Hi,

In relation to my earlier post about accessories and region protection, this is what i was actually thinking about.

Is it worth getting the VGA cable to upscale dvds on my 720p plasma display?

How good is the upscaling compared to standalone HDMI-upscaling dvd player like Oppo which everyone seems to swear by these days?

here are the pros and cons i can think of so far.

Pros

1. If it does work as advertised, dvds would look super awesome on my display. I have a old JVC dvd player which i got for free and The Island looked Ok on my display, i guess, but nowhere near compared to xvid files at 650 x 325 when played on the 360. So, i'm assuming the dvds would look just as nice if not better at 720 x 480.

2. Finally be able to taste DD 5.1 and more importantly DTS in all its glory.

Cons

1. What am i gonna do with the component cable that came wit my premium? they're working just fine and since my display is only 720p/1080i i couldn't care less about 1080p which the VGA cable offers.

2. Using VGA cable also means that i will be losing 6 column of pixels from my display, 3 on the left and 3 on the right, seeing as how my plasma has a native resolution of 1366 x 768 and for some dumb reason, VGA only allows a PC resolution of 1360 x 768.

3. My 720p video files will be upscaled from 1280 x 720 to 1360 x 768 instead of playing as is at 720p over my component cable. Though, it is safe to say that any quality degradation would be hardly noticeable but i just find the idea of doing 720p at 768p annoying. IF ONLY VGA cables can display 720p and 1080i resolution, i'd be able to switch resolution as i please according to the source i.e. 720p for 720p video files, 1080i for 1080p video files and games like AitD and COD4.

i realize that i myself find that the VGA cable has more cons than pros but my main objective here is DVD upscaling.

If the dvds indeed look awesome after being upscaled from 480p to 720p, then i'm SOLD.

All i need is, confirmation from fellow 360 owners who use their 360 as an upscaling dvd player with their plasma or lcd HDTV through the VGA cable.

Please shed some light.

p/s: Again, sorry to all the pc monitor people. don't mean to diss y'all.

Click image for larger version.

This is how Revenge of the Sith looks like upconverted to 720P. I'm using original MS VGA cable, native res 1280x720. Basic calibration done with help of AVIA dvd.

The problem is, only Region 3 DVDs will work with Asian 360s. Also, even though your plasma panel has a native res of 1366 x 768, check to see if the signal processor crops the edges for VGA input. I found some plasmas/LCDs does this.

1366 x 768 is a standard for a lot of lcds and plasma nowadays.

Why 1366x768? It was easy. The first 'wide' panels that came out were true WXGA (Wide XGA) that were 1280x768. Fine and dandy for computer monitors, but the 15:9 aspect ratio didn't really work for TVs. The panel makers found it was easier (i.e. get more yield and make more money) to stretch it a little wider rather than cut off some vertical to get to 16:9. And that's how we got 1366x76

The dvd qualities will definitely be upscaled. However, i'd invested RM300+ for another Samsung dvd player hdmi to 'preserve' my precious xbox

You can try to sell your component cables on the pasar malam thread but well, i rather keep it for a rainy day perhaps?

This post has been edited by pmsoo: Jul 7 2008, 02:48 PM

i tried dvd upscaling on the 360 on sammy 22" i wasn't impress..

The reason i kept VGA was i found their clarity to be better than component..
and component cable tend to be overcontrast..
but all these could be hardware specific.. it could be my LCD perhaps?
but VGA looks better..



This post has been edited by prazole: Jul 15 2008, 07:06 PM

Did you calibrate the LCD?

yeap but there is not much calibration on LCD monitor.. both my sammy 22" or even dell 24"
i have yet to test DVD upscale on a 32" LCD TV.. im guessing it should perform much better..

Isk... oh yeah that's the thing with PC monitors. Most of the color calibration is done with the drivers, not on the monitor itself.