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27" iMac Video Input With Xbox 360?

There is a UK and EU version available although I ended up with an EU one when I ordered from Puremac via Amazon.co.uk's Marketplace for some bizarre reason (although they did offer to change it but I can't be bothered with the hassle of shipping it back to Germany). A simple EU to UK plug adapter is all I needed (sold as a 'Visitor to UK' travel adapter) from the likes of Argos/Currys etc.

I suppose I should probably mention my experience with the adapter - It is very well packed and includes every cable you'll need (although the cables are fairly short at around 1m but a longer HDMI cable can be used if you have one). It worked flawlessly straight away and the picture is very nice indeed. Close up (ie, at normal viewing distance when you're working at your iMac) the iMac screen shows up the relatively low resolution of the Xbox 360 (ie, 720p vs the iMac's ridiculous resolution) but I sit about 1-2 metres back from the screen for comfort and the image is absolutely stunning (Brightness, colour, contrast etc). If you want to play Xbox 360 games on your iMac this is an absolutely perfect bit of kit.
The adapter also carries sound to the iMac via HDMI and this works perfectly for me as I have my sound output via Toslink Optical to a DAC/Amplifier and I didn't need to do anything specific for this to work with the Dr.Bott adapter, it just worked.

So overall, extremely pricey but very well built, all cables supplied and works an absolute treat.
 
i cant find the one made for the 27 imac on the amazon uk marketplace nato, can i buy the one for the 24 then buy a mdp cable? do both boxes do the same thing just include different cables? im trying to order one of these boxes asap and would be grateful for a reply

.mike
 
Ah, it looks like Puremac aren't selling through Amazon at the moment, I checked back at my original order and it's now showing 'currently unavailable' when I click the product.

Looking at the Dr.Bott site, it looks like the 24" one wouldn't be suitable since it's primary resolution is set to a higher resolution than what the 27" iMac will accept (ie, 1080p).

Puremac seem to have them at the moment : link

It's a bit odd that a UK supplier hasn't picked up on these, they'd have made a fortune by now...
 
MrChip said:
Just pre ordered the Kanex XD - HDMI to Mini Displayport adapter by Apogee. $166.00 US with shipping and it's not due for release until April 2010.

http://www.kanexlive.com/products/item.aspx?id=3662

Apparently this is the device to have to connect your XBOX360, Blu-Ray and or PS3 devices.

Can't wait to get it.
Click to expand...

Can I ask why you didn't just buy one of the similar products that do the exact same thing that are out now?
 
wilko251088 said:
i cant find the one made for the 27 imac on the amazon uk marketplace nato, can i buy the one for the 24 then buy a mdp cable? do both boxes do the same thing just include different cables? im trying to order one of these boxes asap and would be grateful for a reply

.mike
Click to expand...

Yes, as far as I can tell, the Dr. Bott boxes themselves are identical and the kits only differ in the cables that are supplied.
 
JAWWC said:
Can I ask why you didn't just buy one of the similar products that do the exact same thing that are out now?
Click to expand...

To be honest I really don't know. This felt like this was a safe bet for me. Where I live in the remote north with no ready access to an electronics store etc that I can return it to or get support on it. Just getting something else didn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling.

I wanted to get a converter that was designed specifically for iMac and to be used specifically for this application. Rather than order something that may or may not work as expected and to a high level of quality.

To me this item was a guarantee of what it should do so I feel safe getting it. I guess to each thier own.
 
Hello, well I'm new nice to meet you all, I don't own an imac myself (i have a macbook pro and a 30 inch ips dell monitor).. but my cousin have the new 27" imac and he want to try this out and of course he always ask me to do everything for him.. anyway.. I was reading that this converters only support 720p?

720p is really not that bad, i like it in my monitor... but my monitor have an internal card just to do all the scalling.. so the scaling in my monitor is perfect.. yes 720p to 1600p.. this monitor is really amazing..

but im pretty sure the imac DOES NOT have an scaler lol.. so 720p to use the whole 1440p imac display?... maybe my cousin will not notice.. but my eyes are very sensitive now :)... i will easily notice that expansion without scaler... and it's going to be bad bad for my eyes :)

i solution for you guys maybe is an hdmi scaler? maybe one that can give you 1440p but then again you guys will need a dvi dual link to mini displayport converter to get this resolution..

so try this guys.. 1080p ps3 or xbox output.. to hdmi converter (convert 1080p to 1440p) and then.. hdmi to dvi dualn link.. to converter of a higher resolution..

im very positive that this will work.. of course is a lot of $$$$
 
all a scaler does is enlarge the pixels to fit the screen's resolution. The imac technically scales the 720p image up to fit the massive resolution, however, upscaling like this (whether done by the monitor, an inline device, or a video card) does not add any additional information that isn't present in that 720p. ie, blowing up the 720p does not make it 1080p, seems some people in this thread might be confused about that.

the imac does have a scaler, otherwise that 720p input would only occupy a small portion of the screen space.
 
mr.thedaniel said:
all a scaler does is enlarge the pixels to fit the screen's resolution. The imac technically scales the 720p image up to fit the massive resolution, however, upscaling like this (whether done by the monitor, an inline device, or a video card) does not add any additional information that isn't present in that 720p. ie, blowing up the 720p does not make it 1080p, seems some people in this thread might be confused about that.

the imac does have a scaler, otherwise that 720p input would only occupy a small portion of the screen space.
Click to expand...

of course i know it does not add additional information.. what i mean is that some good monitors (like my dell) actually have a image processor specially designed to scale to higher resolutions... a lot of monitors for example (1200p tn monitors) do scaling of 720p to 1200p but i mean is a cheap upscaling.. it's not a processor designed specially for that..

if imac had a good scaler a lot of people would not be claiming that if they play very close they can see ugly pixels on the imac (playing 720p)... i mean.. my dell monitor can upscale 420p wii games to 1600p!!!! and i really can't see a lot of difference! yeah it's that amazing... so if you tell me 720p is looking like that if you play close for me that's not a good scaler at all.
 
ordered my drobott for 27 imac at the weekend £88 shipped to uk from - polarshop of off ebay market place. extremely happy cant wait for item to come
 
migeru29 said:
Hello, well I'm new nice to meet you all, I don't own an imac myself (i have a macbook pro and a 30 inch ips dell monitor).. but my cousin have the new 27" imac and he want to try this out and of course he always ask me to do everything for him.. anyway.. I was reading that this converters only support 720p?

720p is really not that bad, i like it in my monitor... but my monitor have an internal card just to do all the scalling.. so the scaling in my monitor is perfect.. yes 720p to 1600p.. this monitor is really amazing..

but im pretty sure the imac DOES NOT have an scaler lol.. so 720p to use the whole 1440p imac display?... maybe my cousin will not notice.. but my eyes are very sensitive now :)... i will easily notice that expansion without scaler... and it's going to be bad bad for my eyes :)

i solution for you guys maybe is an hdmi scaler? maybe one that can give you 1440p but then again you guys will need a dvi dual link to mini displayport converter to get this resolution..

so try this guys.. 1080p ps3 or xbox output.. to hdmi converter (convert 1080p to 1440p) and then.. hdmi to dvi dualn link.. to converter of a higher resolution..

im very positive that this will work.. of course is a lot of $$$$
Click to expand...

the problem is hdmi converter (convert 1080p to 1440p).
it does not exist yet.
 
Can someone sum this up for me? What do I need to plug the xbox 360 into the imac? and what about sound? Sorry, don't feel like searching through all the pages...
 
THREAD SUMMARY: the facts so far

THE FACTS of the thread: (as far as we know...correct any of my mistakes)

1. For anyone looking for the best device to connect their 360, etc to the imac, the best current option seems to be the Dr. Bott. I have one, it works great, and has the benefit of also passing audio along. (http://www.drbott.net/product/9598-DGVL/)

2. 1080p input into the 27" imacs seems to be impossible at this time, due to problems with the imac's firmware, and unless apple updates the firmware, no external device will enable resolutions of higher than 720p when using xbox's and ps3s.

3. You'll want to set your device's display settings to 720p output BEFORE plugging into the imac, otherwise you'll have problems displaying anything.
 
mr.thedaniel said:
THE FACTS of the thread: (as far as we know...correct any of my mistakes)

1. For anyone looking for the best device to connect their 360, etc to the imac, the best current option seems to be the Dr. Bott. I have one, it works great, and has the benefit of also passing audio along. (http://www.drbott.net/product/9598-DGVL/)

2. 1080p input into the 27" imacs seems to be impossible at this time, due to problems with the imac's firmware, and unless apple updates the firmware, no external device will enable resolutions of higher than 720p when using xbox's and ps3s.

3. You'll want to set your device's display settings to 720p output BEFORE plugging into the imac, otherwise you'll have problems displaying anything.
Click to expand...

According to CNET you can't really notice the difference between 720p and 1080p in small displays.. just large displays (50 and up).. so if that is true, maybe 1080p is just placebo for our eyes in a 27 inches display..

the only thing that im worry about if how good is the imac scaler... i wonder if is a good as my dell scaler.. which upscale 420p and 720p to 1600p without problem.. now upscaling 720p to 1440p is twice.. so for that you need a good scaler.. any info about imacs scalers??
 
migeru29 said:
According to CNET you can't really notice the difference between 720p and 1080p in small displays.. just large displays (50 and up).. so if that is true, maybe 1080p is just placebo for our eyes in a 27 inches display..

the only thing that im worry about if how good is the imac scaler... i wonder if is a good as my dell scaler.. which upscale 420p and 720p to 1600p without problem.. now upscaling 720p to 1440p is twice.. so for that you need a good scaler.. any info about imacs scalers??
Click to expand...

The iMac just doubles the width and height each pixel. That's it. No blurring or antialiasing, just displaying the input image with every 1 pixel mapping exactly to 4 pixels on screen. That is probably WHY it needs 720p and not 1080p. Because all it has to do is double the pixels. No scaler needed.
 
avihappy said:
The iMac just doubles the width and height each pixel. That's it. No blurring or antialiasing, just displaying the input image with every 1 pixel mapping exactly to 4 pixels on screen. That is probably WHY it needs 720p and not 1080p. Because all it has to do is double the pixels. No scaler needed.
Click to expand...

ah i see why the close up pictures that orange share with us look kind of bad.. my dell does not look like that.. cause you really need scaler not just to double everything with brute force.. i guess we can have all in 1 after all
 
migeru29 said:
are you sure? maybe not external.. but my dell have an internal scaler that can do that.. which is made by ATI
Click to expand...

Yes, I think I'm right. But there is a possibility that some company makes external scaler in the future. I'm waiting for it. I purchased AT-DP400. So if the scaler comes out, I will connect it to DP400. It should be great.
 
Again, Anyone notice any input lag? Particularly with Halo 3? Anyone know the response time of the imac 27"?
 
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