Xbox, The Movie

Watched my Dad rig camcorder through vcr one family Sunday, for showing his steam train side-trip in the Okanagan, and one of those cartoon light bulbs flashed above my head - My xbox is just another line-in device! - Bet I CAN record right off it - Make movies of my xbox fun, for those nights when I’m just too tired to do it well, however need that little gamer fix.

And - Yes, it worked.

Seems logical that the set-up should also work with a dvr, however I haven’t got a dvr, so cannot test it, and HDMI and the home theatre will have to wait until I win the lottery.

Have just the most basic of gaming rigs: composite audio-video ins and outs, and teevee that accepts a line-in device. These days, even the connectors and connections come colour-coded, so laying out your movie studio is easy as easy can be: xbox cable into vcr - vcr into tv - outputs to inputs - yellow to yellow - white to white - red to red.

With all cables plugged in, came time to power up the rig.

Selected LINE-IN on the tv remote. Some teevee menus call this AUX (Auxiliary), even AV.

Selected LINE-IN on the vcr remote.

Got that warm fuzzy feeling - seeing that friendly xbox menu - which showed that everything was hooked up properly.

Then readied a blank tape in the vcr. Standard Play (SP) for record speed made for cleanest video to my eye.

Started a game - and pressed RECORD on the vcr remote. Naturally, just had to pause both game and vcr: just checking that I was actually recording gameplay.

Using this method, I made mini-movies of favourite and visually nice levels in Fable Lost Chapters, and Oddworld Stranger’s Wrath.

I died too many times trying for the whole of Halflife 2: had to put the picture on hold. My stunt work was inconsistent. And couldn’t get Peter Jackson to take on the editing.