What do the HDMI cables do for the consoles?

Component to vga vs. component to hdmi?

• I recently hooked up my video game consoles to a monitor i purchased. This monitor is a 28" I-Inc 1080p monitor with an hdmi and a vga input, and i want it to double as a tv. It came with a component-to-vga adapter so i connected my consoles via their respective component cables to a switcher box, the switch box to the component-to-vga adapter and the adapter to the vga input on the monitor. The problem is, when i use the consoles the picture shows up but it is very poor quality. Is this because the vga outputs in 640 x 480 resolution that the picture is blown up? Would i get a better picture quality if i connected the vga adapter to a dvi adapter and that to an hdmi adapter and plug it into the hdmi input?

• Answer:

  In a video path, you get the quality of the weakest link. If your consoles output SD signals, that's the weakest link. VGA can carry 720p and 1080i signals, but I am not sure if your component to VGA converter supports that. If it does, make sure your game consoles output 720p or 1080i. VGA->to-DVI-> to HDMI is not going to help (maybe not even work).