Be Excellent To Each Other

So, I (well, OK, my parents) have just got a home theatre set up, and I'd like to plug my 360 into it.

I gather the best way to do so is via optical, I use HDMI for video + audio at the minute, but the nice man in the shop said I would need optical or equivalent for the Audio.

I remembered that my (third party) VGA cable has an optical out, so that would be no problem, all I would need to do is use the HDMI for video, and the optical out from the VGA cable, and I would be sorted.

However, the VGA cable and the HDMI won't physically fit into the console at the same time. Is this just because I have a dodgy mad catz cable, and would an official cable work ok? I have the cable that came with the console (IIRC it is composite/scart, whatever the one included with the console is), but I left it at uni for the time being. Would that work to let me do HDMI out for video and optical out for audio? Is there some obvious solution I am missing?

Cheers.

No, official cables also clash. you can either modify the cable, or get a audio adapter.

I think there's a slimline official audio-only cable, isn't there?

What the hell. It only clashes because they made the bit of plastic so bit. Greedy fuckers.

I guess I'll be hacking it, just seen a video on youtube and it looks like a piece of piss.

Cheers.

We've covered this before. Someone told me that sometimes using a hacked cable causes the Xbox to do weird shit like reset at random, because it sees two output cables and becomes confused. I think it fucks with the HDMI HDCP handshake too.

$8.99.

For $8.99 I guess I'll grab them, I need an extra HDMI anyway. Cheers.

Actually that cable might be crap. More info than you could possibly want on why the 360 reboots and which cables make it do that.

i've given up on this. I even bought an adapter from deal extreme to do optical out, but the xbox still resets if you change tv inputs. I have plans to buy a(n) HDMI receiver soon anyway, so i can live with basic dolby surround for now

Read Doc's link - the leads from dealextreme are incompetently designed.

Hmm, my parents TV doesn't have a VGA in, but I can convert VGA to other formats with an adapter right? Then I can use the optical out from that?

My old monitor came with a VGA-DVI adaptor. I'll see if I can dig it out for you.

Let me check that it has a DVI in first. It almost certainly should, I was really shocked when I saw it didn't have a VGA.

Well all my cables are distributed through about 5-10 crates split between 2 houses, but I've got a good idea where it'd be....

couldnt you get the Xbox official adaptor thingy.

I have one, it cost me about £5 off AVFORUMS

You can't convert from VGA to DVI*, it's DVI to VGA, which is what those adapters that come with video cards are. That's because DVI usually actually has a VGA signal bundled into it.
Not only that, but from Doc's link that's the only one that doesn't cause reboots.

Edit: Oof, even more outrageously priced than I expected, though.

* Well, you probably can, but it'll be a non-trivial box of tricks, instead of two connectors wired together.

Ah, it must've been that cable then. I didn't examine it too closely when the polystyrene was falling like snow due to my excitement at new electronics. DVI one end, VGA the other, didn't check the sexes.