HDMI vs. VGA hookups

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fanboy999

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#1 fanboy999
Member since 2003 • 1444 Posts

My Elite has both. I messed around with them for about an hour today. In the end the VGA just looked smoother and had way more vibrant colors than the HDMI. Is it the HDMI cable itself that was included? Or is the VGA cable just superior? I thought the HDMI was supposed to look way better but on my 32" Samsung LCD but it just looks grainy and overly bright. I messed around with many picture settings to try and change it. Any input?

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cbxero

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#2 cbxero
Member since 2007 • 63 Posts
I was reading about this today... I think it depends on what your TV's native output is...
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tmlim

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#3 tmlim
Member since 2004 • 566 Posts
Unfortunately the XBOX360 doesn't output in digital, so the HDMI will not work as well as it's design to do so, for digital signals. So the VGA and even component look better.
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ZimpanX

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#4 ZimpanX
Member since 2005 • 12636 Posts
Depends on your TV, HDMI generally gives you a slightly sharper picture but if you think VGA looks the best then use that. Keep in mind though they most likely require different calibration settings to look their best.
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codezer0

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#5 codezer0
Member since 2004 • 15898 Posts
It makes sense to use HDMI if you can, for the simple reason that it helps retain the picture at the quality that the console initially rendered it at. Let me put it this way: - internally, any electronic device rendering graphics to display a picture is doing so digitally within its internal circuits. - With video connections up to VGA, the signal must be passed through a RAMDAC to convert it to an analog signal, and pass it through. Now if you were hooking it up to an analog type of display (CRT, Plasma, DLP/Rear Projection, etc.), this wouldn't be any big deal as it can then take this analog signal and pass it straight out without any reconversion (except for any rescaling done to fit its resolution/aspect ratio, but that's different). With a digital type of display technology, all analog signals MUST be then reconverted to digital before it can be displayed. And while some RAMDACs are better than others, this conversion always creates some picture quality loss. And doing it twice unnecessarily isn't ideal, either. If you can use HDMI to your digital display, then there is no need to reconvert from digital to analog and back. The device (in this case, the Xbox 360) can then pass that digital straight from its internal render out to the display, and the display only need rescale it to fit if necessary. Scaling is different because it happens after any conversions are necessary, so (re)scaling usually does not affect picture quality nearly as much as the process of converting from digital to analog (and/or back again). The worst offender is with deinterlacing though, because the overwhelming majority of deinterlacers that most people actually can afford are... for lack of better wording, utter crap. The better ones are usually only seen in stand-alone video processor hardware that you hook up with your home theater equipment. And don't kid yourself, they get very, very expensive... but that is the price you pay to get the best result from any given source you hook into it. The picture quality on HDMI vs. VGA or Component video will largely depend on the video processor of the (HD)TV or monitor you hook it up to. But for what it's worth, RAMDACs are a pretty mature technology by now, and the one in the 360 will mean you're not missing a whole hell of a lot if you have to resort to component/VGA. The other advantage with HDMI is the fact that you can have your audio and video come out on a single cable, and get up to 7.1 surround sound if the game/movie support(ed)s it.
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