Xbox 360 questions

[ibex333]

I am thinking about buying Xbox 360, but I'm hesitant to do so, since the last console I ever owned was Sega Genesis, and after that I decided that I'd never buy another console again, since PC is way better in the gfx, upgradeability and novelties department.
At this point I see that I was wrong in some respects. However, if I buy an Xbox 360, I wouldnt want to use it on a TV since I heared that consoles ruin TVs.
Do you guys know if the Xbox can be connected to an LCD monitor I use for my PC?
Also, how important is it to have a hard drive or a memory card? From your experience, how often did you have to use the save feature in games?

 

[Super56K]

To answer the issue on the hard drive...yes it is very important to have it. You most definately want one. Don't skimp out on a hard drive. Save files for games can add up fast if your only using a memory card. I'm not even sure why they are even offering a core system X360. It's a big waste of money IMO. The only usefulness of the memory card I can think of is transferring some save games to another xbox or something.

 

[MX2]

Consoles ruin TV's What the hell are you talking about?

 

[homercles337]

Wait, you ask a few general questions, then use "ONLY xbox owners" in your summary?

Here let me help you:

I wouldnt want to use it on a TV since I heared that consoles ruin TVs.

Total nonsense. Outside of MAYBE decreasing manufacturers expected lifetime due to heavy usage or leaving the console on, resulting in ghosting.

 

[VIAN]

I am thinking about buying Xbox 360, but I'm hesitant to do so, since the last console I ever owned was Sega Genesis, and after that I decided that I'd never buy another console again, since PC is way better in the gfx, upgradeability and novelties department.
At this point I see that I was wrong in some respects. However, if I buy an Xbox 360, I wouldnt want to use it on a TV since I heared that consoles ruin TVs.
Do you guys know if the Xbox can be connected to an LCD monitor I use for my PC?
Also, how important is it to have a hard drive or a memory card? From your experience, how often did you have to use the save feature in games?

I don't see how a console ruins a TV. The only thing that can ruin a TV would be a stationary object in a game like a health bar would cause it to burn into the screen after being displayed continuously for a while, and this would only occur on certain types of TVs, and those are they types that suck actually. So you have no loss there.

It can be connect to you LCD monitor, but I've heard that the picture you get isn't ass good.

Hard Drive was probably the coolest feature on Xbox. You could do so much with it as well as never need to buy a memory card.

The type of TVs that get screen burn in are: Any kind of Projection TV and Plasma(IIRC). You are safe with everything else.

 

[Xyo II]

well, genesis was...........genesis. if you are getting it, definately get the hard drive, so you can get linux on that thing and download music. there will be boatloads of mod chips for it if you are so inclined, the xbox was modded pretty bad on plenty of games, *cough* halo 2 * cough, so functionality is going to be a lot gretter. if you like the games going out for the xbox, get the 360. if you like the developers going to ps3, get the ps3. the ps3's hardware> the 360's, but it just cant beat xbox live. hope this helps

oh, and if you get a decent kvm switch for it, you can definately play it w/ your monitor.
and it wont ruin your tv unless you leave it on the pause menu for hours on end, or have, yes, the health bar and stuff like that, and it always helps to leave your xbox far enough away from the tv- the consoles are not COMPLETELY shielded.

 

[KoolDrew]

However, if I buy an Xbox 360, I wouldnt want to use it on a TV since I heared that consoles ruin TVs.

WTF?

 

[Pr0d1gy]

On certain types of TV's you can suffer burn in if you leave a game on pause for extended periods of time.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy
On certain types of TV's you can suffer burn in if you leave a game on pause for extended periods of time.

Only older Plasma TVs, the newer ones have "pixel shifting" to move the image around and reduce this

Get a DLP, LCD, LCD projection or don't leave a game paused for 15 minutes with the TV on and you'll be fine.

Xbox360: FYI you need the hard drive version if you want to play any Xbox 1 games.

Also, having a HD or mem card is pretty much a necessity for everything except online shooters like Halo -- RPGs take 40+ hours to complete, single-player shooters take 10+ hours, and most racing/sports games have career modes that span many hours of play.

Do you guys know if the Xbox can be connected to an LCD monitor I use for my PC?

Many LCDs have mutliple inputs such as VGA, DVI, s-video, composite. IF your monitor has multiple inputs or you get a Keyboard-Video-Mouse switchbox (KVM) you should be able to connect the Xbox. Or just use your TV unless it's an old plasma.

 

[Xyclone]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew

However, if I buy an Xbox 360, I wouldnt want to use it on a TV since I heared that consoles ruin TVs.

WTF?

 

[VIAN]

if you are getting it, definately get the hard drive, so you can get linux on that thing and download music.

Now if he's deciding wether or not to get the 360 with a HDD or not, it's simple. Are you gonna be doing a lot of online playing on the x360. If so, then the HDD will come in handy, if not, don't bother. The HDD will be more usefull for online gaming for downloading maps, patches or whatever other crap they throw at you. For single player games, the X360 HDD will not be as useful as for the original XBOX.

 

[ibex333]

Thanx for your replies guys. But consoles do ruin TVs and my TV is proof of that. I dont have that TV anymore, but it was a 1995 32" Toshiba. My genesis destroyed it back then. What happened is there was a red shadow projecting from faces of ppl on Tv and from some objects as well. My friend had the same problem with his Sony.
Mabe the newer consoles simply have abetter hardware, and they DONT ruin TVs anymore.

 

[Kogan]

Originally posted by: ibex333
Thanx for your replies guys. But consoles do ruin TVs and my TV is proof of that. I dont have that TV anymore, but it was a 1995 32" Toshiba. My genesis destroyed it back then. What happened is there was a red shadow projecting from faces of ppl on Tv and from some objects as well. My friend had the same problem with his Sony.
Mabe the newer consoles simply have abetter hardware, and they DONT ruin TVs anymore.

Sorry to tell you this, but you're wrong Consoles never have caused serious damage to TVs. Maybe you should research a bit more (search the net, talk to tv repair people, etc) before believing and repeating crazy stuff like that. There's a lot of stupid people out there who will actually believe you and start repeating you..

 

[sswingle]

Definately get the hard drive version. For just $100 more, you get a hard drive, worth an extra 100 by itself, a wireless controller instead of wired, and a component video cable, for those of us with HD tvs.

Oh, and consoles ruin TV's??? Consoles are MADE FOR tvs. How else would 99% of console owners use them?

 

[VIAN]

A console will ruin all TVs, except for LCDs. Since LCDs do not suffer from burn in. Burn in is the only possible damage a console can do. And that's not even the consoles' fault. It's a limitation in the TV technology.

Here is the the difference: Time.

Projection TVs suffer from burn in much, much quicker than CRT TVs. It may take days on a CRT. Who is gonna leave on their TV for days.

If you consider this as consoles ruining TVs, then consider this as well, Widescreen movies ruin CRTs and Plasmas as well. Not sure about projection - don't think so.

It's just a limitation in the technology. Buy a good TV, not a crappy one.

 

[ibex333]

Kogan, apparently you didnt read my reply.. I clearly said that I actually experienced this myself. And not only me, but my friend as well. I wouldnt be saying all this if that wasnt the case. The reason you deny waht I am saying, is because you probably never owned an "older" console.
I specifically said that mabe newer consoles e.g. Xbox, PS3, DO NOT ruin TVs anymore.

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: ibex333
Kogan, apparently you didnt read my reply.. I clearly said that I actually experienced this myself. And not only me, but my friend as well. I wouldnt be saying all this if that wasnt the case. The reason you deny waht I am saying, is because you probably never owned an "older" console.
I specifically said that mabe newer consoles e.g. Xbox, PS3, DO NOT ruin TVs anymore.

"I have a console" and "my TV is broken" does not equal "my console broke my TV".

On certain types of TV's you can suffer burn in if you leave a game on pause for extended periods of time.

This is true, but it really takes effort to ruin a TV with burn-in. Just turn off the screen if you plan to pause for an hour or more.

 

[Yanagi]

Console != Destroying TV. User OR Components in TV Electronics = FAIL

 

[JackBurton]

Actually, older consoles (Genesys, Atari, NES) had warnings about using those consoles with a projection screen TV. They actually recommended NOT using it on a screen TV due to burn in. But standard CRTs? I played Atari Pac Man and Defender for HOURS upon HOURS on my old ass black and white TV. And let me remind you, there was NO pause on the Atari and 99% of the games had no ending. So you just played forever, with blood shot eyes. And also let me also remind you, that MOST of the Atari games had a high score displayed at the top of the screen while you where playing, and they also had standard grids that wouldn't change. And I NEVER had burn in. So if those old consoles didn't cause any burn in, you don't have anything to worry about. With the Dreamcast, Sega added a nice little feature that current consoles use, screen dimming. When you leave a console on pause for awhile, it will dim the picture to avoid burn in. Even if you left it on for days. I don't think it would do anything to your TV.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: homercles337
Wait, you ask a few general questions, then use "ONLY xbox owners" in your summary?

Yeah, that annoyed me, so I'm replying and I do NOT own an XBox.

 

[fishbits]

How did it go from "I heared that consoles ruin TVs" to "I have proof of it?" If what you saw happen to your TV was a result of "consoles," there'd be millions upon millions of cases of this. The Genesis was a pretty popular console, and somehow I and many, many, many others failed to come up with your proven results. Your TV went bad. It happens.

Also, how important is it to have a hard drive or a memory card? From your experience, how often did you have to use the save feature in games?

How often is it important to have a hard drive for pc gaming? How often do you use it?

Save your money, don't buy the 360 or any other console. Doesn't sound like you'd be able to understand or appreciate them, and would get an ulcer going "OMG, is it eating my TV?" Oh yeah, if you get an email from a Nigerian bigwig promising a lot of money if you can help him out with some banking transactions, that's bogus too.

 

[JoPh]

hard drive. memory cards are a waste for xbox

 

[AwesomeJay]

Originally posted by: ibex333
Thanx for your replies guys. But consoles do ruin TVs and my TV is proof of that. I dont have that TV anymore, but it was a 1995 32" Toshiba. My genesis destroyed it back then. What happened is there was a red shadow projecting from faces of ppl on Tv and from some objects as well. My friend had the same problem with his Sony.
Mabe the newer consoles simply have abetter hardware, and they DONT ruin TVs anymore.

sounds like you and your friend messed around with the color settings on the tv's.. had nothing to do with the genesis. i owned one, 5 of my buddies owned a genesis and we used to have NHL 95 and Madden 95 tournaments on them steady on different tv's..never a problem..

 

[SMOGZINN]

Originally posted by: ibex333
Kogan, apparently you didnt read my reply.. I clearly said that I actually experienced this myself. And not only me, but my friend as well. I wouldnt be saying all this if that wasnt the case. The reason you deny waht I am saying, is because you probably never owned an "older" console.
I specifically said that mabe newer consoles e.g. Xbox, PS3, DO NOT ruin TVs anymore.

I come from a family of TV repairmen, and have worked as one myself. I can tell you that there is nothing about a console that can harm a TV that is not present in most broadcasts.
All a console does is send a signal to the TV, to the TV that signal is indistinguishable from the signal sent by a DVD, VCR, or cable box.
Projection and CRT TV's can get burn in, the older projection TV's were very prone to this. But this will happen anytime you have any static image on the screen.
Those little bugs they put at the bottom of every broadcast these days are the worst culprits, followed closely by the bars from DVDs. I have seen TV?s with burn-in caused by consoles, but they are normally from kids that leave their game on 24/7 with out ever turning off the TV. If you want to prevent burning all you have to do is turn off the TV when you are done playing. Your eyes will get tired before the TV gets burn in.
I have had and played on my Xbox for several years along with my rear projection TV, and I have no problems.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Originally posted by: ibex333
What happened is there was a red shadow projecting from faces of ppl on Tv and from some objects as well.

This could be several problems, I would first try degaussing the TV, that will often solve this type of problem, after that I would break out the signal oscilloscope and color balance the signal from the tuner.
I can promise you that problem had nothing to do the console, but was a problem that was common with TV's in the 90s

Mabe the newer consoles simply have abetter hardware, and they DONT ruin TVs anymore.

As I pointed out in my other post, there is no diffrence to a TV between a game console and a VCR, they both send the same type of signal.