XBox 360 on Dell 2005FPW

[T-Stex]

Hey guys. I've got a 360 and Dell monitor, and wasn't sure what the best way to hook them up was. My intuition tells me that it's VGA, not S-Video, is that right?

[happy.buddha]

Buy the VGA cable and hook it up that way...you'll be very happy with the money that you spend on the VGA cable :D

[p0intblank]

Best Buy charges $39.99. I suggest getting one off eBay if you are looking to save some money:

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?sofocus=bs&sbrftog=1&fstype=1&from=R10&satitle=Microsoft+Xbox+360+VGA&sacat=-1%26catref%3DC6&bs=Search&sargn=-1%26saslc%3D2&sadis=200&fpos=ZIP%2FPostal&ftrt=1&ftrv=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&fsop=1&fsoo=1

[Mr. Mister]

Tell me how it works, because I'm thinking of running consoles off of it if I buy one, eventually.

[MacRumorUser]

Tell me how it works, because I'm thinking of running consoles off of it if I buy one, eventually.

The 360, The cable or the Display??

360 via VGA on 2005FPW is great, BUT and this applies to a few monitors I've tried, the colours are less clear and black is more of a dark grey.. It's fine that gamma and brightness can be set in some games like PD0, but in other's it is overly grey compared to a HDTV and component cables...

S-Video on the machine is good except of course for the interlacing which is painfully evident on a flat panel monitor compared to a CRT...

[JDOG_]

I picked up the VGA cable of craigslist for $20 and have been loving it at work. I brought my 360 in the other day (for a nice one-hour lunch) and my co-workers and I took turns on geo wars...it was quite the hit. Even my boss got a game in (although I laughed when she got a Game Over at 20k pts.)

eBay or Craigslist is the way to go for the cable, since spending $45 (after taxes) on a cable is a bit brutal...

I can't wait for MS to release a HDMI cable...mmmmmm :D

[benpatient]

the reason why the colors would be less clear and the black more gray than black is because the console isn't sending the signal at the monitor's native resolution. This means it's upsampling the signal. Every LCD i've ever run into will do this, with varying degrees of quality degredation.

One question...why do you need a special VGA cable? Does the back of the 360 not actually come with a VGA port? If so, any VGA cable (like the one that came with the dell monitor) will work.

What inputs does the dell monitor have?

[clayj]

I can't wait for MS to release a HDMI cable...mmmmmm :DLook for this to happen when the external HD DVD drive becomes available.

[benpatient]

unfortunately, the output of the current crop of 360s is analog-only...in other words, no DVI-D or HDMI output can be done by the graphics subsystems...They indicated that this would change in the future, but it's hard to see how it is going to be implimented on units that have already been produced...an adapter won't cut it (except for those 300+ dollar adapters that actually convert D to A or A to D.)

[Lord Blackadder]

I have a 2005FPW and an xBox, and it just sucks knowing that it COULD look a heck of a lot better if MS bothered to offer a DVI cable. :mad:

The component video image isn't horrible on the 2005FPW, but it's sort of a waste of a good display to hook it up to an xbox. Why they didn't rectify this immediately with the 360 is beyond me....DVI-D or HDMI is what we want.

[raggedjimmi]

So why aren't Microsoft offering a HDMI or DVI out cable? surely with the Xbox 360's port and its graphics processor that it could output a digital image?
Why would they be forcing the majority of people into analogue ouput only? Surely there's a rational explanation.

[Lord Blackadder]

Well, for one thing no other console offers it yet so there's no competition. I imagine that if the Revolution and/or PS3 offer digital out MS might react.

[Abulia]

So why aren't Microsoft offering a HDMI or DVI out cable? surely with the Xbox 360's port and its graphics processor that it could output a digital image?Actually, they don't. The video interface is analog only at this time. Strange but true. I believe Anandtech tore the 360 apart and revealed this.

However, there are pinouts or the ability to change this, so future versions could support a pure digital output.

I covered this slightly in my Xbox Review (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=164310):
Digital Out: After much research, I've learned that the 360 doesn't support video digital out via DVI or HDMI at all at this point. The A/V port converts all signals to analog. Now this isn't that huge of a concern for me at the moment as I use component inputs (analog) but this doesn't seem forward-thinking at all. Third-party vendors make a DVI cable that essentially converts analog to digital. So, at this time, a DVI or HDMI connection on a 360 gives you no better picture quality. (To be fair, there is minimal improvement over component with HDMI anyway.)

Future *versions* of the 360 may support digital video and MS may release a DVI/HDMI cable at a later date. With the PS3 bearing down and dual 1080p output, this seems extremely short-sighted by Microsoft.

[Mr. Mister]

The 360, The cable or the Display??

360 via VGA on 2005FPW is great, BUT and this applies to a few monitors I've tried, the colours are less clear and black is more of a dark grey.. It's fine that gamma and brightness can be set in some games like PD0, but in other's it is overly grey compared to a HDTV and component cables...

S-Video on the machine is good except of course for the interlacing which is painfully evident on a flat panel monitor compared to a CRT...
I meant the monitor when not using DVI... can you use the 360 with HD on it?

[raggedjimmi]

Woo! I'm learning! cheers for that Don. but another question is... how are they getting 1080i/720p without digital output? I always figured digital was sorta needed to get higher resolutions. then again VGA is analogue and that supports high resolutions...

VGA output is all I'd need on my 2005fpw I suppose. for Xbox and Revolution. hasn't the PS3 got HDMI output only?

[Mr. Mister]

In reference to the PS3, I don't think so, since it'll cost too much already without having to buy a new HDTV.

[MacRumorUser]

I meant the monitor when not using DVI... can you use the 360 with HD on it?

YEP. As it has DVI & VGA, your just using the VGA whilst your computer can use the DVI. You can select input by pressing the first button on the left...

Monitor also supports picture in picture and picture by picture...

[Abulia]

Monitor also supports picture in picture and picture by picture...Yea, but only with the S-video and composite inputs; you can't do PBP w/ DVI and VGA at the same time. :(

[Abulia]

Woo! I'm learning! cheers for that Don. but another question is... how are they getting 1080i/720p without digital output? I always figured digital was sorta needed to get higher resolutions.That's true only when discussing the scan engine, the comb filter, and other internal digital features. Component inputs -- which are analog -- can support 480i/480p/720p/1080i and have done so for years. "Digital" has become more of a selling point over the years than a necessity for picture quality.

DVI/HDMI, in my experience (I've used both on my set), offers only a minimal upgrade over component. Those standards came about, essentially, because of copyright requirements; an anti-copy scheme exsists on these interfaces to prevent the copying of the signals. HDMI is a tad more convenient to use because sound and video are bundled on one cable.

I'm a few years away from doing 1080p so I haven't researched that, but I suspect that when 1080p becomes mainstream, HDMI will already be the standard interface by that time.