hd dissapointment, major

TheDoc

well i bought the hd drive in work ( argos) for 40 brick. Thought myself well chuffed i brought it home and ordered a few hd-dvds of ebay

well 300 came today loaded it up and couldnt wait to see the sexyness

and well, have to say its a load of bollox

its WORSE quality then dvd, i cannot believe it

the picture isnt crisper, nothing better looking about it.

if anything the picture in parts looks grainy, like you can visibly see the pixels

i have a 32 inch hd telly that supports 1080i and 720 p, have it on 720 p,

its a major dissapointment, think i might even ring microsoft 2moro to ask what the **** are they at?

anyone else think they can help me, am i doing something wrong

just have xbox display at 720 load disc and play, and it looks poor, id say dvd quality, no better

Doctor DooM

Have you got a hd cable?

TheDoc

hdmi? no

im using cable that came with xbox

its mad cause the games look amazing, crisp colourful and clear, but this movie, omg its woeful, more i look at it the less quality then a dvd it is

Kimbot

If you have the original cable that came with the xbox then its not HD... get a HD Composite cable or else a HDMI cable and your sorted.

Kinetic^

If your XBox 360 does not support HDMI, then get a VGA cable.

TheDoc

hold on are you telling me ive been playing my 360, not even on hd? im pretty sure i am

i have the cable that splits into two parts, one part is like yellow, red white other part is green, red, blue or the sort

the part connecting to the xbox says hdtv or tv

and its switched to hdtv, im pretty sure i am playing hd guys, dont tell me ive been a wally all this time

xbox ssetup to 720p , can display 1080i, and when i switch to 1080i the tv kinda goes funky splitting the screen into two or something

- HD AV Cable + scart adapter

thats what came in my box and ive been using for like 2 years

basically using the pro console, the connection that came with that

quinnd6

you need to have the blue green and red connected for video and the red and white for audio(blue green and red are for component which gives hd output).

If you've got them ones connected you have it set up correctly .

If you have yellow connected then you havent(because yellow is for composite).

TheDoc

nope yellow is sitting there unplugged

GrumPy

[DM]-TheDOC- wrote: »

nope yellow is sitting there unplugged

Well somethings up! Cause 300 looks fanfúckingtastic on my hdtv.


Double check your cables. What tv you using? Theres not a hope in hell it's setup proper if dvd looks better

Kimbot

Its a weird one, I only got my hd cable a week ago and I used my HD-DVD player with standard cable and when I switched last week I noticed a huge difference in the quality.
I'm using 1080i.

Ciaran500

Can we start using the proper acronyms, it'd make this thread so much easier to read.

HD Drive = hard disc drive, where you store all your files. You mean HD-DVD drive
HD Composite cable doesn't exist
HD cable means nothing. Component, HDMI or VGA are the cables capable of carrying a HD picture.
Composite = yellow video connection, worst available.

Kimbot

Ciaran500 wrote: »

Can we start using the proper acronyms, it'd make this thread so much easier to read.

HD Drive = hard disc drive, where you store all your files. You mean HD-DVD drive
HD Composite cable doesn't exist
HD cable means nothing. Component, HDMI or VGA are the cables capable of carrying a HD picture.
Composite = yellow video connection, worst available.

Sorry I meant HD-Component cable....

TheDoc

i copied that term from the xbox.com website content packages

i have an acoustic solutions 26" that i got from argos, and ebfore anyone goes ranting about " thats a **** telly" i read tons of reviews beforehand that said it was a sterling telly for a 360, hence why i got it.

again cable im using is the one that came with my pro console package.

it connects into the corresponding ports on the telly.

i ran the xbox at 1080i and 720p to no difference

maybe it is hd and i was expecting so much, but it doesnt look great, at all, tbh looks like a pirate copy of good quality

im assuming i have hd component cable?

NunianVonFuch

Here's the component:
http://images.google.ie/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=xbox+component+cable&btnG=Search+Images

Don't have the HD-DVD, but running 720p wmv files through the Xbox is definitely much clearer than the standard def. Try playing some sample files available here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx

If you can connect your xbox to a laptop or load content via usb (or even DVD/CD) just plop one of the 720p (or 1080) files on there and load it up.

TheDoc

ha da look at some demos, looks like dvd, n noticable difference tbh

Kinetic^

If you've been playing your 360 with HD for the past while then it's either the HD-DVD drive or the actual HD-DVD that's faulty.

TheDoc

hmm well its my first hd drive i think ill just wait for my others to arrive in post and check em out to see what is at fault.

but then when i played those hd trailers, they didnt look hd on the xbox

im assuming there should be a big differene ive watched bluray and hd before and seen it, i just think the 300 hd-dvd and the trailers ive downloaded seem very dvd like quality.

the 300 dvd is a dvd/hd-dvd combo, and before you ask yes im playing it right side up.

lafors

[DM]-TheDOC- wrote: »

hmm well its my first hd drive i think ill just wait for my others to arrive in post and check em out to see what is at fault.

but then when i played those hd trailers, they didnt look hd on the xbox

im assuming there should be a big differene ive watched bluray and hd before and seen it, i just think the 300 hd-dvd and the trailers ive downloaded seem very dvd like quality.

the 300 dvd is a dvd/hd-dvd combo, and before you ask yes im playing it right side up.

Note to self read posts first

Doc, would you be able to take a few photos of your connections, on both sides (xbox & tv)
a few of the video setings of the 360 video options & and some of the tv's video settings.

BTW you said there was no difference between when you have it 720p or 1080i, there won't be.

It could be the TV settings, I've a bravia and it took me ages to get the settings right, and settings can make a huge difference to the picture quality.

Royale with Cheese

Haven't played a hd-dvd, but downloaded the hd version of 300. It didn't look any better than dvd. HD's mostly a load of bollix imo, that people get sucked in to way too easily. It improves the menus the most.

It's useful for gaming, but not the neccesity some people make it out to be. I've seen sky HD and it doesn't look much better than digital through a crt. The only reason you'd need it is cos lcd's can't do sd very well. Just look at ntl digital through any lcd. Looks sh*te.

lafors

Doc read this thread on avforums.
It seems there is 2 versions of that TV the "dual" and the "as" (or ac os something like that).
Loads say the dual not good, the other is better.

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=674930&highlight=acoustic+solutions+26%26quot%3B%26quot%3B

the corpo

also, 300 is the wrong film to test it with. there were a lot of negative reviews that that particular film suffered in HD, as the deliberate 'grain' effect is hugely exaggerated in HD and does look pretty poor.

TheDoc

thanks lafors. Well i read through those posts myself through google, and i have a slightly older model, but at the time i read reviews and it was agreed to be a great bargain telly that performs well.

i noticed o nthe back of the 300 box that it says 1080p, my tell doesnt have that, says nothing about 720p, could that be it?

but then again the hd videos i downloaded, the samples, dont look hd either.

i have some more movis in the post ill try them out, just majorly dissapointed with it

ill get some pics up of my tv, connections etc and see what you guys can figure out from that, thanks for the help

also the tv doesnt have any settings to really change picture quality, if fiddled everything and nothing.

TV is definatly HD, and ive definatly being playng HD xbox gaming now for some time.

dave oc

Danny, 300 is the up there with the worst hd dvds i have. Its always grainy and is only good in some scenes, its supposed to be like that. Trust me when you see any most other hd dvd's you wont be disappointed.

TheDoc

a davey baby, was gna give youa ring last night and start crying.

well ive enter the dragon coming today i think, hopefully its aright

still confused why the hd trialers downlaoded dont work at all either

sure ill just have to wait for the others to arrive

davey where do you buy your hd dvds? hmv is a rip man, you know any good little places for cheap?

cheers man

johnnyflav

[DM]-TheDOC- wrote: »

davey where do you buy your hd dvds? hmv is a rip man, you know any good little places for cheap?

cheers man

dvd crave, an aussie site is very cheap for HD DVD's. delivery is cheap but takes about 2-3 weeks, which I think is alright since you're paying less than a tenner a disc

johnnyflav

This site has saved me a fortune for HD DVD's(you could say it cost me a fortune too), only thing is you've gotta be quick with buying cos all the best offers sell out fairly quickly.

dave oc

I got all mine from amazon usa. I signed up with them a year or more ago when they were offering 10% off all hd dvds. Delivery was fairly slow, but it worked out pretty cheap with the exchange rate. There might be cheaper around now with all hd dvd stuff going for nothing these days....

D3UC3 J3

In my experience DOC you can't do the HD-DVD player or the HD-DVDs any justice on anything that's less than a 37" LCD TV.

It's just because the native resolution of TV's lower than that size don't have enough pixels and also both the xbox 360 and LCD tv will scale (increase or decrease the source video) the crap out of the image and make it look pants.

If you don't have at least 1280×1024 on your VDU (Monitor or LCD TV) then you shouldn't bother with HD DVD cos as you've found out it makes you feel hard done by.

If you don't know what i mean about native resolution or 1280x1024, think of taking the image on your PC screen and stretching it up to the size of your TV.

Thats basically what your trying to do with the HD-DVD player.

Don't get me wrong i'm not knocking your TV by any amount. It's just you need proper bank to get the best out of your Xbox 360 image quality wise when you use it with a HD TV and MS don't tell people that.

Ciaran500 wrote: »

Can we start using the proper acronyms, it'd make this thread so much easier to read.

HD Drive = hard disc drive, where you store all your files. You mean HD-DVD drive
HD Composite cable doesn't exist
HD cable means nothing. Component, HDMI or VGA are the cables capable of carrying a HD picture.
Composite = yellow video connection, worst available.

ZOMG your havin' a giraffe...not everyone can be an expert

Apologies in advance though, i'm not trying to TTP...just LOL'd heartily.

FuzzyWuzzyWazza

HD TV resolutions are 1280 x 720 (720p) or 1920 x 1080 (1080p), if your tv res. ends in 7XX the you can display 720p and 1080i, anything over 1080 and you can display 1080p.

so at 1280x1024 you can watch 720p or 1080i, there is pretty much no differance between this and 1080p on any screen smaller than 37'

Ciaran500

D3UC3 J3 wrote: »

It's just because the native resolution of TV's lower than that size don't have enough pixels and also both the xbox 360 and LCD tv will scale (increase or decrease the source video) the crap out of the image and make it look pants.

The native resolution of my 100" projector, 26" TV and my friends 42" TV are all 720p. They all have exactly the same amount of pixels...

D3UC3 J3

720p isn't a native resolution. 1366x768 is a native resolution.

Your 26" has the same resolution as your 100" projector...so you've stretched the image 4 times more for the same pixels???

Anyway i said 37"+ or bust...i probably should have qulified it and said 37" is where true HD comes in and HD DVD is useless without it.