as an External Screen

Hello friends.

I'm about to finally purchase myself an Xbox 360. Trouble is, not only do I not have an HDTV, my TV is a decade old piece of crap that I can't afford to replace. I've got my nice little Macbook though, and it's screen that's about equivalent (at least in pixels) to a 720p set. What might I need to set up my Macbook as an external screen for an HDMI hookup? Specifically, what might I need that's cheep?

Thanks!

I think my TV is more than a decade old and it doesn't bother me with my 360. I'd say a 13" screen would be a little small really.

Sorry, I know that doesn't answer your question.

Neuvost said:

What might I need to set up my Macbook as an external screen for an HDMI hookup? Specifically, what might I need that's cheep?

Thanks!

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Nothing... and certainly nothing 'cheap'. It's a notebook, not a monitor.
The cheapest thing to do is buy a small TV.

You can not use your laptop as an external screen for another video source. Your video parts are out only. Not in.

Oh. Whack. Thanks guys.

(That's silly.)

Neuvost said:

Oh. Whack. Thanks guys.

(That's silly.)

Click to expand...

how is it silly? its an output only setup. its not a tv

it's not ideal, but you could work up something with an elgato eye tv. wouldn't be hdmi, but conceivably it should work.

eric said:

it's not ideal, but you could work up something with an elgato eye tv. wouldn't be hdmi, but conceivably it should work.

Click to expand...

i thought about doing this a while back with a new PS3. I ended finding out that the usb eyetv creates all sorts of lag, which is no good for gaming.

i would just spend 200$ on a monitor, and call it a day. something with dvi/hdmi should be great.

They do a thing called eye tv what is a usb adaptor, what lets you connect things to it, only thing is the MacBook will have to be running.

check this video out

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6FXqSz1IGjc

Yea you could get a tv tuner and hook the xbox up through that, then go into the software and put it on channel 3 or 4 or whatever the input channel is. It in theory should work fine. Personally I would say save up for a flat panel lcd with hdmi, rgb, dvi, cable, and other inputs so you can use it for your macbook and xbox and tv, etc. Thats what I did.

kgeier82 is right. TV cards aren't going to help they'll introduce a lag that's unacceptable for gaming.

i wonder if that's changed...

i had an old dell xps d300 (that would be a PII 300mhz with maybe 512MB memory running win 98 at the time) that had a hauppage PCI tv tuner card.
i hooked my ps1 to it and was able to play granturismo through it pretty flawlessly, though the window was smallish, maybe 800x600 or 600x400, but part of that was probably due to the output of the ps1, there was really no need to have resolutions higher than standard tv definition.