Criteria for an Xbox 360 TV

[Lead_Head]

Hello all,

Basically, I need educating on TV's. In the January sales I plan to purchase a new TV for my room.

The main uses will be for watching terrestrial TV (maybe freeview at a later date), Xbox 360 and DVD's.

Now, at the minute I have a 21" Phillips TV and Video combi which is fine for general TV viewing so anything flat screen is going to be a huge improvement. I want the best value for money, and I want HD for the 360 and therefore be futureproof for the foreseeable future.

At present I'm playing my 360 through my 17" monitor via VGA, so the res is at 1280. I'd like to put the 360 through to the new TV, so at least this res and in HD is important. Does the sound come through the speakers on the TV if you connect it to play through Hi-Def?

That's the background, so what specs AT LEAST should I be looking for at a TV to suit my needs? As I will probably be purchasing on the high street, I won't have chance to come on the forums and ask for everyones opinion. Or if I do buy online I'd need to get in there thick and fast to get my hands on a good deal.

Cheers...

[Nick]

Get yerself down to Currys or somewhere where you can see loads of TVs and actually experience the picture.

Think about how far away from the screen you'll be... some TVs look quite grainy close up.

Once you've done that, start whittling them down based on price/features/size etc.

THEN shop around for the models you like.

[Odc]

Look for a TV with the HD Ready logo. This means that the tv can display HD and it also means that at least one of the inputs can take an HD resolution (this will need to be a component or vga connection for the 360). That's basically the minimum spec so that you can play 360 in HD.

[steve threlfall]

Get a HD ready Samsung. Great tv's, cheap (relatively). The Sony Bravia ones are lovely but they cost more.

[Digerati]

Nick pretty much hit it on the head with buying advice.

Also what I tend to do, once I've found a model I really like I go online and read reviews about it, pros and cons from the best critics... the general public.

[Veles]

You will need an HDTV with HDCP support if you want to play BD or HD-DVD, an HDMI input is also nice feature to have as more and more things will be using it.

For what type, right now it boils down to an LCD screen (like a PC monitor) or a plasma. Plasmas are generally (but not always) of a higher quality, they're usually alot brighter and have better a contrast ratio and colour depth. They will lose brightness after a while of use but they shouldn't drop below the brightness of an equivalent LCD screen. The problem with plasma screens, is similar to what you get with CRTs (and why computers have screen savers), it's been given the name plasma burn I think, and with a constant image, it'll get burned into the screen or something. Thats why you don't get plasma monitors, with the taskbar and icons not moving they'd get burned into the screen, with LCDs this isn't much of a problem. If you're going to be doing alot of gaming I suggest you get an LCD, even though the picture might be moving, the UI rarely changes in a game so thatcould get burned into your screen.

Make sure it can handle all the different resolutions too.

[Lead_Head]

Thanks for all the replies, very helpful.

What minimum resolution should I be looking at then for good 360 playback?

Will I get sound coming out of my TV speakers connecting via HDMI from the 360?

[5lab]

most cheapish hdtvs run a resolution of 1366x768. via vga the xbox can do this directly - thus 1:1 pixel mapping and a slight bump in quality. the downside is thats your vga port gone, so you can't hook up a pc at the same time without some switchbox jobbie.

most have tv speakers built in - not of the highest quality in most cases, but probably a bit more than what you're on now. mine (a samsung) has a 3.5mm headphone jack for stereo audio in next to each of the non-audio connectors - so the vga, hdmi (in case you're pumping dvi through it) and component ins. i presume all tellys are like this. you might want to check your xbox360 vga cable has some sort of audio out that you can adapt to the 3.5mm jack - i presume it does, but i'm not certain..

quality-wise, if you're ONLY using it for the xbox, get the cheapest you can, as the vga will bypass most of the electronics. if however you're going to run dvds, or normal telly through it as well, get something nice. samsungs are pretty good, by which i DONT just mean a samsung panel - its the electronics behind the panel that make the difference when it comes to upscaling, and a relatively small price difference can make a huge impact..

how far from the screen are you sitting? if >6', you'll need at least a 32" screen to make hd worthwhile, if you're using a 26" at that distance, you'll not see much difference from sd (as your eyes can't determine the detail at that distance)..

also - lcd tellys are changed every 6-9 months or so - get the last-best-thing, not the next-best-thing. a 32" **New** tv will be £1100 or so on release.. 9 months later you're looking more at £650. ebuyer have some of the samsungs cheap..

[Nick]

Will I get sound coming out of my TV speakers connecting via HDMI from the 360?

Yes, one plug does the lot.

Depends on the electronics inside the telly as to how it'll be decoded though.

[Dooms]

We went for the 36" HD LCD Samsung and its a lovely TV.

Got Telewest HD box, 360, cube and PC connected to it (and still a scart socket free) and then everything also goes into a nice sony 5.1 decoder

Shame that flatmate is keeping it when I move out in Jan, going to have to use my 24' Dell monitor untill i can afford to get one myself.

[Lead_Head]

If I run the Xbox 360 via VGA then it will not output sound via the tv? Unless the TV has phono inputs? At present it's going through a good amp and wharfedale speakers which are also used for my PC. It's a bit loud on anything over 8 o' clock on volume.

My Grandad has a 32" Samsung LCD TV and it looks the business. He got it for £800 a few months ago. I was thinking of the 26" version of this, but I think I could get it for about £500 tops. I don't want to go any higher than 26" as it will overpower my room, and budget is a determining factor, hence looking in the Jan sales.

Basically then, to sum it up... if I go for something with a minimum res of 1366x768, has hdmi connectivity I'll be sorted with all my devices?

Terrestrial TV (with possible expandability for Freeview at a later date),
DVD + sound- SCART,
Xbox 360 + sound - HDMI

and I'll still benefit from spending £400 - £500 to get next gen res and graphics through HDMI?

[5lab]

yep, that tv is already under £500 right now

but..

the 360 doesnt support hdmi. use the vga lead. if its got phono output, you can get a lead to adapt this and plug into the back of the telly to get sound. dvd will look a little better through component video if you've got a player that will support it.. also quite a lot of the sammys have freeview built in - it works nicely and is quick, imo

[Dooms]

Xbox doesn't have a HDMI cable... its component or VGA for HD.

[Veles]

Xbox doesn't have a HDMI cable... its component or VGA for HD.

I think there were some leaked photos of an HDMI port on new 360s (probalby a 360 with the HD-DVD drive in-built prototype), but no, ATM doesn't use HDMI. The PS3 does, and I think alot of the next generation players will use it too, so it's good to have incase you buy something in the future that uses it. As Nick said, it's does both audio and video in one cable.

The 360 ATM outputs at 720p, although I think there was recently (or will be) a software upgrade that will allow it to output 1080p, I think all the old games will stay at 720p, but I've heard Halo 3 will have a 1080p output. Can't remember off hand what those are in terms of PC resolution.