Be Excellent To Each Other

Gentlemen and ladies.

Recently, I was bought a Samsung T220HDTV, this was for my 360, to replace my previous 12" CRT. I was looking forward to receiving it, as I had heard "good stuff" about this new fangled High Definition TV malarky.
And lo, when I didst receive said TV, I saw it and I was pleased, and I said unto myself, "verily is the colour depth wondrous", and other such platitudes of delight. However, I shortly began to notice things which didst not cause delight or pleasure. Nay, in fact they cause distress, anger even.
The pixelation is appalling, playing the level 'Creek' On CoD4 is virtually impossible, as the leaves are square blobs which fluctuate with movement. Grass is a random collection of blobs on swaying lines. Lines I say, did I say lines? If only that were the case, for there appears to be no anti-aliasing at all. I saw better diagonal lines on my BBC B, 20 odd years ago.
It gets worse, upon playing Oblivion, I was battling a spider daedra, they can summon mini-spiders, when a summoning occurs, a black square appears on the screen and the summoned creature appears as if out of this. This did not occur on my CRT-TV.
Is this normal, am I being picky expecting a brand new TV to be better than my 15 yr old CRT? Or is there something wrong?

Facts: I have 1080i (It defaulted to this, I tried 720 and 1080p, no really any difference) set up in the 360, there is limited set up on the TV itself, but I have done what I am able.
The TV resolution is actually 1050.
I have it connected via the component connector from the 360, as I don't have HDMI output.
I also have my PC set up to the TV, and it is fine, wrt pixelation. Not got any comparable games to play, but CS-S is really nice and crisp. PC GFX card is not as good as 360, by a long way. The PC is connected to the VGA port, not the other digital one, whatever it is called, as I couldn't get that to work either.
Also, I tried plugging the 360 in as scart, it was awful, is this normal?

Any help/answers muchly appreciated.

Well step 1, don't use 1080i on an LCD TV. They're not i.

Use 720p.

You HAVE set up the 360 to use HD right?

But no, it sounds quite like a dying 360 to me, especially that black square.

Oh, okay, it defaulted to that, so I assumed that was what should be used. I haven't actively set up HD-TV, but the 360 seemed to recognise when I first plugged it in. I am going to check.

I have only just got it back from being fixed, surely it can't be broken again!! [/naive]

Wow, is it 360 lemming season or something?

Do you still have your old crt (or any other tv at all) that you can hook the 360 up to, to see if it's ok like that?
You have flicked the switch on the cable to HD (or whatever it says), haven't you? (I use VGA, but I'm going to assume that the HD options don't appear in the 360 settings unless you do this, so you probably have.)
When you say it was awful connected via scart, do you mean the same black square issues, or was it just a bit rubbish?

I think Duds might be right though, it sounds like the gfx chip could be on its way out. At least you know not to bother wasting your time with Woolworths this time round.

I will try it against my old CRT, but as it is so much smaller, any pixelation will be minimised, so maybe it was always there? Apart from, the black box bit, that is.

Edit: also, my warranty just ran out. Unless I get a RROD.

Double check that switch on the 360 side plug. But yes, with black squares it sounds a bit like a GPU fault. Induce a RROD if you can.

Doesn't sound like a settings issue to me, sounds like something (and I'd say the 360) is fucked.

It would be good for you if the 360 overheated badly somehow and you got the 3 red lights....

i have the monitor version (just T220), of that tv and its awesome. It would be nice if you could try connecting with a vga cable

Yeah, I was wondering about connecting with a VGA cable, but I don't have one/am loathe to spend £20(?) on something that probably won't solve the problem and I don't really need.

Do you have a nearby friend with a 360? If you could try their console with your leads and telly it would go some way to helping you identify the problem.

I wouldn't bother buying a new cable yet, although if you could borrow one it might be handy.
I don't really think it sounds like your tv, but do you have any other devices you could hook up to it via component to make sure they are ok?

I think your checklist probably wants to go something like this.

Try it on your old tv and see if you can see the black squares
Use the composite section of the component cable to connect it to your new tv (don't forget to set the switch back to SDTV).
Do you know anyone with another HDTV that you could take the box round to test on their TV?
Also, do you know anyone with a 360 with a cable that you can borrow to test it?

To echo everyone else here, what you're describing doesn't sound right at all. I'd also go with the 360 GPU fucked explanation.

(As a side note, my original Xbox, bought on day of launch, used to display random coloured pixels in various positions over the screen - only a few, nothing too distracting. I assumed it was just a quirk of the console, until another Xbox owning mate came round and saw it and told me to get the console replaced. I did, and indeed there were no more random pixels on the new one. So, what I'm basically trying to say is, weird shit like this black box business does happen on a console with a fucked GPU).

Curses!



I did this, via the SCART adaptor, the picture was even worse, really blurry, and there seemes to be "halo(e)s" around white text. I just assumed that was because it wasn't a digital signal.

It is weird though, because it plays okay, and all the images are there and everything. Grrrr.

Play some games, then?

What sort of cable options do you have? The newer Xboxs should have HDMI options.

Any chance of a piccy of your screen?

Component is also not a digital signal btw.

I don't have HDMI, sadly.

I will try and take one later, if I can find my camera.


Oh yeah! Damn, I want HDMI.

As an aside, is there a noticeable difference between 360 through HDMI?

Some say it's better through component, some HDMI. To my eyes it doesn't seem much different.

It might vary a little from one TV to another. More likely there is no real difference and people are just convincing themselves.

I like the fact that the artwork's bigger and more detailed with component. And that it just feels great seeing component cables sat on your shelf. Not like the cold, clinical HDMI cables - they're soulless.

Analogue FTW.

Because of overscan on component and not on HDMI? Again, I think that's TV dependent. My Tosh still crops a small amount off the outer edges of the picture on HDMI; this caused problems when I ran a PC into it over a DVI-HDMI cable. Most of the Vista task bar was missing.

my tv has a 1:1 pixel mapping mode for use with the media center. Strangley it's called 'Game' mode and works with ecksbawks Haitch-Dee-Em-Eye also

Many do, indeed. My Tosh does this over VGA but not HDMI.

odd. mine is a tosh also. Both media center and the xbox attached via hdmi. it is quite new though

Right, pictures ahoy. Sorry, it is a little difficult to show in a photo, as it is more apparent when moving, but I have attempted to capture at least the blocky lines bit. Am I just being picky?

sorry dude. you're gonna have to say what your problem is here, cos i'm not seeing it (8.9" screen at home!)

Maybe I am just being picky, but (describing the top one) the cables trailing overhead are really blocky. the lines of the roof are not at all sharp, being quite jagged. If you zoom in on the top picture, and look top left, Ah sod it....



... edited picture for ease. Maybe I am being picky, but I wanted it to look better than badly drawn lines in paint.

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but that does seem pretty blocky and a bit washed out.
Are you sure that both 360 and tv are set to HD? I don't think you should have to set anything on your tv, but does it have a display or info button or something that tells you what type of picture it's currently displaying?
I would say that's more like what my Wii looks like on my tv because it can only do 480p.

That really doesn't look right to me. I agree with Joans, that looks like a Wii game.

on the enlarged pic i would agree. that doesnt seem more than about 640x480 on a pc do it? at not crisp at all.

To be honest I'm not sure that picture really is that bad. Stick your face next to your TV and it'll look shit. And CoD4 isn't really the prettiest of games.

Can we get pictures of the black square thing?

Are we talking about the aliasing? That looks about right for CoD 4 on consoles. The aliasing is terrible. And it doesn't run in particularly high res anyway.

Have you tried turning the sharpening setting down? That tends to really fuck with anti-aliasing, as it's an extra filter applied by the tv. The first picture appears to have characteristic 'sharpening halos' around the cables.

To be honest, it looks absolutely fine. Have you got any other games you could show us? CoD 4 really does look like that on PS3 and Xbox 360.

Fair enough, I thought i might be being picky, but it actually looked better on a 12" CRT, but that could simply be the stretching to fit the screen?
I shall endeavour to obtain a picture of the black box.

I had a play with the sharpening, and it didn't really help, it just made all the colours dull, and they are the best thing about it, tbf!

No, I was making a stupid joke - forget it.

Here we are then, black boxes ahoy:

Just to the left of the sword, it is a bit small.

Had to pause it, but I reckon you can make it out!

Images edited: the boxes occur when a NPC* is conjuring a creature.

*not tried conjuring one myself, as can't.

Can't see anything wrong with that TBH. It's just Aliasing.

My Tosh telly has a 'game' mode that maps pixels 1:1 and removes all overscan from the PC

Sorry, I was referring to the black boxes, I will circle them.

Pictures edited for clarity

That's not good - your 360 looks to be an unhappy bunny.

I had black boxes around summoned creatures in Oblivion once, so I was about to say don't worry. However, on reflection, it did Red Ring around a week later.

(I'm on my 4th one, currently.)