For a while now, I've been looking at ways to use my Xbox 360 with my Dell LCD from my desktop computer.  This isn't the hard part - if I use the cable that comes with my 360 I can connect the red/white audio connectors to my computers speakers and the yellow video cable to the monitors input and all is good.  However, the picture quality sucks.  And when I say sucks, I truly mean it sucks.  I regularly use the 360 on my 42" Plasma using the HDMI cable directly from the console.  So I'm use to seeing the games in high quality.  So having to switch back to the standard component input is a major adjustment. 

What I really want to do is use the DVI input on my monitor and the regular RCA connectors for the audio.  But this requires an extra cable from Microsoft at the cost of $50! I don't understand why I need to pay for an extra cable when the box already has everything, I just can't plug both in at the same because Microsoft decided to make the default cable with a super fat end on it.

As the picture shows, there is little room for both the HDMI cable and the standard cable.  Of course, all of this could have been avoided if Microsoft had added a headphone jack or something to the unit. 

I figured the first thing to try - before dropping $50 on a new cable, is to see if there is anyway to trim down that fat end.  After careful examination, it became pretty clear that it's just a 2 parts that have been glued together. So it should open up rather easily. And guess what....

Tada! I just used a small screwdriver and gently encouraged the plastic to separate.

Adding a little electrical tape to hold the other side on and make sure there's no kinks on the cable where is enters that silver hump at the end of the cable.  Once it's inserted in the back on the console, you can clearly see that there is plenty of room for a HDMI cable now!

So, the red/white RCA audio connectors on the original cable are used for sound and I have a HDMI to DVI cable that handles the picture to my LCD.