When we purchased our LG monitor a few years back we did not stop to think about future connectivity requirements. Whilst it has a DVI and VGA port as standard we wished we had spent a bit extra and bought a screen with say a HDMI port or TV capabilities.
However in terms of the screens spec it can muster 1680 x 1050 and has a 2ms response time so we did not really want to have to change the screen just so we could plug in our Xbox 360. We also did not want to change screens just to test a piece of hardware that required a HDMI port as standard.
Thankfully there are a number of solutions to help, the first is a HDMI-M to DVI-D F adapter. We managed to get hold of one from Lindy (Hi-Fi specialists) and there was instantly several things we liked about this small piece of tech.
HDMI M / DVI-D F Adapter
To start with its price is respectable for an adaptor that is gifted with gold plated connections (improves quality and reliability), it's also smaller than most adapter cables we have seen in the past, so we could easily plug the one end into our HDMI enabled device without the outer casing restricting matters.
Finally the quality was excellent, well as good as our monitor could deliver, so in this respect it did its job nicely.
Xbox 360 Premium VGA Cable
Of course a HDMI to DVI adapter does not convert audio, only picture, so for our Xbox 360 we needed an alternative method of connecting the console to our screen.
This is where the Xbox 360 Premium VGA cable comes into play. Again we got this from Lindy and whilst it is a little pricy compared to the official cable (well from online sources such as Amazon that is) it does provide a quality experience....
This quality is down to the components used by the cable, it's outercore for example is shielded to prevent interference, this is doubled by its internal Ferrite core which reduces the latter even further. A ten year warranty also shows that Lindy are confident in its performance.
To translate this into the real world, when we connected the console up we could set the Xbox 360 to run at 1680 x 1050 and the detail was a massive improvement from our standard TV setup. Blacks were visible even in the darker environments, with games like Gears of War providing a fully enjoyable experience. We also found that there was no ghosting or jerky movements, so for us the cable worked a treat.
The only snag was the diddy audio phono cables that were attached to the main cable. Though the main cable itself was 1.8meteres in length, the audio left and right photo leads were a little small, so unless you had a pair of audio ports directly by the VGA port you would find it a struggle to connect. To combat this all we did is run a phono extension lead to extend the cables directly to our AMP. Audio quality was great mind you, not quite as good as a digital-out port, but still more than respectable.
Specs
- High quality, shielded cable
- Gold Plated Connectors
- Ferrite core to reduce interference for the best performance from your Xbox 360
- Xbox 360 Multi-Connector to VGA and 2 Phono Male
- Toslink Port for digital optical audio
- Length: 1.8m
- 10 Year Warranty
