If you have an spare PC monitor laying around your house and have an Xbox 360 console and would like to watch movies and play games in high definition quality and dont have the money to buy a large HD ready plasma screen television, you can use your PC monitor to display HD content from the console. This is by creating or buying a VGA cable for the console to connect it to the male VGA on the rear of the PC monitor. Using this method is not the best, as it creates washed out colors to be displayed on the screen and this will affect the quality of the graphics, as they will look plain and not vibrant and bright they way they should look. Therefore, i do recommend you to use the DVI method, as this is far better than using VGA, as the colors are not so washed out. But if your monitor only has a VGA connection then you have no choice and have to stick with the washed out colors, unless you upgrade your display, but i have some solutions on how to retrieve the depth in the colors that you will be happy with.
1) Go to the display settings that controls the amount of color displayed on the TV settings. While a movie or game is displayed, increase the amount of color, this will add more depth and will make the color appear stronger. So do have a play around different amounts, until you have found the sweet spot. Sometimes the color setting on the TV can be setup to low, which could be the answer why the colors look washed out and plain, as increasing boosts the quantity.
2) Also if you play your console offline, chances are that it doesnt have the latest firmware update applied onto the console. The old firmware update provided poor picture quality if using VGA, as you will see on many forums. So connect your Xbox to the internet and the console will automatically download and install the latest software update. However, if you dont have the Ethernet cable to connect the console to your router, or you Xbox 360 is banned from using Xbox live and you cant sign in, then as an alternative route, you can download the update from the Microsoft website, copy it to an usb drive or burn it to an CD.
3) If you are not using an official Microsoft branded VGA cable and are using a cheap third party copy or have made your own, then you will not gain a quality looking display. This is because they have not been approved by Microsoft engineers and have not been tested. Cheap cables, use cheap components and wiring, as most people that have used them have experience washed out colors and have switched to the official product and there problem was solved.
4 ) Also make sure that the reference level, which is found in the Xbox 360s dashboard settings menu is set to expanded, as there is an possibility that it is currently set to standard. Expanded provides a greater depth of colors and makes them feel more bright, if compared with the standard setting.
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