HC Component VS. HDMI

nickwrxstiv2 · 04-12-2008, 8:25 PM

I'm hankering after a Premium XBox360 for Christmas.

The premiun comes with the component HD cable. Is it worthwhile buying the Gameware HDMI cable for £10? What is the difference in quality?

Thanks!

virtual_boy · 04-12-2008, 10:07 PM

Anything shorter than 5 meters and you should see no difference at all between a £10 cable and a £100 one.

EDIT: read the question wrong lol

You will probably see little or no noticable difference between the two cables but for the extra £10 you may as well be getting the best picture/audio quality possible from your 360 and tv.

*avinitski* · 04-12-2008, 10:49 PM

depends on your TV too, some can look different through different connections, its also down to personal opinion, what looks better to one person may not be better for the next person.

best thing to do is just give it a try.

funkyspider · 04-12-2008, 10:50 PM

Asked many times, I think I asked it when I got my Xbox, and the general opinion is very little difference, if any. Any difference will be down to how your TV handles HD from each input. More likely these days that your HDMI inputs will get used by SKY/Bluray players etc and component may be spare.

Very little, if any, difference between 720p and 1080p.
Any HDMI cable will work fine as long as the connectors are ok, so don't go mad on an expensive one IMO.

Bursar · 04-12-2008, 11:02 PM

Don't forget that if you run HDMI, you will need to either butcher the component cable or buy the official dongle if you want to run optical audio out.

MarkyPancake · 05-12-2008, 9:32 AM

Firstly, here are my setups: My Premium is connected to a Samsung LE32R41BD using VGA set to 1360x768, as close to 1:1 pixel mapping as possible, and my Pro is connected to a Sony KDL-40L4000 using HDMI set to 1080p.

On all the TVs I've used, component looks worse than both VGA (official cable) and HDMI (unknown brand). With component, jagged edges are noticeable and the colours and brightness seem off. I've used VGA for at least a couple of years and it has been my cable of choice, but recently I've also used HDMI and am now torn between the two across both setups.

nickwrxstiv2 · 05-12-2008, 5:04 PM

I've got a Sony 40V4000 40" 1080p LCD TV if that helps?

I think I'll try the official cable that I get with the 360, if I'm not hapy then I'll buy the HDMI cable.

I'm surprised that the HDMI cable doesn't knock the socks off the other cables