Xbox 360 to PC Speakers

[GhostGT]

Here's the situation:

I've hooked up my second 360 to my computer monitor in my bedroom via the HD VGA cable. I also went to Radioshack and bought an 'RCA Female to 3.5mm audio Male' connector, and a '8-ft audio extension cable' (Male to Female).

After doing much research, it seems as if it's possible to connect the xbox to my PC sound card, and have the sound routed through my computer and out of my speakers/headphones. Some people have used the "Line In" port on their sound cards; others, the Mic port. I've tried both and haven't been able to come up with a solution.

When I plug the audio jack into the Line In/Mic port, and I check the volume control panel in Vista, I can see the sound indicators of both options show an increased sound level (Line In and Mic, under "Recording Devices"). However, I can't figure out a way to actually HEAR the sound through my own speakers.

Few points:

• My speakers work perfectly, and PC sound works perfectly.
• Everything has been unmuted.
• All tested ports are NOT muted, are at 100% volume, and also have boost on full.
• All connections are secure and work. After all, the computer IS receiving sound, but just isn't able to output it through my speakers.

So, for review, my current connection setup is as follows:

Xbox HD VGA Cable (Audio RCA plugs) ---> RCA to 3.5mm ---> 3.5mm female to 3.5mm male INTO Line In OR Mic on Sound Card

3.5mm cable to and from my speakers.


Now, I understand that I can simply plug in the RCA adapter straight into my Altec Lansing ATP3's subwoofer line-in port and get sound; I've been doing this for a couple of days. I'd just like to have the sound connected to my sound card, which would make switching between headphones/speakers a possibility, and would not make me fiddle with all the wiring when I wanted to use the Xbox.

Any and all advice would be,as usual, much appreciated.

 

[foothead]

Trying to remember how to do this...

Open VLC and in one of the menus at the top, you can view/record a video capture device. Open this, then on the menu, just tell it line in for audio and no video. Hit ok and you should be able to hear the line in.

 

[GhostGT]

Okay, so that ended up working actually. However, another problem has now come up.

Sound was shredding my speakers away and there was a lot of distortion. I lowered the volume a bit for the "Line In" but nothing changed. At some point, volume completely disappeared and has not come back at all.

I'm still checking through settings, but I'm stuck here now.

Also, if there is another way to have this setup work (other than what I'm trying), that'd be great. Just having the xbox and my speakers/headphones connected and being able to seamlessly switch them. I use a headphone/speaker switch on my computer, so things would be great to be able to combine all of these and have a properly working system.


UPDATE: Sound is back, but distortion is there. I lowered the volume from VLC also, but it's still distorted and "crackles" a lot.

 

[foothead]

I assume you're using onboard sound? The line in on most onboard sound chips is absolutely terrible. You won't make it sound good if that's the case. Couldn't you just put a physical switch to swap between pc and xbox to your speakers?

 

[GhostGT]

Yeah, I've actually been reading up on that for the past 30 minutes or so. Looks like I either have to get a nice sound card or figure out another way.

What you're saying will work, however I'd like a way to have my headphones attached to this as well. Any ideas? My speakers only have one line in, and two lines out for the actual speakers themselves. Doesn't look like its a universal port, unless I'm mistaken.

 

[foothead]

Am I missing something? Because it seems to me like all you need are two 3.5mm switches and some adapter cables.

Like this:

XBOX-\••••••••••••••••••••/---headphones
•••••••>switch-----switch<
PC----/••••••••••••••••••••\---speakers

 

[dude_56013]

Can you access the equalizer and turn the preamp down in VLC the way you are doing it? I think you can. But you have to have it save your equalizer settings. See if that'll bring distortion down at all before you dump money into a sound card!

 

[GhostGT]

Am I missing something? Because it seems to me like all you need are two 3.5mm switches and some adapter cables.

Like this:

XBOX-\••••••••••••••••••••/---headphones
•••••••>switch-----switch<
PC----/••••••••••••••••••••\---speakers

Somewhat unclear on what you're showing here...

Can you access the equalizer and turn the preamp down in VLC the way you are doing it? I think you can. But you have to have it save your equalizer settings. See if that'll bring distortion down at all before you dump money into a sound card!

I was actually messing around with some of these settings.

1. Which one is the preamp?
2. I realized that the sound in VLC lags a bit behind the actual game. Is this solvable?

I think I'm just being a little too picky about something that isn't meant to work perfectly through on-board sound.

Foothead, if you can clear up your diagram, I'm more than willing to entertain your idea.

 

[dude_56013]

1. Which one is the preamp?
2. I realized that the sound in VLC lags a bit behind the actual game. Is this solvable?

I think I'm just being a little too picky about something that isn't meant to work perfectly through on-board sound.

The preamp is the button with the 3 sliders to the right of the play button. If you click it, you'll need to check "enable" and then the preamp is the far left slider. You can also try it with and without "2 pass" enabled".

Ya know, I've never had any problem with on board audio on any computer. I'll never buy a soundcard. Haha.

 

[ACES WILD]

I too do this with my 360, except I don't use a vga cable, I use an hdmi out of the 360 and convert it to dvi for my monitor. Then I run a standard 360 av cable out of the av port and attach a stereo Y cable (Red white stereo to 3.5 jack) and run it into the mic in on my desktop. I know you aren't using windows 7 and I haven't used vista in some time (But it must be similar or have a similar feature), but here are some pictures of how to do just what you are trying to do, listen on the port.

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4: (click listen to device)

hopefully this helps instead of using vlc to do it. Also as others have said to cut distortion cut your input volume down to almost not audible, then just increase the output vol on your system/etc. Also turn boost off, that is almost definitely what is causing your distortion problem.