Swtich Boxes

[mattpfeil]

Well, ive been thinking alot lately about building my own switchbox(?..is that what they are called...you know, the things where you press the button and it switches from dreamcast to playstation and so-on)...anyways, i was thinking if it went well i could build them for other people customized...and i was wondering, would people be interested in something like that, or is there already someone that does this?

Just wondering, i love electronics and building speaker cabs for car stereo's and stuff, so this wouldnt be that far off for me.

Id like to hear your feedback on this, whether or not youd be interested, how much youd be willing to pay (i obvoiusly wouldnt overcharge a crapload, just whatever parts and labor cost, but it would still be fun) and any other idea's (led displays and other wierd trinkets)

Thanks.

[BenT]

There are two things gamers could benefit from that aren't readily available on the market:

"Japanese" RGB input switcher (looks like Euro SCART, but isn't)
USA Component input switcher with more than 3 inputs

I'd be interested in either. The important part is, though, that there should be little or no signal degradation when the switchbox is used. I'm not knowledgable about electronics, but I'm thinking this may prove to be the difficult part to achieve.

[john_soper]

The Pelican 5to1 switchboxes are $20 at Walmart, and
they switch stereo audio, composite video, and s-video.
It might be hard to beat that price. Component switchboxes
might be a good idea though.

[nesman85]

i bougth a pelican switcher and it sucked ass. my tv had wavy lines like crazy goin' through it with that thing. i got one from radio shack now that works great.

[mattpfeil]

I should explain a little bit more...
I was thinking about customizable boxes, not just general ones (walmart)...like if you wanted one you could email me what systems you have and we'd work out the specifics...id also make it look really nice and put the systems names in small name plates near the switches...really you could design your own basically and id build it for ya...color, metal or woodgrain...what kind of switches/buttons, led lights (color prefered)...stuff like that...
This is still like 6 months off before ill be able to do anything like this, assuming i can build my own flawlessly and make sure i dont try and build people stuff that aint gonna work right...
anyways, just to clarify

[nesman85]

sounds like a great idea to me. i'd really like a customized one.

[GENESISNES]

I would want one of those, but they're about fifty-sixty bucks for the ones i want at radio shack.

EDIT: sorry about this post. i accidentally clicked on submit, and still had stuff to type.

[GENESISNES]

I would want one of those, but they're about fifty-sixty bucks for the ones i want at radio shack. how many AV ports would you be thinking of putting on the switch boxes?

[BenT]

The most important question is what inputs are you talking about? If you just mean RF, A/V (composite) and S-Video, then there are already plenty of affordable solutions available commercially.

Component and RGB, on the other hand... that's more interesting.

[mattpfeil]

Well, im still not sure how many AV ports id put....youll just have to wait until i build mine, so i can figure everything out, then ill keep you posted, and i will most deffinatly look into RGB and component hookups too.
Basically id put as many ports as youd need, for a larger collector...it would prolly be the size of those old standalone stereo amplifiers (shelved, or i could do a rackmount one too, im sure someone is into the rackmount thing:P)
Anyways, thanks for the encouragment

[rbudrick]

The sucky thing about all the switchboxes out there is that they support like, 4 systems.

Where's the 40 system boxes??!!! That's what I need. I'm forced to play all my systems on a crappy RF TV with 8-way splitters linked together and with a signal amplifier at the end to avoid attenuation.

-PITA, really.

-Rob

[congobongo]

If you added in 8 old style RF inputs that worked off 1 tv/game switch as well as about 15 composite/svideo inputs and could keep it under $60 you could probably sell a few. Right now I'm satisfied with the two 5-input switchers I have stacked but it's the damn RF switches stacked that really bother me. I hate having to reach behind the TV to switch them and they are awkward when you have like 6 or 7 stacked.

[bargora]

I had posted a switchbox-type question to the shmups forum, because my problem seemed more likely relevant to shmuppers, who may want to play some games with the TV flipped on its side.

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2938

In short, I'm interested in a device/switchbox that will allow switching or splitting the output of a single console (Saturn, maybe a Dreamcast, possibly PSX also) between two TVs, preferably sending RF to one TV and S-Video to the other TV.