Reason I ask is because my friend just bought a nice HDTV, I set up my xbox for HD with 1080i, and WOW, I was amazed how beautiful and slick it looked (PM3)... It was a whole new experience, I was able to clearly read fonts, album covers, folder icons, etc...

I'm curious if anyone out there is in my shoes, using xbmc without an HDTV

Isn't this poll the same thing? http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=497471

Slightly different... That pole is for people that already have an HD and what they use it at

This pole is for who use a HD and who does not.

Didn't see that poll before, but yes I can see why it might be samiliar :/

Eh, I have an HDTV, but I don't run XBMC in HD. I guess it might be worth it...

Small technical note, which should have been implemented in the poll or in the start post:

720p and 1080i are 'hd', 480p is not.

I got xbox hd av pack and connected to my tv using rgbcomponent cables, but its bit too dark for some reason... Im using a 42" Plasma but although the box said HD Ready I think its the low end spec. Any tips?

DaSingh, I'm not sure if you've already does this, but this is what I did to get my xbox working on my friends HD

1. Connected the cables of course
2. Went to Xbox Dash, enabled 720p/1080i
3. Went to XBMC, enabled 720p (or 1080i if you prefer)
4. Recalibrate the screen in xbmc
5. Change the TV Settings a bit, to bring out the brightness from what it was set at (Would be in the TV Menu Settings)

That was it.. took less then 5 minutes

If you've done this, then ya, I have no idea what to tell ya sorry

Yeh tried this, but my tv has two display channels, YPbPr and YCbCr.

Problem im having is when on YCbCr the highest I can run XBMC is NTSC 16:9 if I change to 480p the screen kinda splits in two and picture is really shaking, same sort of thing when you select to high of a resolution on a pc monitor.

Then if switch over to YCbCr, it displays fine but its dark and doesnt look as crisp. I tried using the video upscaling and it works fine but for some reason it just dont look right compared to XBMC running at normal NTSC 16:9 YCbCr.

Could it just be the TV is very low end spec or am I doing something wrong, I didnt expect amazing results seeing as I only paid £530 for a Brand New 42" Plasma but I still want to be able to setup for optimal display.

this poll should have been who uses it in : Standard , 480p, 720p, 1080i ....

There already is a poll about what HD resolution you use... This one is different...

This poll is only to find out, who uses xbmc in High Definition. The other poll is for specifically the people who use xbmc in HD... This is for everyone who uses xbmc

Interesting results, didn't know so little people never have seen xbmc in HD... crazyness!

I tried xbmc in 1080i at a friends place this weekend. boy was the PM3 anims sluggish! it wasnt fun at all to use. 720p on the other hand is GLORIOUS

just got a sharp aquos 42" lcd, so i'll be running HD shortly. voted yes, but cant wait. lol

im jelus mike! I ran 1080i at my friends and it looked awesome, choppy yea, but it looked soo sharp, fonts were clear... hopefully ill get a HDTV soon ull have to take pics and show us here

720p all the way! lol it's all i can do for now hehe.

you need to add an "I Wish" option

Well, that poll has an option for not HD as well.
480i is not HD.

all you have to do is add up the HD / not HD resolutions and get who uses it in HD and who doesn't.

So technically these polls are the same...

Anyway, yes, I use XBMC in HD.
720p with an X2VGA2

ahhh I didn't knwo that about 480 hehe, thx edwinmcdunlap

im jelus of ur hd

Run it in 720P via component cables (37" LCD). Looks great

Ive been running 720p in xbmc and having the videos upscale to 1080i. Couple notes:

1. 1080i in xbmc menu's looks amazing. Indeed it is choppy with xbmc skin animations.

2. Looks pretty damn good in 720p also.

3. I cannot run 1080i and have the videos upscale to 1080i at the same time. Videos don't even start. Likely a memory issue.

4. The xbmc upscaling is pretty good, its gotta be among the top ive seen hardware or otherwise.

---------------

Other than that here are some screenshots:

http://antihero.com/xbox/XBMC-Screenshots/

Most of the 1080i video screen shots have the overlay that shows the video's original resolution. Most are far below the 1080 HD spec of 1920x1080...they are in the range of 624x352....

I have to say that xbmc (and my tv doing dot-by-dot) do a pretty good job with upscaling those smaller resolution videos. Mind you some of the blurriness you may see comes from me trying to pause it at a low movement part of the video....had varying success with that hehe...

Eitherway doesn't look bad at all upscaled 1080i on a 42" lcd at about 5-8' away. In fact to be quite honest, I thought I was gonna have to build a computer that could do x264 to keep up with my new lcd, but it doesn't seem like i'll be needing to do that any time soon...

Has anyone else had the problem of the screen output being too dark when using HD AV Pack? I cant seem to fix this probelm, this is the only thing stopping me from using XBMC in HD... What are you guys using?

I have one of these

from ebay not official... Am I better off getting the monster cables and do you know where I can get them in UK?

Not too sure about your problem...but I can shed some light on what works for me.

I have one of those xbox/xbox360/ps2 all-in-one cables. Has the component cable built right in. Certainly nothing special or high quality, and it works great. I think it was $15USD.

<cable rant>
I learned a lot about component and hdmi cables when I was researching my tv purchase. Im no expert, but I can tell you that most cables in the A/V world are complete ripoffs, including the monster cables. Not saying they are bad cables...but they cost too damn much.

For other component devices ive been using cables made by Philips. In fact I have a 6' cable that looks a lot like this one, that cost me $12USD at Walmart:



Be particularly careful of getting ripped off with HDMI cables...a 6' hdmi cable should cost more than $35USD. Some Monster cables go for $100+ USD, which is ridiculous since its a digital signal...anyways good luck on finding something in the UK... </cable rant>

I have a standard def TV, but I've plugged it in with my component cables on a 1080i TV, and it looks awesome

No. I use 480p.

2 out of my Xboxes are hooked up to HDTV's (the 3rd is a server, and it's not even hooked up to a TV). 1080i is slow, and choppy. I tried 720p and I didn't like it either. 480p is where it's at.

What can you do to put it in HD mode if you can't access the xbox dash anymore?

Mine is modded with an Xecuter2.1b chip and booting by default XBMC.

I tried already to restore the C: with the orginal dash from an autoinstaller DVD but there nothing I can do, it won't boot an original dash :s

Should I buy a new box and mod it differently? I can always use my current one on another tv

Good question, I'm not sure what you can do... i always have my xbox C:\ Files/Folders on my PC just in case, so thats how i recover...

I'm sure you can find something at the usual places?

if im not mistaken you can use UnleashX to enable the HD modes as well .. i've never used it but thats what i've read .. if that is true tho than how come XBMC can't do it ? ..

I use 1080i. I have had no problems at all....

@ LordPhantom: U can change the resolution in the chips bios...I think! Remember to if u r on PAL u need to change to the other formats to get HD resolution.

And back in the day I used Avalaunch to change the resolution. Just because XBMC can't do it, doesn't mean other dashboards can't, otherwise even the original xbox dashboard would not work as well. It's just different functionality implemented!

I never put 2 and 2 together about that. I run 1080i both in GUI and video, but it is really picky on the Video files and size that I stream. I thought it was an issue with Nero Digital, because Xvid AVI's typically have no issue.

I have a new 1080p set, it loves the Xboxes 1080i signal. But I noticed I started running into heat issues because we are using the Xbox more with the new TV.

For me just about any xvid is a no go(while 1080i/1080i), although its over smb so that may have some overhead also. So I run the gui at 720p and upscale to 1080i. Although I may start to use 720p for video playing also...it seems that I get about the same results. My lcd does all the work and brings it to its native resolution anyways. We'll see...looks great regardless.

Yeah, it looks great, but when in 1080i, it freezes up on me alot and the rss feeds seem very very slooooww!It also seems like it takes longer to move around in the menus and to stream movies, pics, and songs.

I say this cause, I have another xbox that is just hooked up via composite cables and thus 480i and it flys thru the menus and also when streaming stuff from my pc.

Anyone else or am I just retarded?

I use 720p all the time

most videos I play are 960x544

the 1280x720 most of the time unless it is under 2mbps

the problem isn't with your xbox or your HD A/V pack -- it's the TV. Most digital TVs have different picture settings not only for each input but for each resolution also. You need to just hook up your xbox using whatever input will let you run at 720p (which is what you should run on a fixed-pixel display), set the MS dash and XBMC to 720p, then pop in a calibration DVD like Avia or DVE to set the brightness/contrast etc.

Also, your TV is using YPbPr and YCbCr to differentiate between a component video input that is 480i only (the one that shows a split screen), and one that does 480i/480p/720p/1080i. This isn't techincally correct, but some manufacturers do it anyway

Yes - this is true. This is what I had to do in order to enable 720p on mine (I also tried 1080i but the system was very slow in that mode). For some reason, when going into the "Settings" portion via my MS Dash, the system would just hang. I then went into UnleashX's settings and enabled 720p there to see if that would work. XBMC picked it up and I was able to run XBMC in HD. I thought I was screwed at first but now I have XBMC in HD on my Sony 60" HDTV. Gorgeous!

Cheers.

Well, if everyone says that XBMC HD looks so much better, I will have to try it out - good poll. I will probably use it in 720p but have heard that 128MB RAM makes 1080i run smoother than from what most has described in this thread. Anyone tried this with 128MB RAM?

Yea I was shocked how good things looked in HD (Comparing to using xbmc for a couple years on some crap 30/40 inch regular tv)...

Hence why I created this poll to see how many people were in my shoes, not knowing how HD looks! Suprised with the results though, there's a big portion who have never seen xbmc in HD, I'm sure there are a lot more then that too, that have paid to get their boxes modded, without knowing you can set it in HD...

Anyway, not sure about the 128mb of ram thing, I always thought it doesn't matter, could be wrong

I have never ran it in HD on an xbox. But I have ran it at 720p and 1080i on my computer and it looks amazing

I'm a little bit confused here... I run my xbmc in 1080i and the thing runs smooth as anything... hasn't refused to play any videos at 1080i either. What is this choppyness that everyone is reporting (I even had to go and double check it to make sure)? The only choppiness I can see is slowdown of the newsfeed when the tabs picture fades to another one and it is usefull to allow you to catch up reading the fast newsfeed.

Strange thing is that my plasma TV is reporting that my 1080i feed is actually displaying in 1125i. It's a UK Pioneed PDP435XDE if that's any help. Oh and the component feed from the xbox goes into a Denon AVR-3805 home cinema amp.

Perhaps something along the way is stabilising the picture maybe? I do know I used to use a Pinnacle Showcenter and it cost around four times the price of the xbox but is total poo compared to xbmc. In fact I bought another two xbox's recently (Argos in the uk were selling them for £50 each brand new)... one for my bedroom and one as a present for my sister.

I'll get a 360 when the clever chappies find out a way to run unsigned code on it so I can have my xbmc on that in HD too... Maybe they will have released the HDMI version of the 360 so it will be even sweeter.

looked great in widescreen/HDTV (720P)

Love my XBMC in 720P HD.

XBMC looks amazing on my 37" LCD in 720p.

Never seen it on an actual HDTV, though XBMC-PC gives me an idea at how well skins will look at a higher resolution. PMIII looks fantastic.

Hi guys (and mayabe a few gals?).. I have just got a quick question.. maybe a simple answer??.. but spent maybe 4 hours so far mucking around and cannot get 720p to run on XBMC..So annoying!!!!

I have a PAL Xbox.. I just got a HD component connector.. xbox recognise I have a HD connection.. In my MS Dashboard I do not have an option to select 720p 1080i etc etc?? Go to my installed dash Unleash X, enable 720, 1080 etc.. go to XBMC, current build.. options under video for 720 etc are greyed out? go back to my older XBMC build.. 2 months old.. can select 720 etc, enable all.. go to info section and it still says running at 720 x 576 PAL.. Tried to change to NTSC.. I reboot and it goes back to PAL!!

What am I doing wrong?? Any help apperciated..

I though this would be simple.. Also once I do have it runnign how do I change between 720p and 1080i??

Thanks everyone..

Ok after a few more hours tinkering.. spent way too much time on this... I worked out what I was doing wrong.. needed to convert PAL to NTSC.. I sued Video Switcher Enigma software (modder put it on when he modded it).. Go to Unleash dashboard change to NTSc then go to Enigma.. change to NTSC the press and hold L, R and black button.. this changes to NTSC and valla!!! it all works.. looks great.. font is abit small but will play with that..

Thanks

Cheers

See helpful link:
http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/mixed-pal-disk.php

If only I could afford an HD screen. Then I surely would. My old thomson 32" is looking tired and fuzzy. Hwo do you guys all afford the screens? Maybe it's having kids and maintenance to pay, plus a huge mortgage that does me in!

Dan

I've been using XBMC in 1080i for a long time. I just recently (earlier this year) started relying on it for DVD playback and am overall impressed with it's upscaling. Last week while watching a new purchase (U2's Popmart concert DVD) I was forced to display in 480p as the video perpetually lagged behind the audio. I'm not exactly sure why, but it's probably just my XBOX showing it's age or perhaps it's something to do with piracy protection and software playback. I still watch all my video files at 1080i without a hitch, and the Simpsons couldn't be brighter.

Yup, I have a Samsung LE 32 R 71 B 32-Zoll/ 82 cm 16:9 "HD ready" LCD-TV and it looks amazing! Very sharp and clear, almost no slowdown. :-)


Because I don't want to start a new topic, I hope someone read this here and can help. 3 questions:

- How can I play a normal SVCD? If I insert it into the DVD drive XBMC doesn't recognize it. It says the drive is empty.

- I would like to use XBMC as main dashboard. Are there any disadvanteges in comparison with UnleashX except of the slower ftp transfer? Also, How can I add new Menu items (I would like to start Emulators from the menu) and how to let music play automatically in the menu?

- Similar problems with ISO file on DVD. I can't read it in XBMC but over SMB share from my computer no problem. Somehow I guess now I have to patch my DVD drive or something? And no DVD menu navigation?


Thanks for your help.

I use xbmc in 1080i and it's not slow and it plays all my videos swimmingly.

I've been thinking of getting one of these from ebay but it says that movie play back is in 480i only.
As i have just got a new hd telly I'd love to get it playing in high def.
Would one of these be the right choice?

Any help? I found out: "Most Xbox DVD-ROM dives are Thomson or Philips which cannot read CD-R media." I have a thomson drive.

should be: "How rich are you?"

bit dull that this thread is always top of the board