Heavy Duty AV Cable for Xbox 360 & 360 S 1.8m with Optical Audio Out and S-Video

Product Overview

This is a heavy-duty AV cable for the Xbox 360 that also gives you a digital optical audio output. For most people that is the whole story: plug the yellow, red and white plugs into the television exactly as you would with the standard lead, and you are done. What you get on top is a much better made cable than the usual replacement, and a TOSLINK optical socket built into the console connector if you want digital sound.

The build is the difference you can see in the photographs. The jacket is thick and heavily insulated rather than the thin flat cable these are usually sold as, there is a moulded ferrite core on the lead to keep interference off the picture, and the console connector has a proper moulded strain relief where the cable enters it. Every one of the four television plugs has gold-plated contacts – not one plug, all four – and each has its own moulded body with a ribbed grip, so the plug comes out by the body instead of by the wire. At 1.8 metres it reaches from a shelf or a cabinet to the back of a television without leaving a loop of spare cable on the floor.

The optical audio output. There is a square shuttered port on the side of the console connector: a standard TOSLINK optical digital audio output. Plug an optical cable in there and the console can send digital audio to a soundbar or an AV receiver while the picture goes to the television. This matters most for the original Xbox 360, which has no optical socket on the console body at all.

The S-Video plug is a bonus, not the point. S-Video is not common on Australian televisions, so most people will simply ignore that plug and use the yellow one. But if your set does have an S-Video input – many CRTs, professional monitors and some older flat panels do – it is worth using, because S-Video carries the brightness and the colour on separate wires instead of squashing them down one, so text looks crisper and strong colours stop bleeding. Use the S-Video plug instead of the yellow one.

The switch on the connector. A small two-position slide switch chooses which video output the cable carries: AV (the yellow composite plug) or S-Video. For normal use leave it on AV. If you are using the S-Video plug and get sound but no picture, slide the switch across. It makes no difference to the audio or to the optical output.

Please check which console you have. This lead fits the Xbox 360, the original model, and it also fits the Xbox 360 S, the slimmer glossy version – both have the same wide, flat AV multi-out socket at the back. It is not suitable for the Xbox 360 E, the later squarer model, which dropped that socket for a small 3.5 mm jack.