The Dreamcast famously supports many different types of display cable (
check out our guide here), and the ability to spit out a VGA signal has afforded contemporary hardware developers the opportunity to adapt the Dreamcast's aging internal guts to work with the latest display technology.
While the Dreamcast will always be best matched with a decent CRT television through RGB SCART or a VGA computer monitor via a suitable cable or box, the fact of the matter is that not everyone has the space for a hulking great cathode ray powered television or monitor, and so flat panel monitors are the only option. With this in mind, Pound Technology is the latest hardware manufacturer to take advantage of the Dreamcast's VGA option and have recently released the 'HD Link - Dreamcast.'
Following in the footsteps of outfits like Beharbros (check out our review of the
AKURA HDMI box here), Pound Technology have created a fairly robust looking pass-through cable that takes the VGA signal from the Dreamcast and projects it through a HDMI cable onto the screen of any compatible monitor or TV set. Unlike the AKURA, the HD Link - Dreamcast doesn't offer any additional display modes or a scanline generator, but it does trump the AKURA in terms of cost, weighing in at just $29.99 at the time of writing.
The only negative we can see so far is that the HD Link - Dreamcast is currently only available in the United States due to Amazon's rules on new products passing internal review for international shipping. Rest assured that as soon as Amazon have approved the cable, we'll be putting it up against the AKURA to see how it fares.
For more information visit the
Pound Technology website here.
