashier over 5 bucks sicne there were no signs indicating that the tuner version was 24.99. I've tested a PS2 with composite so far. I lent my ps2 a while back to a friend and he has my s-video cable so I need to get tnat back, as I have a feeling it will look a good bit better with that. I can say that it does already look better than running it straight into my monitor. But not good enough to make me ditch my tube tv in my room just yet. I'm hoping the s-video and a little tweaking will do that. The tv tuner aspect is ok. My only source is antenna. I'll probably go buy a decent indoor antenna because it seems my basic rca rabbit ears from my tube tv don't quite cut it for vhf especially. I get some UHF channels in pretty clearly. So hopefully a better antenna will help replace my need for my tube tv in my room to watch tv every once in a while. I'll have more to say as I experiment more with differeny configurations. I have a 17 inch crt monitor lying around around not being used so I may mess with that a bit as my video card supports dual monitors. Since I have a new widescreen lcd running on DVI it's going to expose all the flaws of the ps2 and gamecube games that I have, so I have a feeling they will look better running on a CRT via VGA. I'll definitely return with more info on my progress.

Dscaler is an interesting program, but I can't get it to work with ps2 or any other game console for that matter. Since I have the tv tuner version it automatically seeks out hte tv signal. I don't know how to get it to read the signal from the input of my ps2 or gamecube. If anyone has any input on that, it would be appreciated.

And for the person having trouble installing drivers, I found the process a bit screwy as well. I didn't have your particular problem but I finally fully read the message that pops up when installing the driver. You have to let windows run the install wizard twice for it to work properly, at least for the tv tuner version. I had to run it a few times to get it finally work. I'm not sure why it wouldn't find the drivers on your cd though.
 
Did anyone else have the problem of the software not even oppening. Everytime I try and open the Home Theater program it just opens and closes. I have uninstalled and reinstalled twice and the same problem keeps occurring. Also, if I try any other program to capture video from it like Windows Movie Maker or DScaler, all I get is static and then the gamebridge shuts off. Can anyone help me?
 
[quote name='tenzor']I just picked up the 1400 today, before I open it does anyone know if the 1410 can record TV shows? If so I might return the 1400 one to get that since my TIVO can only record one show at a time.[/quote]

Yes, using Titan.
 
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