xbox 360 hi def question

[tigersaw]

lets suppose I wanted to go shopping and get a new flat telly and xbox 360.
To get the best hi-def experience, whats the connection I need on the telly?
Is it HDMI, DVI, HDCP, progessive 1080i yada yada ?
Is the lead required included with the xbox?

I just fancy bolting the doors shut over christmas, closing the curtains, taking the phone off the hook, stocking up on pringles and playing online call of duty for hours and hours and hours. Wishful thinking I know.

[Smurf]

Not sure, I think it's 1080 but I don't know anything about TV's.

Would be interested to find out though as I'm in the market for a new projector when I get a XB360.

Talking of which they just had an ad on TV for Gears of War with the Tears for Fears track from Donnie Darko, Can't wait to play that game :twisted:

[mysteryjimbo]

VGA cable works fine.

[Dave The Rave]

BTW if you want to use your new TV to play games, do not get plasma. Get LCD. Plasma does not like unchanged picture in one place for a while. With games you usually get a console, score board etc which doe not change at all. This can and will sooner rather than later cause small black appearing on your TV. Get some serious advice before you buy.

[Stormspiel]

The cables included in the box, all you have to do is flick the switch to HDTV and plug in the red blue and green wires. mines not HD ready though......yet :lol:

And Gears of war is AWESOME, specially in high Def. My brothers got it already but i'm not allowed it until crimbo :roll:

[Marshall]

The right cable is included if you buy a premium console, its not if you buy a core

[Alpinestarhero]

BTW if you want to use your new TV to play games, do not get plasma. Get LCD. Plasma does not like unchanged picture in one place for a while. With games you usually get a console, score board etc which doe not change at all. This can and will sooner rather than later cause small black appearing on your TV. Get some serious advice before you buy.

Really? That's not good. I'll keep that bit of info from my girlfriends dad i think, his plasma TV is his pride and joy!

LCD's are better anyway, IMO. I think they give a better, clearer picture.

Matt

[wyrdness]

Most of the high definition TVs that are available at the moment have a native resolution of 720p, so running the xbox at 1080i (or 1080p) won't help at all. Any of VGA, HDMI or Component will be OK.

[tigersaw]

Most of the high definition TVs that are available at the moment have a native resolution of 720p, so running the xbox at 1080i (or 1080p) won't help at all. Any of VGA, HDMI or Component will be OK.

The telly I'm interested in is the LG 32LC liquid crystal, mainly because of its inter connectivity.
Its defined as HD ready, and looking up the definition of HD ready;

1. HD-reception both via analogue input and DVI or HDMI.
2. The DVI or HDMI input (digital inputs) must have support for HDCP.
3. The HD capable inputs must be able to transmit the formats 1280x720 at 50 and 60Hz progressive (720p) and 1920x1080 at 50 and 60Hz interlaced (1080i).

Part 3 states it must be able to display 1080 interlaced.

Is this the hi-def output of the xbox? I presume then it uses component cables rather than the proper HDMI connector.

I thought all this was supposed to be easy. No point in asking the sales assistant :roll:

Someone with an Xbox - can you take a look at the manual?

[KrZ]

HDMI/DVI connection is the way forward. and HDMI and DVI are more or less the same thing. If you are to connect your pc to the tele, make sure you have dvi output from graphic card, standard vga does not support hi def hence you will need a upscaler which usually cost about 150 quid. (i found that out when i was trying to connect my laptop to my tele). component connections are analogue in nature, so it is subject to some amount of degradation and information loss. Therefore the use of component connections depends heavily on the image source.

[tigersaw]

OK, I can answer my own question, just looked at manual on web..

You have to use the component inputs on the tv, and flick a switch on the lead to HDTV.

Anyone using this?

I've tried using component input before using a HD dvd player and the small LCD HD telly thats in the bedroom, all sorts of scaling problems, no seeing the entire picture etc, plus vertical lines on the picture. I found the S input far better, but of course I'm after playing games in hi-def, so this is not an option.

[wyrdness]

Most of the high definition TVs that are available at the moment have a native resolution of 720p, so running the xbox at 1080i (or 1080p) won't help at all. Any of VGA, HDMI or Component will be OK.

The telly I'm interested in is the LG 32LC liquid crystal, mainly because of its inter connectivity.
Its defined as HD ready, and looking up the definition of HD ready;

1. HD-reception both via analogue input and DVI or HDMI.
2. The DVI or HDMI input (digital inputs) must have support for HDCP.
3. The HD capable inputs must be able to transmit the formats 1280x720 at 50 and 60Hz progressive (720p) and 1920x1080 at 50 and 60Hz interlaced (1080i).

Part 3 states it must be able to display 1080 interlaced.

Is this the hi-def output of the xbox? I presume then it uses component cables rather than the proper HDMI connector.

I thought all this was supposed to be easy. No point in asking the sales assistant :roll:

Someone with an Xbox - can you take a look at the manual?

Correct BUT the fact that it can display a 1080i signal doesn't mean that it is a 1080 line display. The LG 32LC has a native resolution of 1366 x 768, meaning that it will display 720p natively. It won't display 1080 natively, it will downscale the picture to 720.

It's like a black and white TV can accept and display a colour signal, it just doesn't display it in colour.

Ignore 1080 unless you've got £££££££'s to spend.

[mysteryjimbo]

BTW if you want to use your new TV to play games, do not get plasma. Get LCD. Plasma does not like unchanged picture in one place for a while. With games you usually get a console, score board etc which doe not change at all. This can and will sooner rather than later cause small black appearing on your TV. Get some serious advice before you buy.

Or in my case, my plasma has a pixel shift to combat this. Not often i ever pause a game anyway.

[tigersaw]

Well I bought a xbox 360 this afternoon, but I just couldn't quite fall in love with the LG TV, the demo one looked pretty poor using its in built freeview tuner, bit washed out, and almost as if the sides of the picture were missing, like it was scaling wrong.
However, later I went to another store and saw it running hi-def, twas awesome, but it was home time by then.

I've plugged the xbox into the bedroom set, using the supplied lead on conponent., set to HD.
I cant tell the difference between 720 progressive and 1080 interlace settings, but both are AWESOME. Downloading the free HD movie trailers from xbox live... wow.

Might go back shopping tomorrow, though I've found another set I like, the Philips 32PF5531

What do you reckon, Philips, or LG?

[empty]

Lots of people get confused by the HD formats, the whole HD ready thing is a pain in the **** as it merely implys that the inputs can accept both 720p and 1080i formats. 720p is 720 vertical lines (or about 25% more than standard definition TV, which has 576 active lines), progressive scan format at 50 frames per second, 1080i is interlaced so in effect has 25 frames per second, divided into two fields, which are shot at different times (a 50th of a second apart), except if it is shot in PsF (or "Film Look") when it is 25 frames per second, but transitted as two seperate fields which are part of the same picture.

Pretty much all of the European produced HD content is 1080i, lots of american produced content is 720p. All are widescreen formats.

1080p, thats where it is at, except that uncompressed we're talking 3 gigabits per second, and trying to squeeze that down cables (coax mostly) is proving to be a bit hard (that is at the filming end, it is easy for cameras to be on fibre optics but less so for the rest of the TV gallery).

MT

[SoulKiss]

I would avoid HD for the forseeable.

Still too new in my opinion, and so too expensive, and the "standard" has not been standardised yet.

The whole HDCP (or HanDiCaPing) issue needs to be resolved before its worth going for.

Not that I am worried, as an added bonus my 24" Dell Widescreen LCD monitor had Component In, and with a 1920x1200 resolution it can easily do 1080i (and 1080p I think)

Only downside is no HDCP.

Hopefully Empty will be nice and gentle when he corrects the mistakes in this :)

David

[empty]

Not that I am worried, as an added bonus my 24" Dell Widescreen LCD monitor had Component In, and with a 1920x1200 resolution it can easily do 1080i (and 1080p I think)

Only downside is no HDCP.

HDCP only applies to digital inputs IIRC, since there is no defined way of an analogue source finding out what is at the other end of the bit of string connecting it. DVI-D (mostly) does not have HDCP, HDMI should have it. Not had much dealing with this side of things, mostly HD-SDI (Uncompressed digital video with embedded audio). We've got a HD screen at work but the input on that is DVI-D (with a converter to SDI). The only problem you may find is getting hold of devices with component analogue out, most will I imagine only come with HDMI, since that is what most TVs will have.


Hopefully Empty will be nice and gentle when he corrects the mistakes in this :)


I'm always nice.....

MT :)

[tigersaw]

Got the Philips 37" in the end - link up to the xbox 360 this thing is simply staggering. Also got some hi-def wmv files to demo as well, seeing is believing, roll on hi-def :)
Next thing on the list is a hdmi dvd player, one of those things that does 1080 upscaling from divx and the like, all revies says they are pretty neat too.
I'm on a learning curve here, but its a great ride. (Especially as the weather is so naff outside I cant go riding).

[rob13]

Im playing the 360 on a 20" crt at the moment which isnt inspiring at all. Good Gfx but looks nothing special on this little monitor. Im not sure what to do - got a 28" widescreen CRT still in the lounge which is still running fine at mo and seems waste to cast aside for a HDTV lcd.
Was considering buying a projector but not sure if picture will be that great, as well as having the 360 in the back room (Near the router as i aint got the wireless adaptor)

[tigersaw]

Im playing the 360 on a 20" crt at the moment which isnt inspiring at all. Good Gfx but looks nothing special on this little monitor. Im not sure what to do - got a 28" widescreen CRT still in the lounge which is still running fine at mo and seems waste to cast aside for a HDTV lcd.
Was considering buying a projector but not sure if picture will be that great, as well as having the 360 in the back room (Near the router as i aint got the wireless adaptor)

I have to say I'm a total convert. DVD's look amazing using an upscaling dvd player. The xbox is awesome. Normal telly, via the freeview or satellite isn't nothing to write home about, but I've not watched anything ayway, its all xbox now!