Pete McCrea Posted February 15, 2005 Share Posted February 15, 2005 I have a need for a small, cheap, easy to use, good output for the money scaler. It needs to take a Composite and/or S-Video source up to VGA type resolutions for use in a projector. In the region of £50-£100. The obvious, and more expensive route is out, this is cheap time unfortunately. I've googled and ebayed with nothing of real use, and was wondering if any of you lovely people have any favourite products that you could recommend. Thanks in advance, Little DJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tlc Posted February 15, 2005 Share Posted February 15, 2005 I have a need for a small, cheap, easy to use, good output for the money scaler. It needs to take a Composite and/or S-Video source up to VGA type resolutions for use in a projector. In the region of £50-£100. The obvious, and more expensive route is out, this is cheap time unfortunately. I've googled and ebayed with nothing of real use, and was wondering if any of you lovely people have any favourite products that you could recommend. Thanks in advance, Little DJ<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Are you sure you need to .Many projectors these days accept composite and s-video inputs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete McCrea Posted February 15, 2005 Author Share Posted February 15, 2005 The client I'm specing this for wants to use the data input so they don't have to do any source switching and enable a preview monitor on the stage. It originally started with the option of using a scaler/switcher, but cost has ruled that out. Now considering a scaled up (VGA) composite output into a VGA switch to the DA and thence onto the Projector and monitors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimbo_hippo Posted February 16, 2005 Share Posted February 16, 2005 Bizarrely, one of our dealers was raving about one he's stocking a couple of days ago. Can't remember the make but I've emailed him. I'll let you know. I showed a special interest coz my other half has a prompting company and uses some truly awful Vine ones. It seems there's a heap of cheap ones which are flaky in plastic cases then you have to jumo up to expensive pro kit like Extron or similar. They are more rhobust but are several hundred quid uo to several grand. The quality is always an issue with the cheap ones but you pays yer money.... etc. A cheap workaround is to use a DV camcorder which can take an analogue input then output firewire to a PC. Use an app that lets you run full screen on the PC and you've got VGA. Be aware though that firewire introduces a few frames of delay so live camera is a no-no. Also, there are some decent capture cards which will let you do similar approach to the firewire approach without the need for the camera. An example is the 'Winfast VC100 Image/video PCI Capture device'. Its cheap as chips on somewhere like www.ebuyer.co.uk We're talking £25.00 or less. Just goes in a PCI slot. (BTW if you get one don't use their drivers, ask and I'll give you a better third party one that is rock solid) However, all the above are fiddly compared with a one-box convertor but you did say cheap! And it all assumes that you have a PC in the first place. I'll post when I get the reply form our dealer. Can you tell us a little more about what you need to do? Sources etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
True Colours Posted February 16, 2005 Share Posted February 16, 2005 As jimbo says quality is always an issue with the cheapies but I have found a solution that works well and I have put it against some of our Pro Scalers from Analog Way and it does a ok enough job for the money, it's called a box 5 and goes out at about £115 + vat It's main roll is as a TV tuner for plasma screens and the like but aswell as excepting an RF input it also has composite and S-video and PC input, the output is VGA, SVGA or XGA. It is a scaler and not a line doubler, control is via the IR supplied or by using the front panel. Dimensions are roughly the size of a hard back book, ( will be able to give you actuals and pdf when back at work) Let me know if you are interested iain@true-colours.net CheersIain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete McCrea Posted February 16, 2005 Author Share Posted February 16, 2005 The client had three quotes, the top one based around the Extron DVS406A, which would have taken the output form the words PC, scaled the VHS and DVD player upto VGA, then outputed to the projector and onstage relay monitors. The other option was then a switch for the composite sources and source selecting on the projector, but no relay on stage for the composite sources. They're now looking at doing the data option on the lower cost side of things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
True Colours Posted February 17, 2005 Share Posted February 17, 2005 What about any other multi input scalers at lower costs than the Extron, Analog Way Octo Quattro or Kramer VP24, sounds like you only have 3 sources. If everything is scaled then you don't need to switch the displays although you will need a DA for local monitor support, unless the switcher has it inbuilt. Unfortunately without trying to over complicate things it sounds like a scaled switcher would be the perfect choice and the cleanest way but unfortunately I think your client is going to need to put a couple of grand aside. The other option is to scan convert but gets messy and you picture quality will suffer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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