Adaptec GamebridgeTV AVC-1410

(Battery is included in photo only for size reference)
Adaptec Gamebridge


MPEG2 Gamebridge Recording at the highest quality setting of me playing Half Life 2 on XBOX (please note this is of course only to give you an idea of the quality of the recording since youtube re-encodes everything)

- Lets you hook up any composite or svideo device to a pc and record. My main goal was to hook up a game console and utilize the screen on a laptop to play games on it.
- About $100. Microcenter also carries it.
- It's about the smallest TV Tuner I've seen.
- You can get away without meeting the cpu system requirements is if all you want to do is use your laptop like a game console monitor and not record. One thing you do have to meet is the video card requirements (dx9). I first tried to install it on an ancient Dell Inspiron 5000e - p3-750 with an ATI Rage Mobility 128 M3 (16mb) which hasn't had new video drivers in years. It installed fine but wouldn't work. I then installed it on my more modern laptop Dell Inspiron 8600c - pentium M 1.6ghz, ATI Radeon 9600 Pro Turbo 128mb (m10) and it worked just fine.
- Uses a custom version of Intervideo Home Theater software which worked just fine.
- No perceptible lag that I could detect. I played some XBOX Half Life 2 and Dance Dance Revolution.
- Video quality was about as good to be expected. No noticeable interlacing artifacts.
- Mpeg2 recording is pretty good and didn't impact gameplay. The original uncut mpeg2 was 108mb 2:17. Zoomplayer reports it as 720X540.
- usb powered. Comes with all the cables and a remote.
- I didn't get a chance to try the TV tuner.

Overall a bit overpriced but does what it says it does and quite well at that. Just make sure you meet those video card requirements.