There Is A Difference...

In case you're deciding between the plethora of third party cables and official ms cables for the 360, I would just like to say that I've tried an assortment of them on several lcd tvs and... there is a sizeable difference, you may think its bollocks but let me assure you, you can see a difference... the difference does it fact compound and is more noticable on larger displays such as a 50" but only smaller budget displays, the differeces are also apparent...

The settings used for all the tvs are as follows:

Picture mode : Dynamic
Color tone : Warm 1
Game mode : On
Digital NR : On
Processing Software (DNie etc) : On

The games used were :

Gears of War
Lost Planet
Marvel Ultimate Alliance
Splinter Cell : Double Agent

The cables used:

GameLink 360 Component A/V Cable
GameLink 360 Vga A/V Cable
Dragon Xbox 360 Component HD AV Cable
Dragon Xbox 360 VGA HD AV Cable
Microsoft Xbox 360 Component HD AV Cable
Microsoft Xbox 360 VGA HD AV Cable

The Displays (all tests were run on 720p, 1080i, 1360 x 768 and 1024 x 768) ...

1- Samsung R7 26"

The Gamelink component cable by Monster Cable produced vivid and crisp pictures, while the Dragon component cable produced some noticable jaggies around the text in the Start Screen of the games... the colours looked a little faded as well... sprites did not look as detailed as the Gamelink cable in game... the black quality was a little bad as well... How did the Ms cable do then? I would say as good as the Monster Cable (at a fraction of the price)...

The results above were reproduced in the VGA test... Once again the Dragon cable performed poorly compared to the other two cables but blacks seemed richer this time around...

2- Samsung R7 40"

Once again the Gamelink and Ms cables provided sharp and vivid pictures with all the fine details showing nicely... Colours were also rich and blacks were nice and deep... Things however got ugly when the Dragon cable was plugged in... The jaggies were quite apparent and there seemed to be a slight red tinge... the red tinge however disappeared after several attempts of removing and reinserting the cable...

In the VGA test, the Ms cable seemed to have the upper hand as I thinked it looked slightly better that the Gamelink cable... Artifacts were abound however in GOW with the DRagon Cable... some textures looked blocky and reminded me of a Ps One...

3- Sony Bravia X 46" (Note: VGA tests not conducted because the VGA connection was on a fritz)

Want to guess what happened??? It was like the Samsung R7 40" test all over again... but this time with more pronounced jaggies and washed out colour from the Dragon cables... I couldn't really tell whether the Gamelink or the Ms cables were better though as both of them seemed to provide the same level of picture quality...

Overall I would say that at smaller screen sizes, the difference between the cables were apparent but did not approach levels which would force you to run an icepick through your eyes... The difference in picture quality were however more apparent with the largers screens... As for the difference between component and VGA, I would say that there is no clear winner, just go with what you think looks better... I would say go for the Gamelink cables if you got the cash to burn but honestly you're not gonna be able to see much difference between the Ms cables... do however steer clear of the cheaper third party makes as they do not work as well...

What if you game on a lcd monitor instead of a tv??? Well I did a quick comparison just in case... Now this is where it gets interesting... On a Viewsonic 19" widescreen, all three cables performed equally well (at 1280 x 720) albeit a slight reddish tinge from the Dragon VGA cable (please note that only VGA tests were conducted because the monitor only accepts d-sub and dvi)...

Why did the results turn out that way??? Two words... Screen size... the jaggies are probably there but are too fine to notice... So if you're gaming on a 19" monitor and below, you might be able to save some cash by using the cheaper third party cables... One minor nuisance though, the Dragon cable seemed a little loose and did not slide into place with a nice resounding "CLICK"...

Technorati Tags: yoroi360, pay4lei