Yep. It’s possible. It’s not as good as using an HDTV with HDMI input but it will work if your LCD monitor has a DVI connection. I came across this on accident when I needed to connect my work laptop to an external display (but I forgot my DVI adapter).

All you need is a DVI to HDMI cable. Monoprice has some great prices.

Just connect the HDMI end of the cable to your console and then connect the DVI end to the monitor.

I never tried this in the past because I had always assumed there were electronics involved that would only support the connection one-way. However, it appears that HDMI truly is nothing more than DVI with audio and a different connector.

I don’t have a true widescreen monitor so I don’t know if it will work better on one. My screen is between a standard widescreen and a standard fullscreen display, oddly. When I’m playing on the Xbox 360 I see the typical black bars above and below the screen that you would expect. However, there is some minor distortion – everything is slightly narrower than normal. It’s actually not very obvious and is easy to get used to.

I haven’t experienced any artifacts, the smell of burning plastic, etc. So far, it’s worked great.

There is one problem, though. I don’t know if it’s specific to older monitors or something that can’t be transmitted over DVI but the Xbox 360 does not receive the digital rights management information that it expects (yes, DRM here to ruin the fun once again). This means that Netflix streaming and probably any other video rentals or purchases will not work.

I haven’t tried this with my PS3 but I would be surprised to learn that it does not work the same way.