Ever since I bought my new TV I have been using the VGA connection for my Xbox 360.  The VGA input should be a better quality signal than component for my TV.  Another good reason is that the VGA connection allows me to upscale DVDs to 720p ONLY via the VGA  or HDMI cable for legal reasons.  There has been some talk about how the VGA cables washout some of the color from the 360.  I've never looked into this very much but in the Spring update there was a change to modify the black levels that was supposed to help VGA owners.  I tried this and noticed a difference but in some games it was too dark.

Well, over the weekend I brought my 360 over to a friends house and I noticed that even thought his TV was not HD the games looked really good.  I was using the HD component cables on his TV.   I decided to try out the component connection once I got home.  Well the colors do jump out at you while using the component connection.  Reds are redder, blues are bluer and yellows are yellower.  It is really night and day.  I played BioShock and noticed how more colorful the game is over component.  I then decided to throw in my HD-DVD copy of The Departed and the visuals really stood out.  The color was amazing and the image still looked really good.  I did notice the text in the dashboard was not as defined over component compared to VGA.

I think I've decided that I will be using the component cables going forward.  For now I can up convert DVDs via the HD-DVD drive so the lose of the VGA cable will not affect that feature.  I really like the bold colors and do not notice any loss in picture quality.  I would much prefer to have an HDMI version of the 360 so that I can get the best picture quality but for now I'm happy with my setup.