Easiest Hack to use HDMI cable & optical output on your 360

Yea we've known about this for a good half year at least. Still always nice to post again for all the new HDMI 360 owners looking for a way to get out of buying MS's rip-off $50 cable and dongle.

Yea, it's always helpful. I noticed when I did this though the metal housing was still applying pressure on the HDMI cable which bothered me immensely considering how easily HDMI ports like to break. A few of us have found you can tear the top of the metal housing off and bend the connector up and all will be well.

I'm not sure why but my 360 looks better going through component at 1080p rather than hdmi, I added an hd-dvd player at christmas and I have a premium with hdmi. I noticed the difference immed that things weren't as clear as they were, but if I wanna watch my hd-dvd's in 1080p I have to stay hdmi. BTW I play on a 52" sharp aquos 1080p lcd

I'm also going to modify a component cable to allow me to use HDMI. My question is can I cut off the unused portion of the cable(component video and rca audio) and only have the optical audio cable and HDMI coming from my X360. The big cable hanging on there for no reason irks me.

The sad thing is that your average consumer probably thinks a $50 HDMI cable w/ dongle is a great deal considering the prices in the big box stores. Best Buy has a $100 Psyclone "premium" HDMI cable sitting on the next peg in my Best Buy.

Yes, you simply follow the wires and pull the wire/pins out, so you're left with just the metal assy and attached optical jack.