i was wondering..
let say my HDTV/LCD accepts both Component and VGA cable..
which has better visual quality if they run at the same resolutions?

y go VGA when u have components?

depends on the LCD/HDTV itself which connection will gives better visual quality. try both and see which one you like

YMMV..... one thing for sure VGA cable image is sharper.

coz i havent get VGA la..

i want to see got different or not if component vs VGA on the same settings on same HDTV... maybe u all tried befoe


NK84.. ur display is LCD or plasma or projector TV?

This question is actually quite technically deep. Component video and VGA are in different colour space. While it is quite well known that VGA uses RGB colour, video signal standards usually separate an image into Luminance and Chrominance components. Component video is also known as YCbCr, where Y is the Luminance or brightness information, Cb is the blue difference and Cr is the red difference. Green is inferred from the Y channel.

Now, in computer graphics, the textures and frame buffer are also stored in RGB format. When the final picture is sent to the TV it has to be encoded into YCbCr or Y-C (s-video) or YUV (composite). At the TV, the final display, no matter if it's a CRT or LCD or Plasma, is also in RGB format, so another conversion step is involved. Common sense dictates that this sort of repeated conversion results in some data loss.

In addition to this, the chrominance information is often sampled less than the luminance. This is known as 4:2:2 sampling, where for every 4 horizontal "pixels" of Luminance, there are only 2 Cr pixels and 2 Cb pixels. The SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) developed this short cut because the human eye is less sensitive to colour differences than brightness aka luminance. When colour television was developed over 30 years ago the available transmission and recording equipment were not capable of supporting the enormous bandwidth required for full resolution colour, so that's why this system was developed.

VGA was developed more recently, and by a different industry. Therefore, it doesn't have these limitations. Furthermore it helps that VGA is much closer to the "native" image format used in the console frame buffer. The only thing better than this would be an all digital transmission format such as DVI or HDMI.

At the end of the day though, this is mostly irrelevant. At normal TV viewing distances of ~10 feet, you will hardly notice such fine detail. Even at close range "PC" distances at ~3 feet, for example with an LCD monitor, the difference is subtle and you have to be really looking for it to notice the difference.

Ok guys, i think our bro there explain to technical and i think for a laymen the info is to much to understand and brother here wanted to know which is better looking. Anyways, that was a good info and effort, thanks a lot you surely put some knowledge in me. Nevertheless, these is my impression on both cables. Currently i am using VGA cable. Truthfully, the reason why is my Plasma TV has limited component slot, and its reserved for my DVD player. On top of that i dont have speakers, so connecting via amp is out of question (saving budget to get one soon).

Anyways, VGA have more resolution then component, in our case i think.. connecting your 360 with VGA is more sharper then component. It also depends on your plasma TV, but hey... im using SKYWORTH 42" Plasma TV with HDready (a budget plasma tv if you tell me) cost me MYR8999. Its worth checking out bro seriously. FOr components, i dont know about mircosoft yeah... but my handyman (electrical guy) told me that.. there is a lot range of component in the market to get the best picture quality. Hell, they even sell this some sort of a box that converts and enhance the picture quality (and its damn expansive) For your info, its been use in all the electrical shop displaying their LCD and Plasma TV so the picture is sharper and brighter... (hehehehe there's always a catch uh? hehehe)

A good component can cost to MYR2000, yeah !!! BEATS ME!!!. But seriously, take my advise and try both. I did and even if its because of my DVD player... i still prefer VGA. SO THERE IT IS>.... Go for VGA in my opinion, but make your on judgement. I hope this clarify your

anybody noticed any weird colours with the original VGA cable.. say the blue cursor in DOA4 or yellow cursor in GRAW or the colour of the blocks in hexic. those look fuzzy to me on my 17" lcd.

woar... woar..
thanks silkworm.. i'll read it my 3rd time to understand.. very noob..

hikaru.. what LCD brand u using?
could it be a factor?

using dell 17", and im using the dragon vga cable, asking whether those who bought the original had the same problem. its not a major problem, but the colour is really different when its on Tv.

i was wondering how most of u connect both ur 360 n pc to ur lcd. my viewsonic2025m has only analog n dvi. my pc is using dvi. so i'm able to connect my box to the analog slot. but how do i switch between the 2? do i need a vga box? but i'm scared about losing picture quality...

Get an xbox360 VGA cable. connect it to your 360 and ur monitor via VGA. on your monitor, there should be a button for you to change/view between DVI & VGA.

This post has been edited by squiggles: Sep 26 2006, 06:46 PM

i use the ms vga cable... will go home and check whether i see what you mentioned

ahhhhh ok. i think i get what u mean. coz there's a 1 button, up arrow, down arrow, and a 2 button. so i'm guessing when they're both connected i just switch between 1 and 2. will try it. thanks alot.