Decent TV-to-LCD boxes?

March 9, 2007 9:25 AM

Are those inexpensive, make-yer-LCD-a-TV boxes decent?

Along the lines of this AskMeFi question, I'm looking for a way to pipe Wii through my 19" Widescreen LCD.

I'd ruled out external TV (and s-video, and component, etc.) to LCD boxes as most ran upwards of $200 CDN and none would drive my monitor @ its native 1440 x 900. Enter the Kworld TV 1440 [see Tigerdirect for $50 after rebate, and Newegg].

As a class, are these things any good? Has anyone tried this particular model, or others by Kworld?

posted by onshi to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Mixed feelings on K-world here . . .

I have the last generation K-world box, still sold here on TigerDirect. I bought it for the same purpose, to feed TV signal into an LCD. for this purpose it worked fine. The remote can be a bit finicky - sometimes the box was 'busy' and just wouldn't recognize the signal from the remote. The on-screen-display works, but requires a PhD in linguistics to get through. In general, the translations associated with their products are god awful. Instructions, software, OSD, etc - all terrible. My box also had a USB port so that I could theoretically use it as an external USB tuner and have some sort of PVR functionality. This was utter crap and never, ever worked. Google searches reveal that I was not alone in my frustration. This glowing Amazon page reveals others had similar experiences: "This works perfectly fine when NOT used via usb. If you hook it direct to a monitor and speakers (via line out) and DO NOT hook up the USB. Video and audio is great. "

To sum up: It worked for what you're looking to use it for. I used VGA and it drove my LCD and it's native 1280x1024 as good as any SDTV upscaler would. Why mention the bad USB support? To reinforce that K-world can sometimes release completely shitty products that simply CANNOT do what they advertise. Good luck to you :).
posted by datacenter refugee at 10:35 AM on March 9, 2007

I have a K-World 1531 hooked up to a CRT and it's as good as regular tv. I didn't have much trouble with the menu translations, but maybe that's because I grew up speaking Chinglish.
posted by advicepig at 12:55 PM on March 9, 2007

I bought a similar RCA-to-VGA conversion device from Best Buy for about $100. It's made by ViewSonic, and it gets the job done.

I bought it a few years ago to play X-Box on my LCD monitor.
posted by ktheory at 7:41 PM on March 9, 2007

The dealie arrived today, and works precisely as advertised. Maybe if Wiis are every available, ever, anywhere, I might be able to hook 'er up. Thanks for your help!
posted by onshi at 8:56 PM on March 21, 2007