Help, I've Lost My Video Signal!

Ever lost your video feed from your game system to your TV and been left puzzling over an error message like "out of range" without a clue what it means or how to fix it? I had this trouble plugging my Xbox 360 (by way of Microsoft's official VGA cable) into my new Sony 20" LCD TV last week and, bereft of internet access, it nearly stumped me.

All summer long, I'd been basking in glorious full 1080p @ 1920 x 1080 on a 37" LG (which if you're HDTV-illiterate, is just the technical way of saying "really, really gorgeous picture quality"). When I landed in the UK and got all my gear plugged in, however, the display resolution was set too high for my 20" Sony's meager 1280 x 720 maximum.

On a PlayStation 3, that's easily gotten around by keeping your finger on the power button as the system boots up until you hear a fast double-beep. This resets the PS3's video feed and performs an auto-output detect that I'm reasonably certain defaults to the highest-quality connection, e.g. HDMI if you have HDMI and component cables simultaneously connected. You can then go in and fiddle the resolution and audio around to whatever you like.

On the 360, it's a bit less obvious. In fact I spent the first few days without internet access unsuccessfully guesstimating the button combos and/or cable tricks, worrying that I might have a PAL compatibility issue...or worse.

Turns out all you need to do is Google something like "video display reset xbox 360" to land on Microsoft Support Article 911059, revised to version 3.0 and updated July 23, 2008. Scan down a few paragraphs on this page and you'll find that pressing and holding the Y button on your 360's controller, then pulling the right trigger at the same time as the console starts up does the trick.

Something else I learned: The difference between the PS3's "full" and "limited" HDMI settings. According to Sony's PS3 user guide, "limited" RGB signal runs from 16 to 235, while "full" hits everything from 0 to 255. My 37" LCD worked great on "full," but the blacks looked seriously washed out on the 20" Sony. Set to "limited" and the problem cleared up. How to tell if a TV supports this before you buy it? Good question. All I know is that "limited" looks as rich to my subjective eye on the Sony, maybe even a touch better, than "full" did on the larger LG.

Did I mention everything looks even better on a smaller LCD? I'll vote with the size-counts-for-something crowd, but you certainly lose a lot of the "jaggies" (the stair-step jaggedness that plagues the edges of objects in 3D games, even with current-gen anti-aliasing enabled) when you drop down to smaller screen estate. I wouldn't want to argue with someone desperately in love with their $160,000 Sharp 108" LCD TV, but there's an argument for living with smaller and getting a smoother looking picture in the bargain.

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