Xbox 360, is HDMI lead worth it?

[mrsxllifts]

We have just leaped in to the 21st century and got a xbox 360 but it only came with the normal av(?) type lead with the red, yellow and white plugs. It also came with a scart adapter for this lead. Our tv has the hdmi logo and the input plug so assume it can run HD stuff. What I'm wondering is, is the HDMI lead worth it? Does the picture quality improve or is it just another accessorie con?

Thanks

[Curry Burns]

It's definately worth it

[Steve Evil]

Really does look quite a lot better through the HDMI in my opinion, for £5 or so for a cable you can't really argue about not doing it.

[North West Tom]

yep it's worth it. Why don't the new 'uns have that cable?

[LukeBird]

Well worth it!

[mrmr96]

Using the Red/White/Yellow connectors is close to being the poorest quality signal transmission method which is still in common use today. Using a HDMI lead is close to being the best quality signal transmission method which is in common use today.

The difference will be very very noticeable. If it isn't then you have a crap TV or have put the settings on wrongly.

(Note, when hooking the Xbox 360 up via the HDMI lead it's worthwhile going into the settings page in the Xbox and matching the signal output resolution to your panel's native resolution, so that the TV doesn't have to do any up/down scaling of the picture as it will get done on the Xbox's video card as the frames are rendered.)

I think.

[mrsxllifts]

Ok, so its definately worth getting the HDMI lead. Apparently the new one don't come with the HDMI lead in the box just the standard ones, well, thats what the supermarket 'expert' said!

Thanks for all your help, I thought this might be a quiet forum! Think I need quite a bit of practise before I bother to set up the Live side of things yet though, sounds like everyone is a bit better than me!

Thanks for the info on the tv resolution and stuff, think I will need to dig out the book for the specs of the tv and try to fiddle with the xbox settings to get it right. Does anyone know what this PAL 50/60 is all about?

Thanks

[mrmr96]

I think PAL 50/60 referes to the refresh rate of the screen in Hz (i.e. refreshes per seccond).
Some older TV's were not able to display a 60Hz signal, only a 50Hz one. If you're using a TV with a HDMI connection that tells me it's modern enough to be able to handle the 60Hz signal.

[sidaorb]

Really must think about investing in a new TV at some point

Although I have my xbox rigged up to my 22in desktop monitor at the moment.

[GT Kodiak]

Umm... I have a stupid question to ask.

Will any HDMI cable do or does it have to be an official Xbox one?

My 42" Plasma deserves the HD treatment methinks
Was a big step up from the 16" fuzzbox i used to use! hehe.

[mrmr96]

GT Kodiak said:

Umm... I have a stupid question to ask.

Will any HDMI cable do or does it have to be an official Xbox one?

My 42" Plasma deserves the HD treatment methinks
Was a big step up from the 16" fuzzbox i used to use! hehe.

All HDMI leads are pretty much the same apart from lenght and 'quality'. You certainly don't need an MS one.

[mrsxllifts]

Ok, thanks. Sounds like we need to get the lead and then have a play with console settings.

Does it matter if we get one of the all singing gold cables or are they just as good as the £4 ones?

[Neil_H]

Just get the cheapest you can find, it's a digital signal so there's not a lot of point in spending loads of money.

[siko]

As a non-techy is it worth getting this for an older premium model ? I'm not sure I've even got a HDMI port (I stand to be corrected!) and I've been happily using the composite cables since day 1.

I remember reading an article a while ago that said composite was very similar to HDMI in terms of quality, and certainly looking at the feedback for the official HDMI lead on Amazon, most people have said you only need the HDMI if you want the audio support. Any thoughts?

[mrsxllifts]

Think that some of the older models didn't have a HD port in the back so it worth checking. Ours is about half inch to the right of the composite port but not sure if they are all the same.

Will post back when we have the new lead and let you know the difference.

[mrmr96]

Neil_H said:

Just get the cheapest you can find, it's a digital signal so there's not a lot of point in spending loads of money.

Some hifi fanatics will tell you differently. Basically if a "0" or a "1" is completely missed then this will mess up a small part of the picture slightly. I don't believe that it's worth spending more than say £10 per meter on HDMI cable myself.

[mrmr96]

IL_JDM said:

I use the 'red, red, white, green & blue' cables which came with the 360, does that make me a noob? TV states 1080p when playing, looks amazing.

I thought this was just as good as HDMI? Am I missing something?

That's component video. It is HD but it's analogue HD. (Remeber that HD means high definition, it's actually nothing to do with being digitial or not.) A HDMI lead is HD but it's also digital. You might notice a small improvement by moving from component to HDMI.

[mrmr96]

siko said:

As a non-techy is it worth getting this for an older premium model ? I'm not sure I've even got a HDMI port (I stand to be corrected!) and I've been happily using the composite cables since day 1.

I remember reading an article a while ago that said composite was very similar to HDMI in terms of quality, and certainly looking at the feedback for the official HDMI lead on Amazon, most people have said you only need the HDMI if you want the audio support. Any thoughts?

Do you mean composite or component?

Composite has a single yellow RCA lead for video, plus Red and White for stereo audio.
Component has three video RCA's (red, blue, green I think), plus Red and White for stereo audio.

Composite is crap.
Component is capable of HD and will indeed be similar to HDMI.

Edited by mrmr96 on Tuesday 3rd November 11:18

[Neil_H]

mrmr96 said:

Neil_H said:

Just get the cheapest you can find, it's a digital signal so there's not a lot of point in spending loads of money.

Some hifi fanatics will tell you differently. Basically if a "0" or a "1" is completely missed then this will mess up a small part of the picture slightly. I don't believe that it's worth spending more than say £10 per meter on HDMI cable myself.

Even if that were true, I would argue that any difference would be undetectable to the human eye. If you buy a cable within the HDMI spec, I can't see how it will be significantly different in quality to another cable within spec that costs 10 times more.

But we're not tedious hifi gimps, so what do we know?

[mrmr96]

Neil_H said:

mrmr96 said:

Neil_H said:

Just get the cheapest you can find, it's a digital signal so there's not a lot of point in spending loads of money.

Some hifi fanatics will tell you differently. Basically if a "0" or a "1" is completely missed then this will mess up a small part of the picture slightly. I don't believe that it's worth spending more than say £10 per meter on HDMI cable myself.

Even if that were true, I would argue that any difference would be undetectable to the human eye. If you buy a cable within the HDMI spec, I can't see how it will be significantly different in quality to another cable within spec that costs 10 times more.

But we're not tedious hifi gimps, so what do we know?

I couldn't agree more.