How good is XBOX picture quality with DELL 2001 or 2005?

D

Denis54

n00b
Joined
Dec 3, 2004
Messages
9
How good is picture quality when an XBOX is connected to either the DELL 2001 or 2005 with S-Video?

Does the monitor adjust automatically to the XBOX resolution or are there any adjustments that need to be made?
 
Denis54 said:
How good is picture quality when an XBOX is connected to either the DELL 2001 or 2005 with S-Video?

Does the monitor adjust automatically to the XBOX resolution or are there any adjustments that need to be made?
Click to expand...

Funny because I'm wondering the same thing and asked a simliar question in my other post. How exactly would you hook up your x-box into the monitor so it would be able to play, and how would you be able to use your computer speakers as a source of sound.. I'm interested in hearing something about it if someone has done this yet.
 
Denis54 said:
How good is picture quality when an XBOX is connected to either the DELL 2001 or 2005 with S-Video?

Does the monitor adjust automatically to the XBOX resolution or are there any adjustments that need to be made?
Click to expand...
If it is connected with an SVIDEO, it should look as good at a 640x480 image with the interlacing you would see with any TV signal and the interpolation of the monitor for that resolution.

http://x2vga.com/

These things work great except you have to turn the brightness of your monitor up because the picture is darker than you'd expect. They support all HD resolutions so playing an HD (720p or 1080i) game on the monitor looks just great.
 
Staples said:
If it is connected with an SVIDEO, it should look as good at a 640x480 image with the interlacing you would see with any TV signal and the interpolation of the monitor for that resolution.

http://x2vga.com/

These things work great except you have to turn the brightness of your monitor up because the picture is darker than you'd expect. They support all HD resolutions so playing an HD (720p or 1080i) game on the monitor looks just great.
Click to expand...

Is the HD VGA Pack universal in which it could be used for CABLE TV, and other systems such as gamecub, or is that specifically only usefull for x-box, and.. if not is there one that could be used for cable TV,which includes audio and also consol systems such as gamecube.- i didn't look too much into x2vga.com so i'm not sure if they have the answer to my question there
 
I have my ps2 hooked up to my 2005fpw, I guess that would be similar .. I'm pretty happy with the quality, it's better than I expected at least. The image isn't totally sharp, but if I sit back around 6-8 (like how far I would be from my tv) it looks nice. I was playing Metal Gear Solid and Soul Calibur 2 and it was very cool. SC2 is a very colorful game and it was just brilliant.
 
aramourne said:
I have my ps2 hooked up to my 2005fpw, I guess that would be similar .. I'm pretty happy with the quality, it's better than I expected at least. The image isn't totally sharp, but if I sit back around 6-8 (like how far I would be from my tv) it looks nice. I was playing Metal Gear Solid and Soul Calibur 2 and it was very cool. SC2 is a very colorful game and it was just brilliant.
Click to expand...

How did you hook it up to the monitor ,and what source of sound did you use
 
S-video, and I have my reciever next to my computer for my headphones. Optical connection, Sennheiser HD280's.

Edit: My abit motherboard has optical inputs that I could use for sound if I wanted. (IC7)
 
aramourne said:
S-video, and I have my reciever next to my computer for my headphones. Optical connection, Sennheiser HD280's.

Edit: My abit motherboard has optical inputs that I could use for sound if I wanted. (IC7)
Click to expand...


How's the resolution on the monitor with PS2, is it full screen.?
 
1:1 pixel ratio it's quite small, like not even 1/4 of the screen, but it scales up really well.
 
aramourne said:
Yes, it stretches it.
Click to expand...

what the beef nuts...? it stretches what..

U said the pixel is 1:1 - so it doesn't even cover 1/4 of the screen..

how woul du stretch it cut epants
 
He means if you select a 1:1 ratio it is small, but you also have the option of stretching it to get it full screen, at the cost of image quality.
 
Ok, there are three options:

1:1- the image is shown with 1:1 pixel ratio, so the image size is the same as the signal size output from the ps2.

Fill- the image is stretched to fill the entire screen.

Aspect- the image is stretched to fill the screen, but the aspect ratio is kept the same. So, unless it is a widescreen format, there will be black bars on the left and right side of the screen.



Additionally, there are picture-in-picture options, as well as picture-by-picture options.

If you'd like pictures, I can try and get some up later tonight or tomorrow (although I need a host .. ) otherwise I could email them.
 
aramourne said:
Ok, there are three options:

1:1- the image is shown with 1:1 pixel ratio, so the image size is the same as the signal size output from the ps2.

Fill- the image is stretched to fill the entire screen.

Aspect- the image is stretched to fill the screen, but the aspect ratio is kept the same. So, unless it is a widescreen format, there will be black bars on the left and right side of the screen.



Additionally, there are picture-in-picture options, as well as picture-by-picture options.

If you'd like pictures, I can try and get some up later tonight or tomorrow (although I need a host .. ) otherwise I could email them.
Click to expand...

If you have aim, can you please msg me @ Jimbo4152

Or you can e-mail me the pictures when you get a chance at

[email protected]

Thanks A LOT!
 
Gametheory said:
Is the HD VGA Pack universal in which it could be used for CABLE TV, and other systems such as gamecub, or is that specifically only usefull for x-box, and.. if not is there one that could be used for cable TV,which includes audio and also consol systems such as gamecube.- i didn't look too much into x2vga.com so i'm not sure if they have the answer to my question there
Click to expand...
The X2VGA plugs into the back of the Xbox for A/V input. There are some that just take a standard component input and convert that to a VGA signal but I don't know where you'd get them. They supposedly work well and they can be used with all three systems so long as you input a component video signal.
 
Staples said:
The X2VGA plugs into the back of the Xbox for A/V input. There are some that just take a standard component input and convert that to a VGA signal but I don't know where you'd get them. They supposedly work well and they can be used with all three systems so long as you input a component video signal.
Click to expand...

Maybe I can make such a purchase @ staples..
 
I've spent the past couple hours hooking my PS2, XBox, Cable, and Gamecube up and testing them out. The picture quality is nice, if you've been playing them on a normal TV you won't be dissapointed. After getting used to playing them on my HDTV for the past year and a half though I'm a bit critical of the sharpness and color quality. I understand that it is going through S-Video, but even still I think the color reproduction isn't what it should be. Full screen mode looks great considering how small the source resolution is.

For the life of me I can't get my cable to output through a DVI cable though. I was really looking forward to seeing how the 2005 handled a HD signal. Anyone have any ideas why it won't work?
 
uanime said:
I've spent the past couple hours hooking my PS2, XBox, Cable, and Gamecube up and testing them out. The picture quality is nice, if you've been playing them on a normal TV you won't be dissapointed. After getting used to playing them on my HDTV for the past year and a half though I'm a bit critical of the sharpness and color quality. I understand that it is going through S-Video, but even still I think the color reproduction isn't what it should be. Full screen mode looks great considering how small the source resolution is.

For the life of me I can't get my cable to output through a DVI cable though. I was really looking forward to seeing how the 2005 handled a HD signal. Anyone have any ideas why it won't work?
Click to expand...

Did you have any special connections when doing that..
 
i see a lot of postes with people saying that the quality is pretty good.

i tried hooking the gamecube to it via composite video and at 3 feet away, it still sucks, meaning you would get better quality from a tv. there's noise and it's quite pixelly.

but i have yet to try via svideo and vga, is the improvement really that much?
 
Gametheory said:
Did you have any special connections when doing that..
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you mean by special connections. I was just using the standard S-Video hookups for the games systems. For the cable I tried out both a DVI-D and DVI-I cable and neither made a difference. It may be copy protection but as far as I know comcast isn't doing that with their boxes yet.
 
Ok since no one here seems to know what they're talking about, I'll let you in on a little secret. External vga boxes just plain suck. And I would guess the actual s-video input on the monitor would be decent, but it would not be as good as doing this:

buy this for your computer: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-100-005&depa=0

this is the best pci video input card as far as I know. It has no rf tuner=less noise and it uses a philips 8-bit decoder chip which is very nice and can be used with:

dscaler. download dscaler (google it) to deinterlace and view whatever material you are hooking into the card (like your console)... this program runs circles around most hardware deinterlacers like whatever dell put in that monitor, and it's very flexible. And if you're still not satisfied, get the best cable hookup you can find for your console. Sadly, this might be monster.
 
you could also use a tunerbox with VGA output (like the Avermedia TVBox 9). It supports resolutions up to 1280x1024. It also has a widescreen option (1280x768). Just an idea :) .
 
Oh, it actually looks like the x2vga would be a good option. It's more of an adapter than a converter. I always forget the xbox is practically a friggin PC. Still can't handle interlaced content... Any other console and you'll probably want to do what I said.
 
FitzRoy said:
Ok since no one here seems to know what they're talking about, I'll let you in on a little secret. External vga boxes just plain suck. And I would guess the actual s-video input on the monitor would be decent, but it would not be as good as doing this:

buy this for your computer: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-100-005&depa=0

this is the best pci video input card as far as I know. It has no rf tuner=less noise and it uses a philips 8-bit decoder chip which is very nice and can be used with:

dscaler. download dscaler (google it) to deinterlace and view whatever material you are hooking into the card (like your console)... this program runs circles around most hardware deinterlacers like whatever dell put in that monitor, and it's very flexible. And if you're still not satisfied, get the best cable hookup you can find for your console. Sadly, this might be monster.
Click to expand...

What about the TV/Video Processors on the bottom right of this page
http://www.viewsonic.com/products/accessories/

Would those be better for REALLY good quality involving watching cable TV and also being able to play consol systems such as gamecube, or x-box
 
Staples said:
There are some that just take a standard component input and convert that to a VGA signal but I don't know where you'd get them. They supposedly work well and they can be used with all three systems so long as you input a component video signal.
Click to expand...

They do work quite well. I'm using one and from about 2' away from my 2005FPW am happy with the XBox picture. 480p games look a little jaggy, but only slightly worse than my 57" CRT HDTV. 720p games look quite good.

Here's the one I have:

Key Digitial CTCA-2

and a cheaper OEM or rip-off of the same:
transcoder

and even more options (though some of these do not handle 720p/1080i):

Transcoders

Also there are lot's of reviews of transcoders here: avs

A while ago I tried a PCI video input card and DScaler with my dreamcast and wasn't very impressed with the output. To my eyes at least the transcoder produces much cleaner output, particularly the colors.

In my mind $100 is worth it versus buying an LCD TV, particularly since I use the same transcoder with a switchbox for my HD Receiver, XBox, GC, and DVD player.
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Some good info in that post FlyingGimp. I bought an X2VGA probably 18 months ago and I doubt you can get a better picture than it displayed. So of course I would recommend an X2VGA over anything if all you need it for is an Xbox. I have to buy a KVM switch with it so I could switch between the monitor and the PC and I bought a little switch for the speakers too. I used it for 6 or so months but I finally bought a HDTV and now I solely use that. It worked well for its time.
 
Gametheory said:
What about the TV/Video Processors on the bottom right of this page
http://www.viewsonic.com/products/accessories/

Would those be better for REALLY good quality involving watching cable TV and also being able to play consol systems such as gamecube, or x-box
Click to expand...

Unless you're talking digital cable, really good quality and cable tv are an oxy-moron and those things don't work magic like they advertise them to. Crap upscaled to some higher resolution is still crap. And what's doing the upscaling and deinterlacing? Can it be... crap? There's too much conversion and hardware dependence going on there for a good picture.

I actually have no idea who they are marketing to with those. Probably people who have no idea what dscaler is. It seems like a really niche market to me. They appear to be able to convert s-video to vga without the need for a computer, so that you can use your monitor like a tv (I just call these things vga boxes like I did earlier). The reason I say its niche is that good lcd monitors will have s-video inputs already and you would actually be better off using that than doing some extraneous external conversion to vga. And if you were using a monitor that didn't happen to have those inputs, you would be wayyyy better off doing the pci card/dscaler thing.

Flyinggimp uses a component to vga transcoder. Unlike component, s-video doesn't transcode to vga. So if your console can do component output, you should try this route. I've never done it but it sounds pretty good. But be aware of the two caveats with this: 1. you can't use dvi with your lcd with this method, and we all know that the dvi benefit can be great with a digital technology like lcd. 2. you may still have problems with interlaced material. Dscaler would handle it like a champ.

So in my mind, if you can get that pci card and use dscaler, while connecting your comp to the lcd using dvi, that would probably give you the best overall image - even if it is s-video and not component.
 
jesus, the prices for those transcoder are quite different...do they reflect the quality though? i mean the vdigi is only 59, the other ones are about 190 and 100 respectively...is there going to be a huge differnce between them?
 
FitzRoy said:
Unless you're talking digital cable, really good quality and cable tv are an oxy-moron and those things don't work magic like they advertise them to. Crap upscaled to some higher resolution is still crap. And what's doing the upscaling and deinterlacing? Can it be... crap? There's too much conversion and hardware dependence going on there for a good picture.

I actually have no idea who they are marketing to with those. Probably people who have no idea what dscaler is. It seems like a really niche market to me. They appear to be able to convert s-video to vga without the need for a computer, so that you can use your monitor like a tv (I just call these things vga boxes like I did earlier). The reason I say its niche is that good lcd monitors will have s-video inputs already and you would actually be better off using that than doing some extraneous external conversion to vga. And if you were using a monitor that didn't happen to have those inputs, you would be wayyyy better off doing the pci card/dscaler thing.

Flyinggimp uses a component to vga transcoder. Unlike component, s-video doesn't transcode to vga. So if your console can do component output, you should try this route. I've never done it but it sounds pretty good. But be aware of the two caveats with this: 1. you can't use dvi with your lcd with this method, and we all know that the dvi benefit can be great with a digital technology like lcd. 2. you may still have problems with interlaced material. Dscaler would handle it like a champ.

So in my mind, if you can get that pci card and use dscaler, while connecting your comp to the lcd using dvi, that would probably give you the best overall image - even if it is s-video and not component.
Click to expand...


What about this one?
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=15-116-310&DEPA=1

Wait, so your hooking up the consol systems to the PCI card.. and it would make the consol system games look really nice and fullscreen?

And how would i be able to use my computer speakers as a source of sound

Wait... sorry if I sound like a repeating moron.. but if got the Dell 2005FPW, would i need the pci-card and even if i could just use the monitor for consol games, would i be able to have them full screen and look really well, or would i still be better off getting a pci-card
 
Has anyone tried FitzRoy's Dscaler method? If you have please post a picture so I can compare DScaler's quality to the X2VGA's.
 
dscaler is great at what it does, but can only do so much with the limited color info in svid... A VGA transcoder gives, by far, the best picture quality possible from an xbox, or any HDTV source.

I use the VD-Z3. The 2005fpw looks beautiful running 480p and 720p from xbox and HDTV, using sync type RGBs. Running RGBHV I can get 1080i too, but it and 720p look BADLY washed out for some reason--Impossible to correct with OSD.

All the transcoders I've seen have VGA pass-through too, so no prob if you're already using the DSUB connection for something else.

Really, there's no comparison... and this panel doubles as an awesome bedroom HDTV. 720p has bold, punchy color, is tack sharp and gives you all around luscious image goodness... even my old analog channels look good on it. If you have a cable/dish box that outputs progressive, you're set.

Only small issue is I can't get the panel to do 480i on the DSUB.. there's a simple fix from MS to force the Dashboard into 480p, which historically was the biggest prob xbox running on VGA) and a hand full of old games only support 480i--really rare, and none in the past 1.5 years that I've played.
 
Thanks for the reply, I was a bit skeptical on what even the best deinterlacers could do with a primitive s-video feed. Looks like I will be getting the Enhanced VD-Z3. Thank you.
 
Can the VD-Z3 be used for the Gamecube and DVD players.. and how does it work when I want to use my computer speakers
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top