Worth the upgrade from 1080i to 1080p w/ newer Xbox 360?

I have that TV, and I did upgrade from the Pro to the Elite. I like to *think* that I can see a difference, but it's not a huge difference. I think I see more of a difference in regards to HD DVDs than I do games. I wouldn't say it's worth buying an Elite just for this purpose. Wait for your 360 to die and then get the Elite. That's what I did.

I have a few 360's and a few different displays and I can't see the difference from 1080i to 1080P in most games even going from 720P to 1080 i or P is hardly noticable. If your looking to upgrade hoping for a big change I'd say keep your $$. If your like me and wanted the larger HD and the black case as well as the HDMI for ease of use with your AVR then go for it but don't expect to see a visual difference that will impress you.
(My displays are 46", 71" (all resolutions up to 1080P) and 140" (resolutions up to 1080i)
Cheers
Calvin

I'm in the same boat. I own an a2000 model as well and I frequently ponder this same question. I'm waiting for mine to die again and also for the white Elites with the Falcon chipset. That is worth the switch to me right now more than the HDMI.

If you do switch please post your impressions.

Will switching from 1080i to 1080p mess with the framerate? Or will the scaler be able to deal with that?

I just went from a 1080i premium component hookup to an elite HDMI 1080p and the framerate looks identical. While the difference is not huge between the 2 setups, I can definately notice that the picture is a bit sharper, cleaner and better looking overall on my RS1 with the HDMI 1080p setup. This could be due to many things, but there is a slight difference in my setup.

Are you going to get the HD DVD Add on? That is the only way you are going to see a difference. Almost all games are at 720p so outputing to 1080 (I/P) doesnt change the fact there are only 720p pixels worth of information.

If you get an HD DVD add on then you will have 1080p worth of information and the story changes. Now you have all the information your tv can handle and it is just a matter of getting it there. If your tv sucks at de-interlacing then having HDMI will make a difference because the xbox will do a quality de-interlace and send it to your tv the best way. If your tv does a good job at it then there would be no real jump.

Your tv accepts 1080p over HDMI but does it display 1080p? If your tv is only displaying 1080i then it wont matter either.

The add on does not do TrueHD audio. It still sounds great and $150 with 5 free movies is a steal

The key here is how well your TV handles deinterlacing 1080i. If it does it well then there really should be little difference.

My tv (sony kdl40v2500) doesn't accept 1080p via component either. That leaves me with a few questions since I don't really want to spend another 350-400 bucks just to get hdmi output. Am I better off using component or vga for my hook up to the tv? Is 1080p possible with this set up via vga instead of the component? Currently I've got the set hooked up with component and my 360 set on 1080i.

I'm in the same situation....thinking of selling my current 360 to buy a new premium with HDMI. However, I'm wanting the upscaled DVD's in addition to 1080p HD-DVD (I have the add-on drive).

I have an Elite w/ the HD DVD add on and also the Toshiba HD-A20 (which does TrueHD) I can honestly say that the differences are pretty miniscule if noticable at all. The 360 will convert the audio to DTS or WMApro at a healthy 1.5 mbps which is not something to be laughed at. BTW I have the same TV and it is very nice.

Your max resolution on that TV through the VGA would be 1400 x 1050. I'm not sure how that would do with your HD DVD w/ the aspect ratios though.

Damn it...I guess I'm taking back the vga cable I bought. I just bought this tv a week ago and while I'm happy with it overall and got a pretty good price on it from Best Buy, I'm really hating sony for just a moment for not having 1080p through component and vga. I'm also pissed at myself for actually believing the salesman that told me I could do 1080p through the vga input on that tv. I also guess I'm going to buy a regular upconvert DVD player and not the HDDVD add on since I wont be able to do 1080p with this 360. I wonder if I had spent the extra few hundred on the XBR2 if they have the same problem. (Can't afford to even think about the XBR3/4 or whatever they're out with now sets...not in my price range yet).

FWIW I thought that particular Sony with 1080i on component was just as sharp as when I did 1080p from my Xbox on a Samsung DLP via component.

Yeah I didn't pay attention when I bought my SXRD A2000 to the max res on the VGA input. Mine is only 13whatever x 768. I ended up upgrading to the Elite after a while. It isn't really a noticable difference between 1080i and p. My tv and I would guess that yours as well does a fine job of deinterlacing the signal to 1080p. Don't be too upset you still have a nice ass TV I know with reading up on the VGA resolutions before that people who bought the XBR you mentioned, that does do 1080p over VGA, it still did not display the image correctly so you may have not been that much better off with that one. I would still pick up the HD DVD add on as it is really nice and will still look phenomenal over component at 1080i. You could try it with the VGA cable and see how it displays it at 1400 x 1050 before you do take it back.

So over component I'll get 1080i for HD DVD's? And the others will upconvert? I had though it won't upconvert over component, but am not sure. I only work a short day on Saturdays so i'm going to Best Buy straight after work.

If you want to see the difference that 1080p makes in gaming, download the NBA Homecourt demo (I don't like the game, but the graphics are second to none... native 1080p!) from the Marketplace. Connect your 360 to your HDTV via component and set it to 720p, or 1080i and play the game for a while. Take note of the jaggies on objects in the game, particularly player's legs at angles with the game frozen.

Now connect it with your HDMI cable on your Elite or HDMI equipped Premium (I can only use HDMI in my experiment because that's the only way my HDTV can display 1080p) and set the display in your Dashboard system display to 1080p. If you don't see the improved sharpness and amelioration of jaggies in this test, you don't need to consider supporting 1080p. It didn't take any imagination for me to see the difference, but I sit at 7 to 9 feet from my 56" JVC 56FC97 for gaming. Starting at 11', I can't tell you whether I'm looking at 1080p,1080i, or 720p.

It was worth it for me because I know that many games will support native 1080p in the future. But your mileage may vary. I would definitely try to go somewhere that you can conduct this test for yourself.

No. Wait for the 3rd Gen HD DVD players so you can get the newer audio codecs. The prices will be sub $500.