360 With HDMI

[Veles]

I do

DVD's look rubbish over component for me. Do HDTV's automatically upscale DVD's?

I think the more expensive ones do, but the 360 has an upscaler chip in there anyway.

[bigblue]

Pretty much every HD panel nowadays upscales non HD inputs, wouldn't really fill the screen otherwise

The problem with the 360 isn't really that it's technically a poor player, it's more that if you're running something that isn't native res, the 360 scales it to whatever you've set in the dashboard, then outputs it to your tv, which quite likely then scales it again. This is particulary common with 768 line sets, and you end up with a poor definition picture that's been scaled too often.

But then again, DVD's are never going to look pristine on a HDTV. I'm using a standalone DVD with component, and standard DVD's on my telly still aren't great. It's just always going to be the way as you lose definition making the original source picture bigger. Ideally you want 1:1 mapping from a HD player of some sort to see what your TV is capable of.

[Odc]

I've noticed that the standard 360 drive can't display 4:3. It always stretches which is a bit annoying for some of the older stuff I have. The HD DVD drive is very good though. Well worth the money especially as it's £000's cheaper than stand alone players.