Connecting Xbox 360 to a DVI monitor

danyjr

danyjr

danyjr

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Hi there,

I'm getting an Xbox 360 pretty soon and right now I don't have the money to buy a TV however I do own a pretty good monitor with DVI and RGB (VGA) input.

Anyhow, I was wondering how I can connect the XBox to my monitor (is it even possible?). Now I know that Xbox has a HDMI output. Correct me if I'm wrong but I shouldn't really want to use the analogue VGA input on my monitor since the quality isn't as good as DVI, therefore I'm planning to use the DVI.

Question is, is it just as simple as getting a 'HDMI to DVI' cable/adapter?
How about the sound? I own normal computer speakers (3.5 mm TRS stereo jack). I think when I convert HDMI to DVI I'm going to lose the sound, right? since HDMI carries sound but DVI is video only.

Thanks in advance! :)
 
You will probabily find it better on VGA than using the HDMI certainly is for me and a lot of people on here seem to agree, also the MS Vga cable comes with rca outs for the sound so you would just need to pick up a rca to female 3.5mm adapter and your sound is sorted
 
My Dell had DVI and VGA Inputs, and I thought I'd be clever and attach the VGA->DVI adapter on it and play via DVI (it is afterall better than VGA isn't it!!)

BUT, the Xbox360 doesn't actually have a setting to output as DVI, so I wasn't really gaining anything!

In fact, taking the adapter off and plugging the 360 directly into the VGA port of the monitor I thought was actually better results.

I personally have yet to see a different between VGA and HDMI other than the advantage of sound going down the same cable.

As Mongy2130 said, the VGA has a Left and Right RCA, and RCA to 3.5mm adapter should be pennies from a local electrical store.
 
~J~ said:
My Dell had DVI and VGA Inputs, and I thought I'd be clever and attach the VGA->DVI adapter on it and play via DVI (it is afterall better than VGA isn't it!!)
Click to expand...

Plonker!

Those adapters are for monitors with DVI-I ports, which effectively means that the monitor uses one port for both VGA and DVI.
 
Mongy2130 said:
You will probabily find it better on VGA than using the HDMI certainly is for me and a lot of people on here seem to agree, also the MS Vga cable comes with rca outs for the sound so you would just need to pick up a rca to female 3.5mm adapter and your sound is sorted
Click to expand...

wouldn't the image quality be crap though?

or let's say worse than HDMI...
 
but its still outputting the same resolution? the only differance is the way in which the data gets there, the end result is still the same.... any differance would be highly subjective and most games are scaled from 720 anyway.... feel free to correct me if im wrong though
 
Mongy2130 said:
You will probabily find it better on VGA than using the HDMI certainly is for me and a lot of people on here seem to agree, also the MS Vga cable comes with rca outs for the sound so you would just need to pick up a rca to female 3.5mm adapter and your sound is sorted
Click to expand...

Finding RCA outs to female 3.5mm is impossible. Need to use a gender bender (male->female) as well I guess.
 
decent headphones like the turtle beach earforce X1's have RCA inputs and any speaker set worth its salt has RCA input if not and your VGA lead doesnt come with RCA (f) to 3.5mm (m) you can get a standard m-m 3.5mm to RCA converter and a set of f-f RCA-RCA couplers so you get sound to a 3.5mm jack you can throw in your line in port on your PC
 
danyjr said:
wouldn't the image quality be crap though?

or let's say worse than HDMI...
Click to expand...

HDMI isn't the be all and end all in terms of image quality lol For the most part you'd be hard pushed to tell the difference between VGA and DVI/HDMI being outputted from the 360 (and possibly a PC though I've never tested this so can't guarantee). Although VGA is only an analogue connection its still capable of outputting HD resolutions and upwards. As Xink said, the only difference is the way the signal is getting to the monitor, there may be some very minor difference in the way the monitor handles an analogue signal compared to a digital one but its probably not even worth thinking about lol

If you do go the VGA route, make sure you buy the offical MS VGA cable as the 3rd party ones introduce ghosting etc
 
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