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In an effort to try and whip Sony in the HD war, Microsoft forgot to mention the fact that 1080p on the 360, won’t be so simple. Depending on the method you’re using to connect your 360 to your set, you will get different outcomes of games and movies. A Microsoft insider, on the AVS Forum, cleared it up for us all; for 1080p in all categories, you’ll have to buy a VGA cable, and not a HDMI cable.

Using your 360 with component cables:

• Xbox 360 games will be upscaled to 1080p, and games which are 1080p native (none yet) will run without a hitch.
• HD-DVDs will run at a maximum of 1080i, which is due to the AACS DRM implemented into HD-DVDs.
• DVDs will only play at 480p (ouch!), due to the CSS inside DVDs, which prevents upscaling any higher.

Using your 360 with a VGA cable:

• You’re all set, as DVDs, games, as well as HD-DVDs will display in full 1080p.

That is really underhanded for Microsoft to not tell us about this, as many people use the component HD cable that comes with the 360 to play games in high-def. I too use the component cable, and it all looks so good. Our Sony TV, actually doesn’t have a VGA input, but has 1 HDMI, which we use for Sky HD.
This really irittates me, as not only would it be good to finally have a good up-scaling DVD player, but we would have to buy a cable, for which not many TV’s support. Granted, there are TV’s which will have VGA inputs, but most don’t. Most have DVI, which is pure digital (while VGA converts analogue to digital), though you can get an adapter for that. Our TV doesn’t have DVI (hey it’s a good TV!), but we do have a DVI - HDMI converter. You may say that I could use the HDMI slot, as I wouldn’t be watching Sky the same time as playing on my 360, but then I would have 3 cables, the 360 VGA cable, a VGA to DVI cable, and our DVI to HDMI cable. I don’t know about you but all that converting doesn’t seem like a good idea, and I don’t know whether it would work anyway, because of the HDMI at the end.
Leave it to Microsoft to make such a stupid move.

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