Game console -> PC -> monitor ... current good card?

[Asterra]

I've got a CRT monitor and I'm starting to get a bit impatient with the hoops I'm having to jump through just to get video displayed on it. The final straw is that there doesn't seem to be any way to get it to accept interlaced video.

So I'm going to look into so-called video "capture" cards. The idea here is not to capture, as in record, but rather to get my PC to accept a component input and have it display it full screen, full framerate, realtime, with no more delay than what I might get by hooking my video source directly to a CRT TV.

I'm taking particular care to stress the importance of the latency factor because the fact is that, so far, every card I've found which has video inputs seems more specifically intended for video recording, and with that being the case, the odds are very good indeed that the devices introduce a certain amount of latency which a person would possibly not even notice if watching their video live, but would certainly be aware of if they were relying on their video to be realtime (ie, a game).

That having been said, I figure there's a good chance that lots of folks are using a card in the specific capacity I need, and are able to comment on things like latency, usability, value, and what one's options are when it comes to things like displaying the video on the PC's monitor (for example, how about interlaced input?)

[neomaine]

For component input there aren't too many choices. Have you looked into the BlackMagic Intensity? Its one of the only cusumer grade ones I've heard about. After that, you're talking in the thousands of dollars. A simple internet search on component capture should do the trick.

[neomaine]

Of course, now that I say that, forgot that I picked up a HavaMonsoon for my son to capture his games (xbox360 component). But, it does have passthrough support so there shouldn't be any delay/latency. Setup was pretty easy. Its listed as $149 on the Hava site but pretty sure I found it elsewhere (maybe on sale) for $69-$79.

Edit: Just checked. Amazon has them for $89 with Amazon marketplace having one at $79. They've got a pretty good return policy if it doesn't work out. For component passthrough/capture you probably won't beat the price. Not sure if it'll have the performance you're looking for.

Edit 2: For those who would hope to capture HD with this, I'm almost sure that it only captures at 720x480 last I checked about a year ago. There was supposed to be an update to allow 1080, but I've got no idea if they've followed through.