The XBox is a bit of a pain with my 507. Our Xbox is moved from room to room (to be hooked to my children's TVs), so it doesn't stay plugged into power near my 507. Therefore I need to enter the dashboard whenever we want to play on the 507 & set the XBox for the HDTV settings. When hooked up via composite cables, the options aren't there for 480P, 720P, 1080i, widescreen, etc.
So.... if I want to play a 720P game, I have to hook the XBox to component 1 (480i, 480P) to set the dashboard options, then I have to disconnect from component 1 & then connect to component 2 or 3 to play the game.
Is there a better way to achieve this, other than a component switcher?
Are the following statements correct? The dashboard is the screen you have when no game is in the xbox or the CD tray is open. As soon as a game is inserted you get 480p screens unless the game is 720p or above. Only a few older games were 480i. Is this correct?
Yes the dashboard is the screen you get when nothing is in the tray. It only displays in 480i. If you leave the Xbox unplugged for a while you have to reset the time clock. If that happens and you have it in either component 2 or 3 input on the 507 then you cannot see the 480i dashboard. Now you can just press the Dpad down and mash the A button a few times any maybe get lucky and bypass the dashboard. I use component 1 as I have no 720p/1080i games yet. You can I suppose put a Y splitter on the Green component cable and send a signal to Video 1 composite input to view the dash. Hitman a pretty new game is 480i so i don't think its a hard fact all newer games must support 480p.
Originally posted by jedvik The XBox is a bit of a pain with my 507. Our Xbox is moved from room to room (to be hooked to my children's TVs), so it doesn't stay plugged into power near my 507. Therefore I need to enter the dashboard whenever we want to play on the 507 & set the XBox for the HDTV settings. When hooked up via composite cables, the options aren't there for 480P, 720P, 1080i, widescreen, etc.
So.... if I want to play a 720P game, I have to hook the XBox to component 1 (480i, 480P) to set the dashboard options, then I have to disconnect from component 1 & then connect to component 2 or 3 to play the game.
Is there a better way to achieve this, other than a component switcher?
Jeff
I don't think you have to set it up for 480p/720p/1080i each time just set the dash to the highest display rate your set can handle. checked all 3 for the 507. But the clock must be set if you are powered off for a while (see post below). I leave my component cables in the 507 and have an Xbox s-video cable hooked to the bedroom tv. Try the Y cable (next post) trick and see if that helps
You don't have to change the 480p/720p/1080i options every time the XBOX is unplugged. It saves that info on the harddrive. So you would only have to do it once. I have my XBOX connected to the HD input only on my Sony 57XBR2, and can see the dashboard. So I believe you don't need another connection to see the dashboard.
Is it even possible to split a component video signal, or would you need a component A/B switch attached backwards? What would be nice is if you could do something like this:
1) Hook all of your devices with component outputs to a component audio/video switcher, such as the Audio Authority 1154. These devices might be XBox, PS2, Gamecube, and DVD player.
2) Hook the audio output of the switcher to your receiver.
3) Somehow split the component video output of the switcher and attach to both the 507's Component 1 and Component 2 inputs.
When using the PS2, Gamecube, DVD player, or XBox dashboard, you'd set the 507 to Component 1. When playing a 720p or 1080i XBox game you'd set the 507 to Component 2. XBox 480p games (currently over 99% of XBox games) and the DVD player (if progressive) would work on either Component 1 or Component 2.
This seems like a good workaround to Samsung's poor design choices. All I need is to figure out how to do #3.
Radioshack sells RCA plug Y-splitters that would allow you to hook up the X-Box to two component inputs. This experiment would cost only about $5. Somebody should try it. I would, but I don't have any X-Box or a Samsung.
This sounds like a perfectly legitimate reason to mod an xbox. You could purchase the mod chip and use a custom dashboard, I think there are some out there that will run in several different resolutions. This isn't an easy undertaking though so only consider it if you're fairly pc savvy.
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