Ordered my Xbox360

[useless]

any widescreen LCD PC monitor is good enough if you have the VGA HD adapter. A 16:9 ratio is best.

As for LCD/Plasma TV's. Currently the Sony Bravia and Samsung LCD TV's are the best. Lower brands are also ok as long as then support 720p which is the minimum requirement for HD.

 

[Tomasz-London]

I was reading something about the differences between LCD and Plasma and basically what really matters to me is that LCD is not very good for watching sports. Which is why I want a plasma....

The LCD ghosting which you refer to depends on the response time of the LCD. The lower it is the less of the ghosting you get and hence better to watch sports, but the lower the response time the higher the price.

Plasma, on the other hand, suffers from the life span issue. Some manufacturers claim 10000 hrs and some 25000. But then even if you use the plasma for 5 hours a day it will last you 5.5 years.

Either way, make sure that the one you buy has a minimum vertical resolution of 720 to take the full 360 HD signal. I suggest the plasma LG LG42PC1D 42" HD Ready, it's around £1050 in UK but don't know if it's available in SA.

 

[GavinMannion]

Cool vertical resolution of 720, I can remember that...

I need to give my bank a break now though, spent way to much in the last 2 days.... Come on September 30... I need to play

 

[Bondizzo]

lcd tvs with 8ms response times are good enough for gaming and watching sports, its the old 16ms ones that where bad

 

[doobiwan]

Gavin, Tomaz is spot on with the vertical resolution and Plasma / LCD stuff, just a note, the LCD should have a response time of 20ms or less, good ones are around 8ms.

A clannie just picked on of these 50" babies up and he's very happy with it:
http://www.makro.co.za/ProductDetail.aspx?cat=6273&prod=28358&SKU=000000000000089133|EA

here's two other little things to note:
1. It's not only 720 lines, there's also a higher res 1080 line version of HD, obviously more expensive. 360 supports both. (720p, 1080i)
2. If you get an HD panel, it should have an HDMI connector - it's an encrypted digital connector. In a few years content providers are suppossed to start scaling down non HDMI transmission to protect content. Really annoying? definitely, but coming.

"3" - you don't have to spend a fortune to get an HD telly, I picked up a 1080i Samsung 74cm CRT for R5000. Only note is that the 360 will only run 720p on it, not full 1080i.

 

[Nab]

And though everyone hates to admit it CRT still looks better than lcd and plasma

 

[useless]

in terms of black and grey yes, but not vastly superior in HD terms.

 

[noxibox]

Have you seen the reviews of the PS3 on taketwo?

Did the PS2 reallt cost R4900 when it came out? If so SK were ripping people off even more than I thought.

The XBox 360 is still at a price that can be considered, but the PS3 is getting silly. And there's no way I'd buy one to watch movies until they've been out in the field for a while and we have reports on the durability. Both the PS and PS2 were plagued with laser problems. Watching movies on the PS2 was a sure way to kill the laser.

I'd probably rather get a Wii and XBox 360 than spend money on just the PS3. There are still some great games to play on the GameCube and PS2 though so I can wait for a price drop or three on all the consoles before I even start considering which to buy.

 

[doobiwan]

Considering the problems they're having producing enough blue lasers, that's a very fair concern!

For me the only really big blooper on the 360 was the exclusion of WiFi, because that's what I run at home, and paying R700 for a network adapter is just silly! I'd rather dig a trench around my house and run 50m of cable!

 

[doobiwan]

Yup R4700, sounds about right.

But consider the rand was having a hell of a time at the time. we hit R13 to a dollar at one stage.

 

[leo_girl]

Considering the problems they're having producing enough blue lasers, that's a very fair concern!

For me the only really big blooper on the 360 was the exclusion of WiFi, because that's what I run at home, and paying R700 for a network adapter is just silly! I'd rather dig a trench around my house and run 50m of cable!

Check out this post on xbox-360

http://www.xbox-360.co.za/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=827

 

[Bondizzo]

Gavin, Tomaz is spot on with the vertical resolution and Plasma / LCD stuff, just a note, the LCD should have a response time of 20ms or less, good ones are around 8ms.

A clannie just picked on of these 50" babies up and he's very happy with it:
http://www.makro.co.za/ProductDetail.aspx?cat=6273&prod=28358&SKU=000000000000089133|EA

here's two other little things to note:
1. It's not only 720 lines, there's also a higher res 1080 line version of HD, obviously more expensive. 360 supports both. (720p, 1080i)
2. If you get an HD panel, it should have an HDMI connector - it's an encrypted digital connector. In a few years content providers are suppossed to start scaling down non HDMI transmission to protect content. Really annoying? definitely, but coming.

"3" - you don't have to spend a fortune to get an HD telly, I picked up a 1080i Samsung 74cm CRT for R5000. Only note is that the 360 will only run 720p on it, not full 1080i.

Where can one get that samsung crt ?

 

[useless]

AFAIK CRT tellys can only run HD @ 480p and 1080i since thats their native res. Unless i am wrong and somebody can give me a link to a 720p CRT telly?

heck, 480p still looks awesome coz i also got a samsung widescreen telly, the only catch on it is that 1080i is only @ 50hz. All next-gen consoles REQUIRE HD @ 60hz, regardless of the HD standards.

 

[WiseCrack]

I preordered mine at Incredible connection and will be getting a R200 game voucher with it. I wonder I bought a Sansui 42" plasma at HIFI corp and the res in the manual states its 852x480 in Wide Vga but it also states in the supported display mode in component mode it can display 1080i @ 1920x1080 with 60.00 Hz in vertical frequency in the manual. Will my XBOX360 be able to run in HD on it

 

[useless]

yes it will, what the plasma does it downsizes the 1080i signal @ 60hz into the native res display of your plasma. no worries there.

 

[GavinMannion]

For me the only really big blooper on the 360 was the exclusion of WiFi, because that's what I run at home, and paying R700 for a network adapter is just silly! I'd rather dig a trench around my house and run 50m of cable!

I don't think so, I think that M$ made the best decision by giving the power users the chance to upgrade and the normal users get the box cheaper.

I am also getting a WiFi adaptor but I know for sure my parents won't and wouldn't appreciate having to pay for one either.

Same as the HD Drive. I will get one of the 3rd generation ones maybe, I am so glad they didn't package it inside the console from start...

 

[doobiwan]

@Leo, it's because my router is at the opposite end of the house to the telly, and the house is shaped such that the most direct route to run cable is through the garden.

@Gavin, yeah, I know it was to bring costs down, it's just annoying considering that a cheap PC wireless NIC is about R200, which means to include the silicon would have cost them less than R100, but instead we have to fork out R700-R900 for something that both the Wii and the PS3 include by default.

@Bondizzo
I bought it at Game. I've also seen them at Audio Vision. Hmm Samsungs site doesn't seem to have it any more. Game marketed it as a "100Hz" flat screen, it was R5k, 2 months later it was on special, for that price and including a DVD player

 

[Bondizzo]

is that samsung tv wide screen ? and does it say in the manual that it does true 720p ?