i was having the same questions a few weeks ago, when i wanted to hook up my dc to my hdtv via vga. i bought a vga-box and in my opinion it was the best decision ever. the advantage of the vga-box is, that you get a vga-tv switch, which lets you switch between modes on the fly. this is essential, because a lot of original scene releases are not vga-compatible, even though the game works with vga without probs (e.g. sould calibur). there's an old workaround for that. just switch the normal tv-cable with the vga-cable at a certain point while booting. this can be somewhat risky, because changing cables on the fly might produce some failure voltages, which could damage the dc. also, you have to be quite quick. you save yourself the trouble with the vga box and its switch. also, i have hooked up my dc via the vga-box's audio out jack to my surround sound system and it just sounds great. so the vga-box was definitely the better choice for me. i paid about US$25 at ztnetstore.com, but i wouldn't recommend buying it there. you could also check out play-asia.com