DVD upscaling.

Dman001

I bought a VGA cable for the 360 to use the 360 as a DVD upscaler but the quality was awful. I tried different resolution but it was still bad, the picture looked very washed out. It would look better through component then through VGA. I'm using cheap GameWare cables so was wondering could this be the problem?

johnny_ultimate

Could be the cable. Using the official VGA myself and upscales very well indeed, up to 1080i. Definitely a huge improvement over the component on the same TV and settings.

Dman001

It must be the cable so then because it isn't better than component. Would you notice much difference playing a DVD through the 360 compared to a normal DVD player?

thebman

Yeah normal DVD players use Scart which is crap compared to VGA upscaled.

I have a bluray player in my laptop and have to say that although the Bluray is better than the 360 at playing DVD's (as you'd expect), you could easily live with the upscaling and be happy.

It is very good quality if you are using a 32" HDTV like mine. It would make more of a difference if you had a 60" TV as then you'd probably need Bluray.

--edit---

Actually I got an elite and am now using HDMI so I'm not using my VGA cable anymore. If you want, I can have a look for it if your willing to collect. I'm not sure I want the hassle of sending it in the post.

Its 38 euro on Komplett so I'd sell it to you for 20 euro if you want. Mine is the official 360 one. If you find it cheaper somewhere else, give me a link and I'll see if I can reduce the price. As long as your willing to collect, I can probably match anywhere else since its just taking up space for me.

Dman001

Cheers for all of that. I'll have a think about the VGA cable brim4brim.

rejkin

Its definitely the gameware cable thats the reason, I got that and it looked terrible then changed it for the official xbox one and it looks excellent,all my dvds look really sharply defined,def get the xbox vga cable. theres a huge difference between vga and compnent with the xbox version one

Dman001

Thanks. That's the last time I buy GameWare cables.

mcgovern

It could also be your TV, some TVs don't handle VGA as well as they do component.

thebman

Actually now that we are on the topic of gameware cables, I got a Wii component one and it broke after only a week or two use with weird lines appearing across the screen.

I think this is a definite eye opener. Don't buy game branded cables. They are obviously crap if nobody has a good experience with them.

Dman001

mcgovern wrote: »

It could also be your TV, some TVs don't handle VGA as well as they do component.

Well I connected the MacBook to the TV through VGA and it looked okay. In fact, I played a DVD using the Mac and it looked great.

rejkin

fair enough about the mac looking good but i still go by it being the gameware cable

Dman001

rejkin wrote: »

fair enough about the mac looking good but i still go by it being the gameware cable

I have put it down to the GW cables. I was just saying that the MB looked great through VGA so it couldn't be my TV.

-TK^Creator

is HDMI cable better quality than vga for upscaling dvds?

Mr Freeze

does the 360 upscale through component leads too?

rejkin

HDMI does upscale but i havent seen it myself so i dont know if its better or the same, component only upscales it to 500 or something like that,vga can upscale t all the way to 720,well thats what it says on the box but i have heard of it going up to 1080i

thebman

-TK^Creator wrote: »

is HDMI cable better quality than vga for upscaling dvds?

I'd say no but others might argue otherwise. If there is a difference, its fook all and probably more down to the quality of inputs on your tv or the cable your using.

rejkin wrote: »

HDMI does upscale but i havent seen it myself so i dont know if its better or the same, component only upscales it to 500 or something like that,vga can upscale t all the way to 720,well thats what it says on the box but i have heard of it going up to 1080i

HDMI/VGA both upscale to 720P/1080i. 1080i and 720P basically require the same amount of work to keep it in English. 720P is progressive scan and 1080i is interlaced. This means 720P draws every line on every pass, where as 1080i draws half the lines on one pass and half the lines on the next pass and tries to do it so quick your eyes won't notice. If given the option of 720P or 1080i, most people who know the difference will choose 720P.

Component doesn't upscale. It outputs at 480P or 576P (I think) which is the resolution of DVD's. Your current scart DVD player (most likely) outputs at 480i and probably has a little interference for good measure which is why it looks so crap and why if you use component cables, you'll see a difference but your only getting what DVD's are actually capable of where as up to now, you've been putting up with scart quality because of the handiness of it being one cable as opposed to the 5 or 6 that Component cables have and the issue that European TV makers gave you the choice of scart or AV inputs when you got your tv and didn't bother putting component on it so you were never given the option of using component and getting what DVD's have always been capable of.