human_male
Math and girls is hard.
Hi everyone. I have a bit of a dilemma that I need some advice with (I've placed questions like this on tech help and hardware boards but no one ever replies to me, so I'm trying here).
I currently use my 360 on a Philips 19" CRT monitor, connected with the official 360 VGA cable. All things considered I think it works reasonably well. But the three things I don't like are the low resolution (I can only play at 1280 x 1024) so I get quite jagged edges, the letterboxing of most games and the fact that either the monitor or the cable make games quite dark. So I'm looking to upgrade to a nice LCD to play on, to use exclusively with the 360, mainly games but maybe DVDs too.
Since I'd prefer a smaller screen, I figued I'd save money and get a good LCD monitor as apposed to a mid to low range TV. Is that a good idea?
The problem I'm having with a monitor is how best to connect it. With the VGA cable you can select a resolution on the 360, and as I understand it's important to select your monitor's native resolution to avoid scaling issues (like jagged edges, screen distortion and letterboxing). But I hear HDMI is superior. So which would be better? If the monitor in question was 1920 x 1080 full HD and I used HDMI to connect it, would I simply be able to select 1080p and avoid scaling issues altogether?
I've narrowed my extensive search down to two monitors: the Samsung 2233SW and the Viewsonic VX2433WM. Both have similar specs and are full HD 1920 x 1080, but the Viewsonic is a TN panel and I heard they don't look as good as others because they sacrifice picture quality for response time. Is that true?
But the Viewsonic has HDMI and the Samsung does not. If I wanted to use HDMI with the Samsung I'd have to use an HDMI to DVI converter. My question there is will that work? Are they compatible (the official 360 HDMI cable has a seperate cable for audio which is how I intend to get my sound)?
Or I could go for an LCD television. Since I perfer a smaller display I'd go for something around 22" to 24". There isn't much of a choice in my neck of the woods (New Zealand), and the models I've been looking at (Samsung, Sony, Panasonic) would be about twice the price of the monitors above. They also come in two resolutions. 1360 x 768, and 1680 x 1050. Which would be better? Would 1360 x 768 be better because that's HD 720p?
If anyone has any advice, tips or would like to share their experiences with this sort of thing I'd be very grateful. I've been debating these issues back and forth for months and still can't make a decision for fear that I'll buy something and realise I've made the wrong choice. What would help is if people in the know assured me I was getting the best performance for the price.
Thank you very much indeed.
I currently use my 360 on a Philips 19" CRT monitor, connected with the official 360 VGA cable. All things considered I think it works reasonably well. But the three things I don't like are the low resolution (I can only play at 1280 x 1024) so I get quite jagged edges, the letterboxing of most games and the fact that either the monitor or the cable make games quite dark. So I'm looking to upgrade to a nice LCD to play on, to use exclusively with the 360, mainly games but maybe DVDs too.
Since I'd prefer a smaller screen, I figued I'd save money and get a good LCD monitor as apposed to a mid to low range TV. Is that a good idea?
The problem I'm having with a monitor is how best to connect it. With the VGA cable you can select a resolution on the 360, and as I understand it's important to select your monitor's native resolution to avoid scaling issues (like jagged edges, screen distortion and letterboxing). But I hear HDMI is superior. So which would be better? If the monitor in question was 1920 x 1080 full HD and I used HDMI to connect it, would I simply be able to select 1080p and avoid scaling issues altogether?
I've narrowed my extensive search down to two monitors: the Samsung 2233SW and the Viewsonic VX2433WM. Both have similar specs and are full HD 1920 x 1080, but the Viewsonic is a TN panel and I heard they don't look as good as others because they sacrifice picture quality for response time. Is that true?
But the Viewsonic has HDMI and the Samsung does not. If I wanted to use HDMI with the Samsung I'd have to use an HDMI to DVI converter. My question there is will that work? Are they compatible (the official 360 HDMI cable has a seperate cable for audio which is how I intend to get my sound)?
Or I could go for an LCD television. Since I perfer a smaller display I'd go for something around 22" to 24". There isn't much of a choice in my neck of the woods (New Zealand), and the models I've been looking at (Samsung, Sony, Panasonic) would be about twice the price of the monitors above. They also come in two resolutions. 1360 x 768, and 1680 x 1050. Which would be better? Would 1360 x 768 be better because that's HD 720p?
If anyone has any advice, tips or would like to share their experiences with this sort of thing I'd be very grateful. I've been debating these issues back and forth for months and still can't make a decision for fear that I'll buy something and realise I've made the wrong choice. What would help is if people in the know assured me I was getting the best performance for the price.
Thank you very much indeed.