1080p Xbox 360 is misleading?

[Paul2]

1080p Xbox Lies

The people at Microsoft are complete idiots. No, that’s not exactly true. They’re charlatans. They are purposely misleading the public. They recently announced a software upgrade will be available soon that will allow the Xbox 360 to output 1080p.

That’s all well and good, but if you remember, the 360 only has component outputs.

Essentially no current TV will accept 1080p/60 over component inputs. So this little upgrade is essentially useless.

It’s pretty obvious Microsoft is trying to steal some of Sony’s thunder by saying their box can do 1080p too. The problem is that there are going to be a lot of confused and disappointed consumers when they find out their TV can’t accept this “higher” resolution.

Also, games have to be written to be 1080p. All current and most likely nearly all future games are going to be 720p. This rendered 720p is upconverted internally to output 1080i or 1080p. This isn’t true 1080p any more than an upconverted DVD is HD. I have a sneaking suspicion that the PS3 might do the same thing. So I call bull on this from Microsoft. The handful of people that can actually accept 1080p over component aren’t going to see any difference compared to their TV upconverting the signal anyway, unless there are more 1080p games. My guess is that it will be like the 1080i output from the PS2. There were, what, two games that took advantage of that?

Maybe if Microsoft finally gave everyone the HDMI output people have been after for a year this wouldn’t be as much of an issue. But no. Their obstinateness and obtuseness is astounding.

Link

Interesting points being made there...

the HD-DVD addon doesnt\' do 1080P?

what\'s the point then?

[Paul2]

the HD-DVD add-on for the XBOX360 is connected via USB2 connection, and the HD-DVD add-on just stream information off the HD-DVD disc to the XBOX360 via USB2 connection for the XBOX360 to process it.

And here is this little concern, the design of XBOX360 doesn\'t have an HDMI output, so the maximum resolution they can output is 1080i via component.  I guess maybe future firmware upgrades may allow them to output 1080p for "xbox360 games" only, but the problem the article is saying is that no 1080p HDTV out there now accept 1080p via component video inputs.  So, the idea is moot.

hmmm

[Paul2]

anyway,

i thought i saw you asked if the xbox360 hd-dvd can output 1080p, and in my opinion.  I doubt it.  Even if they do bother outputting 1080p for hd-dvd, no hdtv with component inputs "right now" accept 1080p.  Who knows if next year\'s generation 1080p hdtv will accept 1080p via analog component inputs...

most hdtv manufacturers pay more attention to accepting 1080p signal via HDMI inputs than they do bother with analog component inputs.

Again, who knows if this may change in the future...*shrugs*

Isn\'t their a VGA cable for the 360 that can do 1080P if your tv takes 1080P via VGA?  I\'m pretty sure there is.

[Paul2]

not sure if HDTV with VGA inputs can accept 1080p.  Even if it can, how many HDTVs come with VGA inputs?  They are few and far in between.

Oh, I remember something else now.  There is also some sort of restriction that prevents HD-DVD outputting 1080p via analog connections like component video output because fear of illegal copy or something.  So, they were limited to 1080i at most.

the HD-DVD add-on for the 360 is BROKEN.  All audio is converted to DD5.1.

DTS, Master DTS-HD, DD+ Lossless all get converted to DD 5.1.

It makes no sense for DTS to get converted, the other formats get the boot because there\'s no HDMI output.  Save your $200 for a real player.

lol at anyone who bought one of those.  reminds me of the sega 32x

[Paul2]

the HD-DVD add-on for the 360 is BROKEN.  All audio is converted to DD5.1.

DTS, Master DTS-HD, DD+ Lossless all get converted to DD 5.1.

It makes no sense for DTS to get converted, the other formats get the boot because there\'s no HDMI output.  Save your $200 for a real player.

Another very good point being made there.  I forgot about the audio side.

Trying to listen to better quality audio like lossless audio codec being compressed back to lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 is like going backward to DVD era in term of audio...so much for the microsoft external HD-DVD...