Topic: So, playing this system again after a long absence... about video resolutions

I have a HDTV now, and I am well aware that games won't look as smooth as they did on my older SD set, I do have a question about the whole normal/widescreen thing though.

I have my Wii connected by component now, and set it to 480p, as well as the display to widescreen. However, the display appears squished, so I guess the only difference widescreen and normal does is squish the image to display more at once in a 4:3 aspect... and you have to manually tell your TV to stretch the image?

Now, with that being said... which would you say looks better? I mean, if it's displaying a compressed image at 4:3 meant to be stretched to 16:9, that means the stretched image should look worse since it's still the same amount of pixels just stretched out, right? Or am I misunderstanding how it works and it's displaying a higher resolution when I choose widescreen mode than if I chose 4:3 mode?

if your screen is 16:9 then choose that format on your wii, too. simple as that. no stretching

My TV is 16:9, however, all output from the Wii comes out at 4:3 aspect, whether I set it to standard(4:3) or widescreen(16:9). The widescreen image however clearly looks squished and I have to manually set my TV to stretch to get it actually in widescreen and not appear squished.

Your TV and Wii should both be set to widescreen. Having said that there are games sold which weren't formatted for widescreen displays and this may be indicated on the back of the box: in Europe for example in the upper-right corner will be a screen icon that says "EDTV/HDTV Compatible." Some users have noted that the Wii's widescreen output merely crops the display by blowing the image up a bit; I've never seen any ill effect if that's the case and prefer my screen real estate to be used if possible. If the game isn't widescreen, then I would toggle the TV setting to 4:3 as the Wii setting won't override the game's native output.