XCM is a manufacturer of aftermarket cables and cases that just announced it’s making an Xbox 360 HDMI cable. This will knock the wind out of Xbox 360 Elite or the so called “black” Xbox 360. Its primary advantage was HDMI.
Video-philes will look to the new HDMI capabilities for enhanced video quality over the component cable that comes with Xbox 360. But, you might want to hold on to your enthusiasm for the digital video standard.
It’s true that HDMI is a fully digital video connection standard that is not susceptible to degradation inherent in analogue connections such as component. But in the short run between your Xbox 360 and HDTV your component connection is unlikely suffering from any visible degradation. I’d be interested to see if anyone can produce A/B test results that demonstrated HDMI was superior to component over a 720P (or 1080i) HDTV. On paper, yes HDMI should be better. But in practical while you’re playing the game, I don’t think so.
However, the component/HDMI issue gets a little more complicated when your display is 1080P. I can already see confusion spreading all over the web that seems to be based on posts like this from TeamXbox: “XCM Brings 1080p HDMI to Standard Xbox 360”.
Read more about HDMI, Xbox 360 and 1080P.