ContendeR Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 I have a Sony KDSXBR1 50" HDTV and now an Xbox360 Arcade Edition console. I was wondering if using an HDMI cable would provide any better picture quality as the current PQ isn't bad, but it's not what I expected coming from the original Xbox and watching many reviews. The PQ of any videos I've seen, seemed a lot better - sharper and more Hi-Def looking compared to what I'm currently seeing. Also, am I able to upgrade to any size Hard Drive or am I limited to size with this Arcade Edition? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shetland Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 I have a Sony KDSXBR1 50" HDTV and now an Xbox360 Arcade Edition console. I was wondering if using an HDMI cable would provide any better picture quality as the current PQ isn't bad, but it's not what I expected coming from the original Xbox and watching many reviews. The PQ of any videos I've seen, seemed a lot better - sharper and more Hi-Def looking compared to what I'm currently seeing.Also, am I able to upgrade to any size Hard Drive or am I limited to size with this Arcade Edition? since you have an arcade Xbox 360 you wont have the standard hd cable, you are currently running it in SDTV mode. you don't need hdmi but you will want the (cheaper) HD wire, this will allow you to run it in high resolution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Audioboxer Subscriber² Posted December 29, 2008 Subscriber² Share Posted December 29, 2008 I have a Sony KDSXBR1 50" HDTV and now an Xbox360 Arcade Edition console. I was wondering if using an HDMI cable would provide any better picture quality as the current PQ isn't bad, but it's not what I expected coming from the original Xbox and watching many reviews. The PQ of any videos I've seen, seemed a lot better - sharper and more Hi-Def looking compared to what I'm currently seeing.Also, am I able to upgrade to any size Hard Drive or am I limited to size with this Arcade Edition? If you're using component, I don't think there's much difference with HDMI, if any? Still I'd buy an HDMI cable and hook it up that way, only cost you ?/$5. The TV itself probably needs some calibration of settings as well. You can put any hard drive you want in it, as long as it's an official MS accessory - You can mod an everyday hard drive into an existing casing, but seeing as you have an arcade you don't even have a hard drive casing. So best just to buy a MS official hard drive addon. since you have an arcade Xbox 360 you wont have the standard hd cable, you are currently running it in SDTV mode.you don't need hdmi but you will want the (cheaper) HD wire, this will allow you to run it in high resolution. Does the arcade not come with the standard MS cable that does HD and SD over component? You just flick a switch on the cable - In fact, that's probably what the OP hasn't done. On the cable connector there is a small switch that changes between SDTV and HDTV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I am Reid Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 If you're using component, I don't think there's much difference with HDMI, if any?Still I'd buy an HDMI cable and hook it up that way, only cost you ?/$5. The TV itself probably needs some calibration of settings as well. You can put any hard drive you want in it, as long as it's an official MS accessory - You can mod an everyday hard drive into an existing casing, but seeing as you have an arcade you don't even have a hard drive casing. So best just to buy a MS official hard drive addon. Does the arcade not come with the standard MS cable that does HD and SD over component? You just flick a switch on the cable - In fact, that's probably what the OP hasn't done. On the cable connector there is a small switch that changes between SDTV and HDTV. It only comes with composite cables. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Audioboxer Subscriber² Posted December 29, 2008 Subscriber² Share Posted December 29, 2008 It only comes with composite cables. Ah well question answered. The OP is running in standard definition, go out and buy an HDMI cable mate (Y) Must look pretty fuzzy pumping 480i/480p through a 50" set :| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neoadorable Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 never tried HDMI honestly, did try component and am on VGA..between those two, can't notice any difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ContendeR Posted December 30, 2008 Author Share Posted December 30, 2008 Thanks for your answers, I have connected the 360 with an HDMI cable and it does look better - crisper/sharper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goji Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 Difference is negligible (hdmi vs component) if the signal outputted is the same (720p, 1080i etc). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sethos Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 Difference is negligible (hdmi vs component) if the signal outputted is the same (720p, 1080i etc). Aye, used both myself and couldn't see any difference whatsoever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Audioboxer Subscriber² Posted December 30, 2008 Subscriber² Share Posted December 30, 2008 Difference is negligible (hdmi vs component) if the signal outputted is the same (720p, 1080i etc). Thought that was the case, the only real benefit then to using HDMI then is it carries audio (PCM at that as well - HD audio). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian M. Veteran Posted December 30, 2008 Veteran Share Posted December 30, 2008 Thought that was the case, the only real benefit then to using HDMI then is it carries audio (PCM at that as well - HD audio). Yep, that is the *only* benefit IMO of using HDMI over component (well, and the fact that a HDMI cable is cheaper than Microsoft's component cable :p) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Massiveterra Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 For the longest time I thought the component cable can only display at a maximum of 1080i but I guess depending on the TV, it can display at 1080p. I personally have mine hooked up with HDMI to reduce the number of cables...and HDMI cables are only $2 - $5 on amazon or monoprice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matrix XII Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 ^^ Yeah Monoprice ftw I use component on my 360, just because I have a really old one :blush: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kushan Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 HDMI has several benefits over component/composite cables. The obvious one is audio - handy having it all through one cable instead of two (or like..6). However, for both video AND audio it has a lot more bandwidth to play with. If you have a good TV, you'll get richer colours and deeper "blacks" with HDMI, plus there's more bandwidth for audio as well, even more than with digital optical. The 360 wont actually take advantage of this, but it's good to keep in mind when thinking about other devices (Such as Blu-ray players). And finally, HDMI is DIGITAL. This is pretty important, because it means you can buy a cheap $5 HDMI cable and get the same picture and audio quality as a $50 cable. With the old analogue leads, this isn't the case, with those a cheap cable will cause ghosting and be prone to interference. Even the high-quality cables can be susceptible to this if there's enough interference nearby (such as a big subwoofer or power line), but with HDMI this will never be the case, it's all or nothing. In other words, even if you're currently getting HD output via Component, it's well worth investing in the upgrade to HDMI. The cable will never go to waste, it'll always be useful somewhere else, long after you've dumped the 360 for the next-next-gen machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DR3AMxCATCHER Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 I see a complete difference in the VGA over Component. HDMI not so much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KreepLX360 Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 The only benefit to the HDMI cable is the ability to upscale DVDs to 1080p. Link about some comparisons and opinions. HDMI has several benefits over component/composite cables.The obvious one is audio - handy having it all through one cable instead of two (or like..6). However, for both video AND audio it has a lot more bandwidth to play with. If you have a good TV, you'll get richer colours and deeper "blacks" with HDMI, plus there's more bandwidth for audio as well, even more than with digital optical. The 360 wont actually take advantage of this, but it's good to keep in mind when thinking about other devices (Such as Blu-ray players). And finally, HDMI is DIGITAL. This is pretty important, because it means you can buy a cheap $5 HDMI cable and get the same picture and audio quality as a $50 cable. With the old analogue leads, this isn't the case, with those a cheap cable will cause ghosting and be prone to interference. Even the high-quality cables can be susceptible to this if there's enough interference nearby (such as a big subwoofer or power line), but with HDMI this will never be the case, it's all or nothing. In other words, even if you're currently getting HD output via Component, it's well worth investing in the upgrade to HDMI. The cable will never go to waste, it'll always be useful somewhere else, long after you've dumped the 360 for the next-next-gen machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kushan Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 The only benefit to the HDMI cable is the ability to upscale DVDs to 1080p. Link about some comparisons and opinions. That's completely false, I can disprove that in a single word: Audio. But when it comes to DVD upscaling, the DVD is going to be upscaled if it's output at a HD resolution. That's all upscaling is, it's nothing fancy, it's just displaying it at a higher resolution than it's been encoded at. Sure, you might prefer your 360 did the upscaling rather than your TV, but that's all it is. The medium it's transmitted through, be it VGA, HDMI or component, is irrelevant, if the TV is displaying it at 720p or 1080p, it's been upscaled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KreepLX360 Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 The XBOX360 will display 1080p through the standard composite cables with the exception of video, which is limited to 1080i. Now I will have to do some more research on this but from what I remember is that the HDMI cable audio is uncompressed and virtually inferior to the digital fiber because there is an issue with bandwidth with different audio channels. Fiber optic can compress channels and is compatible with a wide array of different codecs -depending on what revceiver you have. Version 1.3 might acknowledge some of these issues but I have a Hitachi television that just does not work well with HDMI. My Samsung on the other hand works great with both HDMI and composite. What is the difference overall? My XBOX360 has a few cable muxed together and my PS3 has one HDMI. Is it really better? Not completely in my opinion. The cables are too expensive and they fall out very easily.... -a pain in the butt when your TV is hanging on a wall, that's for sure. That's completely false, I can disprove that in a single word: Audio.But when it comes to DVD upscaling, the DVD is going to be upscaled if it's output at a HD resolution. That's all upscaling is, it's nothing fancy, it's just displaying it at a higher resolution than it's been encoded at. The medium it's transmitted through, be it VGA, HDMI or component, is irrelevant, if the TV is displaying it at 720p or 1080p, it's been upscaled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rookas Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 The XBOX360 will display 1080p through the standard composite cables with the exception of video, which is limited to 1080i. That's not entirely accurate. For starters, you're confusing composite and component. Composite is red white yellow, component is red green blue. Component can display games in 1080p, HD-DVD at 1080i, and regular DVD at 480p. HDMI and VGA will upscale the DVD video to 1080p, but it's just 480 upscaled and is not true HD. Honestly, all upscaling means is stretching the image. HDMI is a better cable for some sets, but unnecessary for smaller TV's or 720p sets. Kushan is correct though, HDMI is king of audio cables. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kushan Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 The XBOX360 will display 1080p through the standard composite cables with the exception of video, which is limited to 1080i. Now I will have to do some more research on this but from what I remember is that the HDMI cable audio is uncompressed and virtually inferior to the digital fiber because there is an issue with bandwidth with different audio channels. Fiber optic can compress channels and is compatible with a wide array of different codecs -depending on what revceiver you have. Version 1.3 might acknowledge some of these issues but I have a Hitachi television that just does not work well with HDMI. My Samsung on the other hand works great with both HDMI and composite. What is the difference overall? My XBOX360 has a few cable muxed together and my PS3 has one HDMI. Is it really better? Not completely in my opinion. The cables are too expensive and they fall out very easily.... -a pain in the butt when your TV is hanging on a wall, that's for sure. HDMI-Audio is much more versatile than Digital Optical. Both are digital, so what gets sent down the cable depends on what's plugged into it (and whether it works or not depends on what's receiving it). And it has far more bandwidth available for audio than Digital optical does, I found this out a few months ago when researching sound systems. Put it this way, you cannot do Dolby TrueHD down an Optical cable, but you can via HDMI. The 360 doesn't do TrueHD sound, but it does output Dolby Digital via HDMI if you want it to. According to Wiki, HDMI (Audio) supports the following formats: LPCM Dolby Digital DTS DVD-Audio Super Audio CD Dolby TrueHD DTS-HD Master Audio MPCM Digital Optical (AKA TOSLINK) supports... "Originally limited to 48 kHz at 20 bits. Extended to support all modern formats, except Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD and DTS HD audio streams." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KreepLX360 Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 ok ok, i will go buy a bunch of HDMI cables. HDMI-Audio is much more versatile than Digital Optical. Both are digital, so what gets sent down the cable depends on what's plugged into it (and whether it works or not depends on what's receiving it). And it has far more bandwidth available for audio than Digital optical does, I found this out a few months ago when researching sound systems. Put it this way, you cannot do Dolby TrueHD down an Optical cable, but you can via HDMI. The 360 doesn't do TrueHD sound, but it does output Dolby Digital via HDMI if you want it to.According to Wiki, HDMI (Audio) supports the following formats: LPCM Dolby Digital DTS DVD-Audio Super Audio CD Dolby TrueHD DTS-HD Master Audio MPCM Digital Optical (AKA TOSLINK) supports... "Originally limited to 48 kHz at 20 bits. Extended to support all modern formats, except Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD and DTS HD audio streams." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kushan Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 Just keep in mind that when HDMI first came about and everyone asked "Is it better?" The answer wasn't always yes because, at the time, devices were still built to handle the older standards (such as composite and optical). So it wasn't unheard of for say a cheap DVD player to sport a HDMI port, but actually produce a rubbish picture. But it's been several years now, pretty much all new TVs have HDMI ports and the 360 itself definitely produces a great picture over HDMI. Better that Composite? Hard to say, depends on your TV, but that doesn't negate the other benefits of HDMI, which is what I've tried to point out here. Now, expect this whole debate to rage again when Displayport becomes more common =) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goji Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 HDMI isn't all that and is one of the biggest farces created for only one purpose, security. Have composite and MPCM analog connections? If so you have the abilities of HDMI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KreepLX360 Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 HDMI isn't all that and is one of the biggest farces created for only one purpose, security.Have composite and MPCM analog connections? If so you have the abilities of HDMI. I know that HDMI sports all the above stated codecs and resolutions but you just stated my point... If my cable company can support bandwidth for NTSC signal cable, phone, data, and an HD ATSC signal, then why would HDMI be superior if it was not just a ploy to make some sort of industry standard. The cables certainly does not lack the bandwidth frequencies to meet all the needs of the transfer from one device to another. From what I read, Sony created the HDMI craze and it was just to control the DRM security for video -or at least by 2011 from the article I read. If you look at this on the data transfer level, the composite cable lacks the two way communication between devices to implement a DRM block and therefore we have a freaking reformed eSATA cable there so any little control board can perform an analysis on the validity of the data. I am not trying to promote illegal transfers but this technology could even implement a code in the video image, so even camera frames from images could be blocked based on the level of control here. I wish I saved that damn article; they even talked about imposing some kind of corporate sanctions against manufacturers that resisted the implementation of this technology. What's next? A guy standing in my living room telling me what I am doing is legal? Hell, I already have that here in America......... lawyers...lawyers...lawyers...lawyers...lawyers...and let us not forget who are politicians are... lawyers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylejn Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 That's not entirely accurate. For starters, you're confusing composite and component. Composite is red white yellow, component is red green blue. Component can display games in 1080p, HD-DVD at 1080i, and regular DVD at 480p. HDMI and VGA will upscale the DVD video to 1080p, but it's just 480 upscaled and is not true HD. Honestly, all upscaling means is stretching the image. HDMI is a better cable for some sets, but unnecessary for smaller TV's or 720p sets. Kushan is correct though, HDMI is king of audio cables. Composite is yellow; the red and white are for audio. ;) Another difference, as I understand it, is that component cables are analog whereas HDMI cables are digital; therefore, the quality of a set of component cables is going to have an effect on the quality of the signal (and, by extension, the picture), but being digital, the HDMI signal either works or it doesn't and the quality of the cable doesn't matter. That's why those $100 Monster Cable products are just a huge ripoff; they work just as well as the $2 cables from Amazon and other web retailers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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