5punk

FatherJack wrote:Questions.

1. "HD ready"=720p/1080i, "HD"=1080p ?

Not really, even 720i (1280 X 720) is considered HD, being anything at a higher resolution than SD (720 x 576)

Also, I have a pre-elite 360 with no HDMI output, potential telly will have both VGA and Component (YPbPr - I think) input:

2. Do I use the existing component cable, or buy a VGA cable for it?

Don't know about xbox connectivity options but I would go with YPbPr unless you are short of component inputs and the VGA is unused

3. Am I limited to 720p either way? (The XB arcade for £150 with HDMI and Falcon almost looks tempting)

Component can do 1080p but it's display dependant and might be hard to find out. But if Xbox is only 720 then it doesn't matter

4. How do I actually tell how many pixels my image is? Is there some test card I can get to display on the 360, or do I just trust what the TV's menus are telling me?

Depends on the telly, sonys we have at work have a little box that pops up when you switch between HD and SD channels and tells you what format the source is. Again dunno bout Xbox options, can you select ouput format in main options or something?.

5. Component/HDMI input-switching boxes - do they exist/are worth it?
My existing setup is a maze of 6-9 composite things connected to three composite inputs on the TV, not counting the RF chain.

Gonna be pricey, never seen a joint Comp/HDMI switching box but you can get a Component to HDMI converter

As per the previous message, I'll find proper 1080p stuff to go into it once I have it, just wanting to get the best out of what I actually have ATM.

I use a VGA connection with my 360+HDTV setup, I find it looks better than the component. Although using VGA limits the resolution accepted by my TV to ~720p. If I used the component it can apparently go up to 1080p. The difference in image quality has stopped me from testing the 1080p+component option but I think I'll test it out soon just to make sure I'm not missing out on anything.

Update, bought the http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.202-5644.aspx telly today and tried a few things out.

Was pleased to find it's now £50 cheaper than before, although I had to visit two stores to find one in stock. Nice picture, although most things I have are only normal res.

I'd done a bit of reading on the XBox stuff before hand and found this: http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=236980, the most useful info being this:

Code: Select all

It's worth knowing the update made in May 2007 has improved the VGA settings dramtically for some people, and is now worth trying out even if you had previously washed out colours. Here are the differences between the 3 HD cables:

HDMI:

* HD DVD - 1080p resolution and all others
* DVD - Upscaled as high as 1080p resolution and all others
* Games - 720p games upscaled to 1080p and native 1080p games

VGA:

* HD DVD - 1080p (1920x1080) resolution and all others
* DVD - Upscaled as high as 1080p resolution and all others
* Games - 720p games upscaled to 1080p and native 1080p games

Note for VGA, 720p is the resolution of 1280x720 and 1080p is 1920x1080. All signals via VGA are progressive, it is not possible to do interlaced with this cable.

Component:

* HD DVD - 1080i resolution maximum, limited by AACS
* DVD - Standard progressive 576p maximum, limited by CSS
* Games - 720p games upscaled to 1080p and native 1080p games

Since I don't have the HDMI output on my XBox, I wasn't expecting instant 1080p, so what I found wasn't entirely unexpected, even though the telly claims to be 1080p but doesn't note any caveats with this.

With component cable which came with it, I can set the XBox to 1080i at the highest, setting it to 1080p results in "no signal". The picture looks good though, and colours are vibrant. The text in the menus seems the same size, but on playing a game it's clear the resoultion is higher and small text can be easily read which was illegible before. That's my main aim achieved.

With the VGA cable I can "only" set it to 1366x768, setting 1920x1080 results in "input error". I guess this is just because my TV only does 1080 through its HDMI inputs, not the VGA port. The text in the menus scales to be much smaller, but games kind of look about the same. Everything however is very washed-out - almost black and white.

As the article above mentions, there was supposed to be an improvement which fixed the washed-out look, plus enhancement to include 1080p. Since I have the options in the menu, I'm assuming I have the updates - so I'll probably stick with component for now.

Oh, also I now have over 13,000 Tesco points.

FatherJack wrote:but on playing a game it's clear the resoultion is higher and small text can be easily read which was illegible before. That's my main aim achieved.

*Glares at Dead Rising*

That game made me promise never to play my Xbox360 again. Until I want more GoW that is... which hasn't happened yet.

I was thinking about getting one of the 360's with a HDMI port on it but I don't think I play the 360 enough to warrant spending £200/300 pound on it.

Break the old one thoroughly if it's in warranty, they'll send you a spanky new one with hdmi.*

*If it's not in warranty breaking it may result in large levels of fail.

Last night I tried out 1080p through component from my 360 but it looks awful. My TV is supposed to be capable but it's certainly not right, you can see blocky edges on certain colours. However it looks great using 720p over VGA.

5punk

Spec me a HD tv Bitches