I have the component video cable for the Xbox 360, will that let me play in HD?

Question

The component video cable (i think it is called), is the one with the standard red, white and yellow AV jacks, and it has another three, which are red, green and blue. This is the only cable I have for my Xbox. If I was to plug this into an HDTV, would it give a proper HD output? Or would I need another cable like a HDMI or VGA?

Answer 1

Your cable is actually a combination of component (your red, green and blue bundled cables) and composite (your single yellow cable) video. Composite is the worst video type, component is much better.

Plugging your red, green and blue component cables into your TV will let you use HD, although I believe it's limited. I also believe the Xbox 360 is limited to either 480p or 720p output, meaning it won't likely use the full capability of your HDTV.

If you're really looking for excellent video, you might look into an amplifier like the Onkyo TX-SR605, which can up-convert video to HD capability. You can plug everything into this receiver, then run one single HD cable to your TV, and it will upconvert your Xbox (and other devices') signals to 1080i. If you're looking for genuine HD capabilities, this is probably your best bet.