Gateway 21" Widescreen HD Monitor + XBOX360...

[LiquidCell]

Alright, here's the story, I have a 21" Gateway HD Monitor (Widescreen), it has Composite, VGA, DVI, S-Video and Component inputs on it as well (so I can plug my XBOX360 into it).

My friend (who has the HD / Component cables (he has the premium)) brought his 360 over and we hooked it up to the component input, I also (bought one later that day) use the Composite because thats what comes with the core unit...

Anyways, no matter how many times I read "HD Monitor" on the top of this screen, EVERYTHING, including other devices such as my DVD Player look somewhat fuzzy/blurry on it. My question is, how can I improve the brightness and/or picture quality, I have gone through the monitors settings (and the manual) to see what I can do but that was of no help, also, would the VGA Cable (for the 360) make any difference in the picture quality? would it then be in high-definition?

Thanks for any help

(by the way, the model # of this monitor is FPD2185W

[w4x]

if you are using composite, then yes, the quality will be really bad. If you want it to look good, you'll have to apply the same general rule when watching old CRT tvs: sit 3x the screen size away.

composite < SVID < Component

the VGA is on par with Component if not better in some cases

i did the same thing as you, except I only tried composite and SVID because my 2005fpw doesn't have component. the quality was so bad, i went out the next day and bought the VGA adapter. No regrets since then.

i'd recommend purchasing either the VGA or Component xbox 360 cables.

[LiquidCell]

to be honest, on this screen the component doesn't look that much better than the composite, I am serious, well, it looks quite a bit sharper but its still noticeable nowhere near the quality it should be, did the VGA cable (in the end) give you a brighter and sharper picture?

[w4x]

vga was great for me. 1360x768 widescreen res or 1280x1024 res.

the 360 looks about the same as when you play pc games as these resolutions.

[LiquidCell]

well the highest res on this screen is 1680x1050 :D

[YauYin]

the problem i believe is that teh scaler in ur monitor isnt very good.

component output is perfectly capable of producing a HQ HD picture.

like u said the resolution of ur moniotor is wsxga (1650x1050).

meanwhile hte xbox outputs either 1080i/720p (im not sure exactly which one). if ur monitor was wxga (1900x1200) or wxga (13xx X 768) i believe the picture resolution would match up more closely to xbox360s hd output and hence razor sharp hd quality.

also, according to this rule, dvd players connected to ur moniotr woudl prolly look even worse as it has even LESS resolution then the xbox, but playing dvds thru a decent a computer via decent dvd software (with a good upscaling algorithm) & system will do wonders for dvd playback.

xbox 360 has 720p or 1080i hd output?

[LiquidCell]

so really... in the end there is nothing I can do to improve the picture even with a VGA Cable?