Is Xbox 360 Video a Landmark Shift? > Better then nothin

Better then nothin

Most people who own HDTVs probably don't even know the difference between HDMI and component, so I don't think it really makes much of a difference. I know a lot of people who still use RCA composite input because they don't even know what s-video is.

Sure, but I think the people who have HDTVs, Xbox360s and will invest in the HD DVD add are more likely to be connection-conscious.
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The hills are alive with the sound of jehu.

Could have sworn 360 came with an HDMI port...?

reply to Jehu
As true as that is, 1080p over VGA is still a fine connection option for the 360. I don't think there are many HDTVs out there that do 1080p over HDMI that don't also do it over VGA. Funny thing is that most of the 1080p TVs out there right now don't even support a 1080p input of ANY kind (they just upscale the 1080i).

Another thing to keep in mind is the audio hookup - audio through HDMI is great from a cable perspective but anyone with a serious 5.1 setup is probably going to want to use a direct digital audio connection to their AV Receiver anyway instead of routing the audio through the TV. Most TVs muck with the 5.1 signal instead of doing a straight pass-through from HDMI to digial optical.

Personally I went for a 720p Samsung 56" DLP - seemed to be about the right sweet spot for quality/size/cost - 360 over VGA at 720p is STUNNINGLY good on this set (slightly quicker response than component).

I'm usually a stickler for image quality, but I personally think 1080p is overrated. It's a nice feature, but not a killer if you don't have it. I mean my projector only does 1024x768 and I still think movies look pretty damn good on it at about 80" or so. Of course my PC monitor does 1920x1200 so it looks pretty good too.

I've actually tested 720p and 1080p on my monitor, with the 720p being scaled more and still images are slightly sharper on 1080, but in motion I seriously don't think there is much difference between 720p/1080i and 1080p. 1080p is nice if you have it, but I don't think it's as big a deal as people like to make it out to be.

reply to Jehu
Nope no HDMI fer xbox360

Of course audio over HDMI is a throwaway.. the attraction is keeping the signal in digital to screen without analog conversion.

I may be wrong, but VGA ports on HDTVs do not have very high resolutions.

The new crop of HDTVs (at significant price drops) are all 1080p over HDMI...or DVI...

I agree that 720p is great but I think it's a hard sell to get people to "downgrade" their perceived picture quality.
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The hills are alive with the sound of jehu.

MS has previously said that an HDMI cable would eventually be available but that there wasn't enough demand to warrant it right now.

Personally I believe it's physically possible but they're not being entirely honest on why they haven't done it yet - licensing HDMI means implementing HDCP (encryption) support, and without a built-in HDMI port this data exchange would probably have to be implemented in the cable itself instead of in the 360 hardware. That would probably mean a surcharge on each cable and possibly some implementation nightmares for them. On the other hand, their AV out port is completely proprietary and HDMI has been around for a while, so it's possible that the hardware is already there - they certainly won't say - or that the key exchange could be implemented in software.

Info on HDCP here: »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Bandw···otection