changing xboxen

tarnok

I wasn't sure if this should go in H/A or Tech, but since I'm asking for advice I thought I'd try here first.

The wife's family was in town for Thanksgiving and decided to give us our Christmas present early since they wouldn't be here then; an xbox 360. Now, we already have an xbox, but this one has a much larger hard drive and wireless, so obviously I'd like to keep the new one and put the old one on craigslist or something. The question is, how do I transfer all of my dlc to the new one? Keeping in mind that swapping the hard drives means keeping a 10 gig hard drive in the face of a new 250 gig hard drive. I'm not sure if it makes any difference, but the majority of my dlc is actually Rockband disc dumps from changing up to new editions. I remember needing to enter a code somewhere to download some of this stuff. Am I boned if I change hard drives or is that tied to my account now?

Lux

They sell transfer cables to move everything (accounts, DLC, saves, etc) to the new hard drive. It's another expense, but it's simple.

Esh

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-Data-Transfer-Cable/dp/B003S9WJ9A

Are you transferring to a slim 360? Check the second option on that page.

tarnok

Thanks. Someone in one of the reviews for the cable mentioned using a thumb drive to transfer stuff; is this actually possible and if so what are the drawbacks vs. using the cable?

mightyjongyo

iirc the thumb drive is limited to saves and profile transfers. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a way to finagle it to transfer everything though.

Essee

It's also possible that you MIGHT find a used transfer cable for cheaper than Amazon at Gamestop, since I think they might accept trade-ins for them? People don't usually use those more than once, so I'm not totally sure, but I think I've seen one lying around on a store's used accessory racks before. You could also see if anybody's trying to get rid of one on Craigslist or something in your area. I think reselling the thing is a pretty popular thing to do once you've bought one, because it's kinda pricy for a one-use item.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

You can use a thumbdrive (or xbox memory card, w/e) to lifeboat over stuff like save files and profiles, but it won't let you move DLC that way. You could probably move DLC and stuff over by cracking open the drive and plugging it into your actual computer, but it's probably easier to just buy a cable.

MisterGrok

A transfer cable will probably work best. Failing that, you can go hit the guide button, go to settings, then account management. On the first blade, go to download history and you can go back through everything you've ever downloaded and queue it up again (I think the limit is around 15-20 items in the queue at once). Be sure to also do the license transfer option which is also available below the download history option.

tarnok

Thanks for the help everyone. I got everything moved over and started playing Skyrim (which we also got) only to discover that the text is illegible on my tv. Is there any way to make this stuff readable on a 480 p crt television?

Essee

Do you have component inputs (red, blue, green, and then red and white for audio) on your TV and a component cable? If all you have is the typical yellow/red/white cable (composite, not component), I don't know how readable it can get for something like the 360 (as opposed to the Wii, where it's only designed for 480p at the most). With component cables probably everything will be relatively readable (when the 360 is set to progressive scan/480p), and look tons better... but if your TV doesn't have component connections, you may be totally stuck. I also know that there exist games that will simply NEVER be readable at a lower resolution, but I would bet Skyrim isn't one of those because people complain a ton when this is true and I haven't heard anything to my knowledge (Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is the particular game I'm thinking of, terrible text legibility for no logical reason).

tarnok

Regrettably my tv only has composite and s-video inputs.

Esh

tarnok wrote:

Regrettably my tv only has composite and s-video inputs.

This was an issue with Dead Rising as well. It might be time to get a new TV.

tarnok

A new tv really isn't an option now. Besides which, the only game I've ever really played before on my xbox is rockband, and while I'm aware that it can be calibrated to work with the delay introduced by an lcd or led tv, I've never seen it work well. I don't think I could enjoy playing rockband on anything other than a crt. And not just for games really; a friend has a flat screen, I don't know if it's lcd or plasma or what, but the lag is so bad I can't even watch tv shows on it because people's lips move out of sync with the sound.

I really don't look forward to getting a new tv.

Esh

tarnok wrote:

A new tv really isn't an option now. Besides which, the only game I've ever really played before on my xbox is rockband, and while I'm aware that it can be calibrated to work with the delay introduced by an lcd or led tv, I've never seen it work well. I don't think I could enjoy playing rockband on anything other than a crt. And not just for games really; a friend has a flat screen, I don't know if it's lcd or plasma or what, but the lag is so bad I can't even watch tv shows on it because people's lips move out of sync with the sound.

I really don't look forward to getting a new tv.

I've never had an issue playing Rock Band on an LCD or Plasma. It's always been fine for me after being properly calibrated.

And yeah, it sounds like there's some other issue afoot here either with your friend's TV or your perception of them. All these things you're talking about, I've never experienced nor has anyone I've known.

Essee

tarnok wrote:

A new tv really isn't an option now. Besides which, the only game I've ever really played before on my xbox is rockband, and while I'm aware that it can be calibrated to work with the delay introduced by an lcd or led tv, I've never seen it work well. I don't think I could enjoy playing rockband on anything other than a crt. And not just for games really; a friend has a flat screen, I don't know if it's lcd or plasma or what, but the lag is so bad I can't even watch tv shows on it because people's lips move out of sync with the sound.

I really don't look forward to getting a new tv.

Either your friend has a problem with his TV or cable, your friend doesn't have his TV set on "game mode" (this is available on every remotely recent LCD/LED TV I've ever known about, and turns off all the bells and whistles that make movies look pretty so there is no lag whatsoever) or there is a problem with your perception. My fiance plays PC FPS titles on our LCD TV, in game mode, and has never EVER felt like there was even the slightest bit of lag from the display in that mode. The difference in response time between modern LCDs and CRTs is very small at this point. Trust me, if people who play FPS games all the time don't notice an appreciable difference anymore, that problem is pretty much gone (if you turn on game mode, anyway). I don't have any experience with plasma TVs so I can't say anything about them, but seriously, on a normal, properly-functioning TV there is no perceptible lag. None. Zip. Zilch. Goose egg. Nada.

However, I totally understand if a new TV isn't a reasonable prospect from a financial standpoint. LCDs and plasmas are a lot cheaper nowadays, but you're still buying a TV, so it's a bit of a pricy thing. My recommendation, then, would be to see if you can locate an S-Video cable for your 360, because the quality will indeed be better than the composite cables... but I don't know for sure if the effect will be significant enough to make the text easily readable, as I haven't personally checked out Skyrim on the 360 in anything but 1080p on an HDTV.