Xbox 360 Live VGA AV Cable

Reading these reviews it's clear there is alot of confusion on exactly what this cable does, how well it preforms. Many of the poor reviews are due to an understandable mess of confusion between analog and digital, HDMI, VGA, Component, resolution levels and TV set up.

I'll try to make a brief outline of exactly what this Cable can do and how well.

1. Connects Xbox 360 to a HDTV with a VGA port at resoultions up and including 1080P.

- VGA is every bit as good as HDMI, many people assume HDMI is better because it's digital it's not, as this is a brief review i won't get into that debate but a google should reveal all the info you need. Both should give better image output than component but not always for some of the reason's below.

- Technically there should be no difference in the data carried by VGA or HDMI however many HDTV are optimised for HDMI inputs and this is the important point, u may well have a VGA port on your TV but it may disable many of your HDTV's image enhancing features and limit the output resolution.

This is most often the reason some have complained of washed out colours, so u need to check your manual. An update is due in the next week or so from MS to give more flexibility to the VGA settings so this may help some users with these problems.

2. Those thinking of buying the Xbox 360 Elite for the HDMI connection. This should be obvious now but depending on how well your TV accepts a signal through VGA u may well have no need for a HDMI enabled console to get the best picture at resolutions up to and including 1080P.

3. Enables standard DVD's to be played at upscaled resolutions - in short this means your normal DVDs will look significantly better than played through a standard DVD player. i.e for the example below pal 486 to 720.

- The topic of HD resolutions can be a confusing area and would take too long to explain in a brief review, essentially though the basics are all TV's have a natural or native resuloution, i.e the number of lines it can physically display, for example a typical 32inch TV has 1360 x 768.

HD resolutions are 720 and 1080, if u like 720 is for smaller HDTV's and 1080 for larger HDTV's 4x+.

A TV with 768 max lines cannot display more than this so a 1080 signal needs to be downscaled to fit from 1080 to 768, likewise a 720 would need to be upscaled to fit a tv with 768 lines.

So again unless u have a TV with a Native resolution of 1080, and depending on how well your TV accepts a VGA signal you may not need the HDMI enabled Xbox to achieve the highest level of HD picture currently available.

This cable enables you to set your Xbox output resolution to 768 as well as many other resolutions, 768 is an exact fit for a TV with this type. Using component it would be outputting at either 720 or 1080 so when this signal reaches your TV, the TV must either preform the upscaling or downscaling as required, which is not ideal.

Your own TV may have a different native resolution than 768 but the principles are the same. And the important point is using the VGA cable your TV is recieving a signal at it's maxium output resolution and does not have to preform any upscaling or downscaling of content itself.

To most peoples eyes 1080i (interlaced - displays odd then even), 1080p(progressive - displays all lines at the same time), prob wouldn't be noticable, but to those lucky enough to have a very large TV it may have some impact. And the problem here has been that although many native 1080 TV's can display through HDMI 1080P, they cannot do it through VGA. - so again have a quick browse at your TV manual to see if it can accept a 1080P signal via VGA. For the price of this cable it's surely worth trying rather than going straight for the Elite.

4. Connects you Xbox 360 to a monitor, i'm sure this is obvious but worth stating.

- In short the cable could be for just about anyone who would like the above, there should be no difference between the data carried by HDMI or VGA so don't worry or listen to people who say HDMI is better than VGA, they don't know what they are talking about, and in some cases on some TV's component can look better than either.

- Hope this has been useful.

This item enables you to connect your xbox 360 to a pc monitor which has a high definition picture (even if its old). This cable will also save you from buting a £1000 HDTV just simply connect the cable into the back of your monitor (you will require a female to female gender changer if the socket is on a cable coming from the moniter) and the audio cables into the back of a stereo or oc speakers. For example i have a 1280x1024 moniter which means i can play my games at 720p.

I recommened this item to people who do not want to fork out over £1000 for a HDTV.

This cable does the job. It's better than the one that came with the premium 360. Colours are more vibrant and the graphics are crisp and clear. Using this cable also results in the 360 upscaling DVD's, which is nice.