XBox360 Elite? What's the point?

[nordlead]

Blappo said:

BrainBoxLtd said:

Or you can go here and spend $6 + S&H for an off-brand cable that does the exact same thing. The only reason anyone should want Microsoft's brand of HDMI cables is it comes with that silly sound dongle that goes in the normal AV slot. Which is basically smaller version of the piece the regular cables come with, minus the cables, and now you can run your sound to one unit and your video output to another. Had they just placed the HDMI slot a quarter inch lower then is you wouldn't need that either. =P

 

Thanks for the info on the MS brand HDMI cable.  I could see this having some value since the majority of AV receivers do not process HDMI audio and only act as a HDMI switch.  This requires running an optical audio cable to the reciever for sound which I would have not expected to be blocked by the HDMI cable.  This almost seems like a design decision to get people to buy the MS brand HDMI cable.

I suppose if you really wanted to use HDMI and your AV reciever did not support audio over HDMI then the Elite would be a reasonable option since it is only $50 extra for the 60GB extra space and the black colour.  Although the HDMI video signal isn't that much superior to component video if you avoid EM interference.

 

From what I understand, with a little bit of work you can get rid of some of the rubber on the connector without actually damaging anything and get both plugs in.

also, 1080p can only be transfered over HDMI so it depends on your TV whether you get any benefit from HDMI or not.