Vga Improved All Around With Update, No more 'washed out colors', and dvd's are upconverted Options

[Foe-hammer]

This was indeed a good update for those who use the 360 vga cable.

The two main inprovements are:

1) The vga image doesn't seem to be 'washed out' anymore. The colors are more saturated, darker, and vibrant. Did anyone else notice this?

2) The dvd player now upscales the movie to whatever resolution you select form the dashboard. 1080x1024 looks great. The image quality is very good. Colors are rich and vibrant, and everything is sharp. The only problem that i have is the dvd playback is too dark at my current setting for gaming. So i have to increase the brightness. My brother who uses an LCD (i use a crt) didn't have this problem, though.

[fahrenheit]

You have the same Sony G420 as me don't you? Does this now mean I can use a VGA cable? I'd given up hope.

This post has been edited by fahrenheit: Jun 8 2006, 10:15 AM

[Foe-hammer]

Yes, i have the Sony G420s and the Sony FW900.

[fahrenheit]

Good stuff

I was shocked when I first tried it with a friends VGA cable. I'd seen the washout on other monitors, but it just seemed even worse on the Sonys. Especially insulting considering I paid top dollar for top monitors.

Bye bye transcoder.

Are you using the D-15 connector or RGBHV? I'd consider doing a RGBHV mod because I could then use the cable on my TV aswell as my monitors.

[pdottz]

after the update my cables are no longer working.

only the color blue shows up.

i have my xbox hooked up to a 17" Sony Trinitron Flat (not panel) monitor.

here is a copy of the post i made on xbox.coom to see if maybe the cables went bad.

so i recently (3 days ago) bought the vga cables so my bro could run my 360 on my trinitron monitor when i watch tv.

they where working correctly. today when i turn it on, only the color blue is shown. i figured maybe it was the 360, so i unplugged the cables and plugged in the tv ones, colors and everything working fine.

so then i thought, maybe the kvm switch. plugged up the kvm switch to another pc i have and all the colors are working fine.

i'm taking the cables to a friends house later that doesnt need the gender changer (my setup needs the gender changer to make the connection). if the same thing happens there then i know it's the cables, but if it doesn't then what could the problem be? 360 or gender changer?

would the failing of one part of the video on the 360 still allow another to function correctly? (ie. no vga colors but working component?)

[Foe-hammer]

Good stuff

I was shocked when I first tried it with a friends VGA cable. I'd seen the washout on other monitors, but it just seemed even worse on the Sonys. Especially insulting considering I paid top dollar for top monitors.

Bye bye transcoder.

Are you using the D-15 connector or RGBHV? I'd consider doing a RGBHV mod because I could then use the cable on my TV aswell as my monitors.

For the G420s or FW900? The G420s has two D-15 vga hook-ups, while the FW900 has one D-15 vga and one 5BNC (RGBHV) hook-up. On the FW900 I actually use the 5BNC for the 360 by having the 360 vga cable connected to a vga to 5BNC cable. But either way (5BNC or VGA) the image quality is pretty much the same.

[fahrenheit]

Thats Interesting, I wasn't aware of that model.
I have two which are model number CPD-G420 (no mention of an 'S'). One purchased in Australia, the other in New Zealand. Each have one D-15 connector and one RGBHV (5BNC) connection like the FW900.

Glad to hear I don't have to butcher up the VGA cable.

[VinnySem]

Yesterday I picked up the MS-branded VGA cable, my Samsung HL-P5063 DLP has a VGA in, figured I'd give it a go. Connected everything up, calibrated the input using my Avia calibration disk, and all I can say is...

HOLY SHIT!!!

The color was much more vibrant, details amazing sharp. It was like I was watching the 360 for the first time all over again. During an online round of GRAW I was remarking on the quality so much I got booted from a friend's match that doesn't have an HDTV and was jealous (LOL). And the DVD upscaling quality is superior to my Samsung 850HD upscaling DVD Player, even connected via HDMI.

[redwolf]

i posted elsewhere. the unofficial VGA fix does fix the colour tones, but the brightness/gamma is still high.

DVD playback is kickass, up-scaling quality is on par with the 720p trailers downloaded from Marketplace , i didn't have any issue with the DVD playback apart form as i said, still the brightness is high.

but i guess this depends on the LCD/CRT monitors model, only wished they included a default setting function in the dash, so all game will use it. cos i play Fightnight 3 with the "vivid" setting in game option and looks the best on my TV.

[lostboyz]

I didnt notice any change but I never noticed anything bad about it so no worries

i have it on my 17" Dell LCD monitor

[djvalic]

PGR3 looks better but it seems to have a stretched widescreen effect while racing. The title screen comes up in widescreen (16x9) black borders and all but when you enter a race its not. I went to screen formatting under the Display settings and switched between the two settings (4:3 or 16x9) and noting changed. I’m running 1280x1024 on a non 16x9 LCD. That’s the only down side to the VGA cables that I have found. All around better then 1080i and I can take the 360 to work and no one will no that I am goofing off at my desk.

[fahrenheit]

That is a known issue with PGR3. It does not offer letterboxing for 4:3 displays. Blame the game developers, not the cable.

[mark_in_2k]

I'm very happy that my VGA connection now works great with my plasma TV. I had the same washed out colours that other people had before the dash update.

I've noticed that in-game text looks sharper through VGA than it did using component, and now there's no overscan (not that I never noticed it before ).

[tejesh83]

I have 2 questions:

With the VGA cable and the new update, will DVDs with a 16:9 aspect ratio play correctly on my HDTV? Currently, using the component cables, the image is letterboxed to a 4:3 ratio. I can change the option on my TV to make it stretch the image and fill in the screen, but that looks ugly since its just stretching the standard 480 resolution, and its still not the correct ratio.

Next, has anyone tried the 3rd party VGA cables for the Xbox 360?

[mark_in_2k]

I have 2 questions:

With the VGA cable and the new update, will DVDs with a 16:9 aspect ratio play correctly on my HDTV? Currently, using the component cables, the image is letterboxed to a 4:3 ratio. I can change the option on my TV to make it stretch the image and fill in the screen, but that looks ugly since its just stretching the standard 480 resolution, and its still not the correct ratio.

Next, has anyone tried the 3rd party VGA cables for the Xbox 360?

16:9 DVD's should play fine on an HDTV as long as you have the "widescreen" setting enabled in the dashboard.

I'm using a Madcatz VGA cable without any problems. I was running component before the big dash update as my colours were washed out before, but now my colours look great. I'd say it's definately sharper than the components. It's especially noticeable with text.