bigdaddy1980

Which would you recommend? I've seen the Advance pack for $29.99 and the Madcatz for $24.99 (Canadian). The advantage of buying the Madcatz pack is that is comes with a digital optical cable.

Has anyone tried the Madcatz pack? The main reason for getting this would be to take advantage of Dolby digital sound. One more question, I'm by no means an A/V expert so I wanted to make sure that a second digital optical cable is required as I already have one going from my DVD player to the receiver (my guess would be yes).

Any help would be appreciated,

Thanks

SmackDaddy

Yes you need a seperate Optical cable and an extra optical input on your reciever. As far as the difference in quality, I generally prefer 1st party products when it comes to console hardware.

I've picked up too many 3rd party hardware products that just don't last or aren't as well built as there 1st party brethren.

young

i'd get the madcatz... hard to mess up cables, i'd think.

Josh H

I just got the MS Advanced AV Pack from Best Buy for $19.99. I don't recall seeing the Mad Catz one their, so I'm not sure what it goes for.

And yes you need an optical cable, it would have been nice for them to indicate that on the packaging as I had to make a second trip.

clarkbar

It's a bit more money, but I went with the Monster Cable HD-AV Cable and Optical interconnect and they work awesome. Plus the cool green cabling is quality stuff.

Brian_92gsr

Some people spend as much money on the cables as they do the equipment, but unless you have top of the line reference level components and very good sight/hearing, you're never going to notice a difference. And that's just as far as the video is concerned, since you're using a digital line for audio, the cheapest and most expensive are going to be exactly the same.

SmackDaddy

Monster cables are nice, and if you like 'em that's all that really matters. All that pretty braided shielding and such doesn't really make a difference over your average 8-20' run of cable (typical for HT installs) unless you've got some serious power puming through them over 100' runs, othwise they really aren't any better than Ratshack cables.

bigdaddy1980

So has anyone actually used the Madcatz AV pack. Would it be safe to assume that the quality/performance of the optical digital cable included in the package would be comparable to one of the more expensive cables?

SmackDaddy

I would think the performance(what you will see) would be on par with the Microsoft/Monster cable versions. As for quality(how well built and duarable) has been hit or miss with MadCatz products. My MadCatz MC2 wheel for my Xbox is great, but my DC Catz controllers blew goats. YMMV.

Xanager

I use the MadCatz one and it works great. The one I bought came with component, composite, svideo, and optical cables, so it ended up being a much better buy than the Microsoft one. I do agree that first party things like controllers are much better, but as previously stated, the cables don't get thrown around too much like a controller. Mine works fine and the picture and video quality are great. Granted though, I've never hooked up a MS pack to compare.

bigdaddy1980

I ended up getting the Madcatz package. Quick question, it comes with 3 different cables (1) the red, white, yellow (2) red, blue, green (3) s-video.

Which of these 3 options is the best to use? I have the capability to use any of the 3.

thanks

Kumar J

Use the Red,Blue And Green.Its the best then the second is S-Video

bigdaddy1980

When I try to use the Red, blue, green cables the picture comes out black and white, why is that?

bigdaddy1980

Any ideas?

young

ok...

yellow + red/white = composite video + stereo sound

red, blue and green = component video (all three are used for video)
--
are you sure you have component video input? sounds like you're mixing them up.

could be loose?

cubanx

Your TV Brand and Model?

bigdaddy1980

I don't think I'm mixing them up, the tv does have the red, blue, green inputs located right beside the red, white, yellow inputs. I thought they might be loose but they won't go in any further, still get the black and white picture. Using the s-video cable for now.

I have a Sony 43" projection tv, the model I can't remember off the top of my head.