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[Shawn]

Picture quality means just about everything to me. It is my belief that the absolute best possible video connection should be used when playing a video game console. No "ifs", "ands", or "buts".

Back in the day, my Dreamcast was hooked up to a 19-inch CRT PC monitor through the VGA Box. And from September 9, 1999 on through to around mid-2001, I was in heaven. It's the reason why the DC is my favorite console of all time.

Blah, blah, blah... Fast-forward to the present...

I was in Gamestop the other day and I'm watching my friend play Call of Duty 2 on the Xbox 360 kiosk. The console was connected to a Samsung widescreen LCD HDTV, and the picture quality (component) looked friggen AMAZING. I honestly didn't expect a component video connection to look that good. Everything was so vibrant, sharp, and clear. White text against black background, textures, everything... Very pleasing to look at. In fact, you can put your face right up to the screen and it still looks incredible. (If I do that to my 14-inch flatscreen, extensively-calibrated, component-connected SDTV Toshiba, I can see scanlines and other visually unwanted stuff.) I shudder (in a good way) at the thought of seeing the 360 connected to a widescreen PC monitor via the VGA cable. Wow! It must look unbelieveable.

Blah, blah, blah...

PlayStation 3's HDMI-out connector has me dying to get an HDTV later this year. I'm counting on PS3's HDMI ability to bring me back to visual nirvana. I'm gonna take my time and do my research, to make sure I get an awesome display. Minimum 720p games and movies has me very excited indeed.

Anyway, I'd like to hear *your* picture quality experiences.

 

[Ghengis Cohen]

I played Resident Evil 4 on a tv I turned on with a scewdriver. The colors were pretty fucked up and sometimes the screen would go black for no reason. Kicked ass.

 

[ACH1LL3US]

Shawn, I use monster vga cables with the 360 hooked up to a Samsung 50 inch dlp ( pedestal model) native 720p with the tv set to expand, expand gives a 1:1 pixel ration meaning exact picture from 360 to dlp. Now the 360 looks insane on here, properly calibrate of course I was huge fan of dc because of vga aswell, if your picking about IQ then this is the way to go! I hated crts because of geometry and convergence issues. When i sit infront of the dlp I am amazade, no geometry issues, no convergence issues, its insane! When PS3 comes out it has hdmi, now that will digital from the PS3 to the DLP, now Samsung dlps will take the digital signal and do nothing to it, which means a exact picture from the PS3 to the tv!! I just downloaded the demo to fight night round 3 for 360 and I could believe the graphics on the dlp, its 50 inches, and I always thought smaller tvs were better because games loked better on them but NOT anymore, 50 inches is just right IMO. Any other q's? BTW I had a sony xbr 910 and it was isf calibrated and it cant match the quality of the dlp, the dlp doesn have as good blacks as crt but other wise its a no contest. I will try to take some pics this weekend of the dlp with the vga cable, the vga made a huge difference over the component cables that came with the system, much sharper and brighter!!

 

[Swat]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the difference between Component and DVI/HDMI really only show itself at very high resolutions? Ie. if you have a true 1920x1080 signal, digital will offer improvements - but even then, is "Nirvana" the right word to describe the jump?

And yes I'm a total image whore too. I think I've spent more time tuning my projector than actually watching it, so I know where you're coming from Digital Video Essentials + Avia FTW!

 

[Shawn]

Blackvette, that sounds awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing some pictures.

As far as I understand it, PS3 through HDMI to TV is an all digital link. Digital to digital to digital. There is no analog link in there anywhere. The picture should be perfect.

This place needs more picture quality whores!

 

[Version 3.0]

X360 through the VGA cable looks very, very nice. But unless you actually DO put your face right up to it (and why would you want to do that?) it looks just as good on my CRT WEGA through component, and of course it's about 4 times larger.

 

[Jive Turkey]

I played Resident Evil 4 on a tv I turned on with a scewdriver. The colors were pretty fucked up and sometimes the screen would go black for no reason. Kicked ass.

Screw you guys with your "I only play games in HD with 120 FPS on 85" or bigger" shit. Billy here is a true hardcore gamer.

 

[ACH1LL3US]

Well your right, I was amazed how great 360 looked on a 50 inch dlp! The jaggies were unnoticable on the dlp but stuck out on my 910 xbr :/ Now the thing is PS3 will have a digital output, the 360 is anologue, anythime you have converting is a bad thing IMO, same with velocity scan modulation and DNIE, those things kill the image quality big time! Now I played Call of Duty 2 on a 23 inch samsung lcd set at 720p and the jaggies were bad, so when i put it on my 50 inch dlp I expect to have my eyes gouged out, but to my surprise it looks ALOT better, no jaggies, nothing, prbably because the dlp is native 720p and is set to 1:1 ratio, image quality FTW!! Anyway , I am a IQ whore, I cant enjoy games unless its just right, and wow am I impressed with this Samsung DLP! I will again post tons of pics this weekend with digital camera, should convince some of you guys to even go get one Its all about getting display that does the least amt of converting, thats why lcds arent my fav because of the odd rez, btw did you know the only all digital displays are dlps? lcds are anologue and so are crts and plasmas. With the right source you really see dlp shine!

 

[PjotrStroganov]

Blackvette, that sounds awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing some pictures.

As far as I understand it, PS3 through HDMI to TV is an all digital link. Digital to digital to digital. There is no analog link in there anywhere. The picture should be perfect.

This place needs more picture quality whores!

In theory there should be a difference, but from what I've read there practically is no difference.


Check this article. Quite interesting read.

 

[AndoCalrissian]

I run my Cube and PS2 via S-video through the XGA box into my 21.3" Samsung Monitor. Looks great to me. I may upgrade to something that will display ED and HD in the future, but it doesn't really matter that much to me.

 

[Shin Johnpv]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the difference between Component and DVI/HDMI really only show itself at very high resolutions? Ie. if you have a true 1920x1080 signal, digital will offer improvements - but even then, is "Nirvana" the right word to describe the jump?

And yes I'm a total image whore too. I think I've spent more time tuning my projector than actually watching it, so I know where you're coming from Digital Video Essentials + Avia FTW!

really I think the only time your going to see a difference between HDMI and component is when you have interference ont he component cables (you could have it on the HDMI cables and it wouldnt have any effect because HDMI is all digital its nothing but 1s and 0s being sent down the pipe)

that's the advantage to digital connections not having any chance of signal degredation because of interference in the line or a bad switch box or something along those lines

 

[Stinkles]

HDMI image quality is only as good as the video hardware outputting it. Also, component analog HD up to 1080i looks identical to digital to almost every single human who looks at it. For some reason, HDMI cables can only run ten feet before reliability issues kick in.

HDMI is however, the best form factor for any cable in the last million years. Especially since it includes digital audio. I have ONE cable going from my receiver to my TV thanks to the magic of HDMI. And thanks to the digital nature of the signal - buying a $90 HDMI cable from Best Buy is retarded. Get a $15 one from teh internets.

 

[AZ Greg]

I have a quick HDTV question and didn't want to make a new thread so I'll ask here.

I found a widescreen 30 in TV that I'm thinking of picking up for my 360, but it says these things in the feature section:

This Widescreen HDTV Monitor features HDMI, 480p Progressive Scan, Active Control 2, EyeFidelity, 2DY/C Digital Comb Filter, Scan Velocity Modulation, and Dolby Virtual Surround.

Razor sharp images

* 1080i HDTV monitor with HDMI

The thing that worries me is the 1080i line. Does that mean the TV can only do 1080i with HDMI? Or is it just saying that the TV supports 1080i AND HDMI?

Thanks.

 

[Illuminati]

After reading this thread it just dawned on me that I could have used my MadCatz PS1 cables with S-Video with my PS2 instead of buying a second set of cables. Shit.