TV out video card/solution

[Guest]

I host a somewhat small lan party (around 20 people) at my house every month. We've want to put important games (tournaments, whatever) on a TV so that everyone could watch, and not be lurking over the player's backs.

The problem is, I want to put the TV w/ the game on it in my living room, which is upstairs and quite far (I'd guess 125 feet) from downstairs where the gaming takes place. Theres no computer in my living room, but I could temporarily setup one. What I dont really want to do is have to run so much wire around my house. I thought about doing a wireless network or something, but that's probably more money and work than it's worth.

Im sure its cheaper to get a 125 foot RJ-45 cable than a video cable. But maybe Im wrong. Where could I get one this big?

I also dont have a video card (that I can use for this) with tv-out. So, I'd like a recommendation for a cheap tv-out card.

Thanks for any help.
ratman

 

[Guest]

Check out RadioShack (or Tandy in the UK) if you want to look at some wireless options (you're looking at around $150-$300 USD). Very easy to install, it it'll work quite well, but you'll still need a card in a system with a TV-out.

As far as video cards go... you'll need one with good 3D power AND a tv-out (that rules out ATI...they suck when it comes to 3D...well now they have radeon, but you also said you were on a budget). I'd either go with a 3dfx voodoo3 3000 with tv-out (older but still o.k.), or one of those new Geforce2 MX based cards with tv-out (nice cards and not too expensive). There's also the TNT/2 based cards which will do the trick, but their 3D performance isn't as good...

Network cable is definitely the cheapest way to go though (get a 250' roll for <$50). Video cable won't go that long without some serious picture defects though (you'd have to get a repeater of sorts). An RF modulator (converts RCA to cable type connection - also available at RatShack) might do the trick (shouldn't be too bad for your needs and the total of 150' coax and the rf mod should cost less than $100)...

 

[luser]

Got a differnt solution to your problem. Buy a gadget that are able to transmit audio/video using the same technology that cordless mouses and keyboards uses. You just connect your tv-out cable to this gadget and it transmit to the receiving gadget (nice vocabulary, ey? =)), which in turn is connected to your TV with a cable. Don't know if ya able to buy them in the US, but we got them here in .se. I suppose it's some taiwanese manufactured [-peep-]. It's about $100 here in Sweden, should be like $80 in the US.

/luser