720p or 1080i

Most likely 720p will give better results. Being that its the native res of most 360 games, and will help you avoid double scaling.

It's probably best to run the 360 at your native screen resolution. In your case that is probably 720p, so just run that.

Your native res is 720p it can just accept 1080i. 720p is your best choice because it involves no scaling whereas with 1080i your 360 would scale the image to 1080i and your TV would scale it back to 720p.

I'd say 720P.

720p= 1280 x 720@60hz

1080i= 960 x 540p@(60hz) 1 field at a time x 2(interlaced) = 1920 x 1080 @30hz

I learned this the hard way. If you don't have 1080p go 720p (IMO)

1080i fields are 1920x540, not 960x540.

As for which is better, it rarely makes any appreciable difference. In a game that renders at 1280x720 or less and at more than 30fps, 720p is better since interlaced signals can only provide up to 30 full frames each second while 720p can deliver up to 60fps. In a game that renders at higher than 1280x720 but with no more than 30fps, 1080i is better as it allows you to avoid loosing resolution in downsampling. Then there can be games that render at higher than 1280x720 and at more than 30fps, in which case the choice of 720p or 1080i comes down to whether you prefer framerate or resolution more respectively. However, the vast majority of 360 games render at 1280x720 or less and at no more than 30fps, which is why there often won't be any notable difference between either.

I just got a 1080 P Panny plasma, my Xbox is hooked up via component...after reading the information above am I still best to change the settings on the Xbox to 1080i or 720...I realize that I would need the Xbox to be connect to the TV via HDMI for 1080 P settings..

Nah, the 360 supports 1080p over component.

Most games are what 720 or 1080i? Does it say it on the box? I have never looked before seeing that I have never had a HDTV till today

If your TV is 1080p then set everything to 1080p, the 360 supports 1080p on games through component. In the event your TV doesn't support 1080p through it's component input then buy an HDMI cable on Monoprice for $10. If you don't have an HDMI 360 then switch to a MS 360 VGA cable. If VGA doesn't look as good as component on your TV and all the other options I've listed are a no go then try both 720p and 1080i and decide for yourself which looks better since no one can tell you which looks best to you, either way the TV is gonna scale to 1080p it's just a matter of what it does better: scaling or de-interlacing.

audio visual science: try both. use whichever looks better to you. : )

not being cheeky...that's serious!

Get this: my TV is 1080p (Sammy HLS dlp set), but using HDMI I go to "optimal resolution" on the 360 and it selects 1080i even when 1080p is available as an option

I thought it only supported 1080i over component? Did they send an update to fix this?

It supports 1080p over component for games only, DVDs won't upscale and HD-DVDs max out at 1080i component. Of course your TV also has to accept 1080p over component.

It isn't really games only, rather everything but DVDs and HD DVDs. And they added 1080p support a long time ago, simultaneously for both component and VGA.

And Rhino, the back of the boxes list resolutions, but they don't really mean anything. It's just a carry over from last generation were games had to be designed specificly to support various output resolutions, but the 360 can output any game at any avalable resolution. As for rendering resolution, the vast majorty of 360 games render at 720p, a few at 1080p, and some others at various other resolutions. None render interlaced ever, rather the 360 just interlaces for output as needed.

I have a question for you guys. Do you think the 360 has a better scaler or would a projector have a better scaler. I have an infocus IN76 native 720p projector, now when I play games i have the 360 set to 720p but when I watch HD DVD movies I set the 360 to 1080i and let my projector do the scaling. I dont have the HDMI port on my 360 so I cant try 1080p for movies. To me I there isn't much of a difference but I think it looks a little better in 1080i opposed to 720p while watching HD DVD's. It is gonna be scaled one way or another. I could just be seeing things though.

It varies from pj to pj but the 360 will usually have the better scaler. All that matters is what looks good to you though. You may wanna try getting a VGA cable and try 1080p, then instead of downscaling and de-interlacing when watching HD-DVDs it will only have to downscale.

Yeah i have been thinking about getting the vga but i sent another 360 I had that got the ring of death to microsoft and i hope they end up sending me one back that has HDMI. If that one comes back without HDMI i am gonna try VGA. I heard when the 360 first came out people were having problems with VGA, like it was washed out and colors werent right. Maybe this has been corrected by now. I don't want to get a VGA chord and have to recalibrate that much. For now I just wish I really new which scaler I have is better. I mean its very indistiguishable between the 2 but for some reason I just keep going back and forth compairing and cant really tell. I think pj scaling looks better but I am not certain.

Dude if you can't tell stop stressing over it because it clearly doesn't matter. The VGA thing was fixed in an update FWIW.

I would imagine a dedicated VP or a reon equipped AVR would do better at scaling 720p than the xbox would.
But you owuld want to keep a close eye on lag. A game like guitar hero might not do to well with any lag whatsoever. In that case the 360 might be the better overall option for scaling from 720p to 1080p.