Themescene HD70 + XBox 360: Component or VGA?

RichKS

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I've just bought an HD70

I'm about to buy a 360.

Will there be any better picture with a VGA cable than with a Component cable? Or do I wait for HDMI?
 
HDMI wont work with the current 360 model, so cross that off. I would go with Component, I have head the colours are more vibrant, I use comp and it is great.

PS, "Wait for HDMI" so you were going to buy the 360 + HD70 then sit there with a nice blue screen waiting for a HDMI port to appear on the back of the 360? :)

I was thinking, if you don't have a switch of some sort I don't see how, unless your PJ is very close to your 360, how you would reach with the component cable you can get for the xbox.. You may need a switch, I can recommend the "Control center 245C" it will switch your component (or sVideo/composite) sources and can also switch optical audio.
 
"Wait for HDMI" so you were going to buy the 360 + HD70 then sit there with a nice blue screen waiting for a HDMI port to appear on the back of the 360? :)

Nope, I'm going to buy the HD70 and carry on playing my Wii until Microsoft start selling 360s with HDMI ports on the back.

"About to buy" might be a bit of an overstatement it seems (stupid girlfriend want so spend the money on furniture, I ask you!).
 
LOL, can't live with em, can't shoot em. What can you do?!

If you can, I would get the 360 and use component, it really is a great picture, I can't see HDMI / VGA been any better, it's not like the image is low resolution or has artifacts or anything with component.
 
If you can, I would get the 360 and use component, it really is a great picture, I can't see HDMI / VGA been any better, it's not like the image is low resolution or has artifacts or anything with component.

After the weekend's testing, it seems like I get a bit of ghosting on the Component lead. Which bums me out a bit. I use XBMC on an XBox 1 and I'm seeing faint ghosting of the menu text about 5 pixels to the right of everything. Quite annoying and probably caused by the lighting power cable running near the component cable in the floorspace. Never used to get this with my old TW10H I tells ya! And that was running through a cheapo 3 way component switcher I got off some bloke on ebay for £15.

But that was also working by plugging the cheapo switchbox straight into the PJ, and now I have the HD70 ceiling mounted with a 5 metre component cable. Using that switchbox now seems to make the ghosting 10 times worse. Without it, I can ignore the ghosting from my seat so it doesn't bother me that badly right now, but with the switchbox it looks awful. I might try getting an official XBox component breakout box and plugging that straight into the 5M component lead. See if that makes any difference.

But on the other hand, HDMI is (from what I hear) a more robust signal. Not a better picture quality per se, just more likely to look good over a long cable.

I need to look at better switchboxes. But I'm hearing a lot of people having problems with Wiis and switchboxes. Argh!
 
Nithtmare.
All I can say is I am using a 360 -> component + optical -> Sony AVamp -> 5m component -> HD70 @ 720p and I see no ghosting.
 
I am using my H70 with VGA cable and the picture is stunning !!! T.B.H. i have not tryed Component as yet but will be doing so at a later date. I cant see that there would be much if any improvment over the pic i am getting through the VGA cable, but who knows :cool:

Another point to remember is everybodys eyes are differant and some people see stronger colours than others or ghosting where as some people cant see a problem at all :eek:
 
After the weekend's testing, it seems like I get a bit of ghosting on the Component lead.

Yep I got the same over a 15m run to the PJ so i'm now nunning VGA with no problems at all :thumbsup:

Best £20 I have spent on a VGA lead, also using a VGA splitter box (powered 1 input to 4 outputs, no switch) so the signal can be on the plasma and PJ at the same time (do not have to switch it over :thumbsup: ) PQ is great no issues at all.
 
ARGH!!!

After buying a new DVD player, I'm seeing the same faint ghosting with HDMI. It's a Denon 1730. The ghosting is present in the setup menus. It's very faint and again, about 4-5 pixels to the right of any very light thing on a dark background. From a normal viewing distance it's not noticeable unless you look for it, but once you do it's irritating.

I'm going to have to do some serious testing with this mofo over the weekend. If I plug everything directly into the PJ with short leads and see a difference then I can chalk it down to the fact that the cables run within about 6 inches of the lighting leads. For example, I have the Ninty Component lead for the Wii, so if I get ghosting using that I know there's something wrong.

But I thought HDMI was digital and therefore either worked perfectly or not at all? If I'm seeing ghosting on it, it might be a problem with the PJ itself or the DVD player?
 
ARGH!!!

After buying a new DVD player, I'm seeing the same faint ghosting with HDMI. It's a Denon 1730. The ghosting is present in the setup menus. It's very faint and again, about 4-5 pixels to the right of any very light thing on a dark background. From a normal viewing distance it's not noticeable unless you look for it, but once you do it's irritating.

I'm going to have to do some serious testing with this mofo over the weekend. If I plug everything directly into the PJ with short leads and see a difference then I can chalk it down to the fact that the cables run within about 6 inches of the lighting leads. For example, I have the Ninty Component lead for the Wii, so if I get ghosting using that I know there's something wrong.

But I thought HDMI was digital and therefore either worked perfectly or not at all? If I'm seeing ghosting on it, it might be a problem with the PJ itself or the DVD player?

I run my PS3 and Sky HD box over HDMI (cheap 15m one from ebay) and get no ghosting on it at all just on component.
 
What a weekend!

I've looked into this a bit further and come to the following conclusions:

1) The ghosting on the HDMI was just me being a moron. I'm using a Denon 1730 upscaling DVD projector to upscale everything to 720P. And the thing is, the Denon's setup menus were ghosting. Except, being a bit cheap, the Denon's setup menus aren't optimised for 720P, so the menus were upscaling leaving them looking a bit ropey and kinda ghosty. Turning off the upscaling and setting the PJ to Native and you get a crisp and clear (but still ugly) setup menu, with no ghosting at all.

2) The ghosting on Component doesn't seem to affect the Wii. That is, I thought it was, but this was just an artefact of the slight "fuzziness" you get when the PJ upscales the Wii's 480P picture to fit the 720 line image. Setting the PJ to native gives you a crisp and clear image in the Wii (albeit a rather small one!). So this seems to be an XBox specific problem. I've ordered an official XBox component HD kit/breakout box in the hopes that this will cure the problem or at least make it less noticeable.

I haven't had time to test anything else yet. Hopefully I'll check the PS2 via it's component at some point and see if that cures the problem.

I do get a 2cm black border around the picture at all times though, regardless of input. Is that normal?
 

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