Microsoft prepping component to HDMI adapter?

[Zimix]

Friendly tipster Evan M wasn't too stoked to see an Xbox 360 Elite headed for store shelves after he'd just purchased a Premium 360, especially considering the fact that his TV has a whole HDMI port twiddling its thumbs, just waiting to get its game on. After informing Microsoft of his displeasure through what we're sure was a politely worded email, Evan claims to have received a slightly encouraging response from a Microsoft support person, promising an upcoming HDMI to component adapter for the 'box to make his situation perhaps a bit more bearable. Unfortunately, the support person also mentioned that "we do not have information as of the moment if the cable will be sold separately,".

http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EEZVElAEukCRRJJWmQ.php

[Hetz]

I would LOVE it if that was true....but the chances of that happening are very slim. Most of those kind of adapters are not very reliable in the first place and kind of in a grey area of legality. I seriously doubt MS will want to piss off Hollywood with this, especially with them trying to get on their good side with the Live Marketplace.

[ATB]

Myabe i just have been abilities, but I've not been super impressed with HDMI.

I have and HDMI based upconvert DVD player and it's more glitchy (sometimes I have to reselect the source a couple of times to get the picture right) than any upgrade in picture quality offsets.

Also, every time I play a movie i get an hdmi audio not supported message. Does that mean my tv doesn't support the audio even though it has a jack?

Finally, if I put the same movie in my 360 and watch it, it looks better than in the HDMI based up convert DVD player. What gives.

In short, I don't really care at all about HDMI.

[denoginizer]

The support person may have been referring to the HDMI to RCA/Toslink audio cable that is included in the 360 Elite.  Which would be of no help for what that person was asking for.

[Andrew Mallon]

Finally, if I put the same movie in my 360 and watch it, it looks better than in the HDMI based up convert DVD player. What gives.

You're saying DVDs look better on the 360? That must be one crappy DVD player.


EDIT: It's you're not your

[hepcat]

Finally, if I put the same movie in my 360 and watch it, it looks better than in the HDMI based up convert DVD player. What gives.

Your saying DVDs look better on the 360? That must be one crappy DVD player.

if he's using VGA for his 360, it's upconverting.  and if it's upconverting, then having a triple core cpu backing that conversion process up would best many dvd players in quality, i would think.

however, if he's talking over component where he's only getting 480p at most, i don't understand either.

[Jancelot]

I didn't think this was possible anyway.  The signal is analog or something, no?  Plugging an HDMI "conversion" cable would not magically make the port a digital output.  It would just allow you to stream the analog signal in to a digital port.  I suppose the benefits are that it would enable 1080p and upconversion.  Am I completely off on "facts" here?

[papasmurff]

This is interesting because it isn't like the VGA cable plugs into a different connection on the 360 than the componant cable.

[Andrew Mallon]

Unfortunately, the support person also mentioned that "we do not have information as of the moment if the cable will be sold separately,".

I just read that quote more carefully. It sounds like the rep thinks that the standard HDMI cable included with the 360 Elite will work with any 360 (which is clearly not the case).

[Kevin Grey]

I didn't think this was possible anyway.  The signal is analog or something, no?  Plugging an HDMI "conversion" cable would not magically make the port a digital output.  It would just allow you to stream the analog signal in to a digital port.  I suppose the benefits are that it would enable 1080p and upconversion.  Am I completely off on "facts" here?

They still wouldn't allow upconversion even if this cable existed.  Upconversion over analog = big no no to movie studios. 

[KePoW]

I didn't think this was possible anyway.  The signal is analog or something, no?  Plugging an HDMI "conversion" cable would not magically make the port a digital output.  It would just allow you to stream the analog signal in to a digital port.  I suppose the benefits are that it would enable 1080p and upconversion.  Am I completely off on "facts" here?

They still wouldn't allow upconversion even if this cable existed.  Upconversion over analog = big no no to movie studios. 

as far as I know, VGA is and always has been an analog type of signal

[Brendan]

They allow it over VGA because (erroneously, of course) they believe it to be limited to computers rather than televisions.

[KePoW]

They allow it over VGA because (erroneously, of course) they believe it to be limited to computers rather than televisions.

lol, that's pretty stupid then.  I got my big-screen DLP HDTV like 3 to 3.5 years ago, and even it has a VGA input

they should have just done conversion over component in that case

[Graham]

While this could be accurate, I think that we'd have a better chance of an HDMI connector that plugs directly into the Xbox 360 port.  That way you don't have to worry about plugging your component cables and audio outputs to some kind of converter.  Besides, that's what they do already.  They could make something that plugs into the back of the Xbox 360 and has an HDMI connection on the other end.  This would be a more plausible solution to me.

[Brendan]

They allow it over VGA because (erroneously, of course) they believe it to be limited to computers rather than televisions.

lol, that's pretty stupid then.  I got my big-screen DLP HDTV like 3 to 3.5 years ago, and even it has a VGA input

they should have just done conversion over component in that case

I believe it's the AACS license that forces them to restrict it - but AACS licensing does restrict them to restrict it over component.  It's a loophole in the legalese that one can avoid inflicting ICT through VGA.

[Ridah]

I believe it's the AACS license that forces them to restrict it - but AACS licensing does restrict them to restrict it over component.  It's a loophole in the legalese that one can avoid inflicting ICT through VGA.

What in the hell did you just say? Were you just talking about my mother?

[Calvin]

They allow it over VGA because (erroneously, of course) they believe it to be limited to computers rather than televisions.

If this is true (and of course I assume it is), can you tell me why when I watch DVDs on my 21in WS monitor with my vga cable they not only do not appear upscaled at all, they are washed out, grainy, and just awful looking? SHould I enable a setting? I dont do it too often, but I am curious if I could make it look better.

[Brendan]

I believe it's the AACS license that forces them to restrict it - but AACS licensing does restrict them to restrict it over component.  It's a loophole in the legalese that one can avoid inflicting ICT through VGA.

What in the hell did you just say? Were you just talking about my mother?

My only defense is that I was thinking about something else (anything else!) while typing.

What I should've said was:

"In order to allow it over VGA, they're using a loophole in the AACS licensing.  They wouldn't be able to get AACS certified if they allowed it over component."