Topic: Looking for an HDTV for some Wii Love

kadunta, have you tried this?
_ 1. While on the Wii Channel Menu (main screen of the Wii), connect a Nunchuk to Wii Remote.
2. Select the Virtual Console game from the Wii menu, then select "Start" to begin the game.
3. When the game starts, press the Home button on the Wii Remote. (In many games, the music can be heard when the game starts.)
4. Select "Operations Manual" from the Home menu.
5. Press the Z + A + 2 Button simultaneously (the Z Button is on the Nunchuk). A sound will be heard if the button combination has been entered correctly.
6. Close the Home menu. The game should now display correctly. Note: You will not have to do this the next time you play, as the Wii console will remember these settings._

I'm sorry, but you're absolutely wrong in this case, and you assume far too much about different TV sets, an area in which you evidently have little practical knowledge.

The first important thing to understand: whether you are using an external device to upscale or whether you are using for other purposes like colors and so forth, in both cases you are doing something that your TV already does internally and replacing that functionality with a dedicated external device. Your television takes the component signal and converts it to the final digital resolution all on its own, and it also converts the colors in that analog signal to the digital colors it sends to the pixels. Both happen already in your TV without adding an external device.

So, in either case, why buy an upscaler or processor? It's because many TVs, even moderate to high end ones, do a terrible job of internally converting certain signals. My Panasonic plasma — while quite a fine TV overall — seems incapable of getting any kind of decent contrast and color depth out of a component signal. Its internal circuity just clearly wasn't optimized to handle this sort of thing. However — perhaps due to the fact that the conversion is just from 480 to 720 (since it's just a 720 set) — it already does a fine job of upscaling the resolution internally, and needs no help in that department.

The VDigi actually has toggles on the back so that you can enable or disable all of its features, including the color enhancement. Even with the color enhancement off and the resolution at 480p, the picture I get from my TV has more perfect blacks, better contrast, far superior luminosity, and overall better color depth than I get with the component cable plugged in directly. As for the color enhancement (which, again, I don't have to enable), I've found that it gives the picture a further boost and improves contrast without looking cheap or forced at all. In fact, it smooths out and generally seems to produce more balanced colors.

I've also thoroughly tested the resolution upscaling versus letting my TV handle it, and I can say that there simply isn't any difference; my TV upscales just as well as the VDigi (once my TV has an HDMI signal that is; it doesn't even upscale well with component).

So, here's your mistake: you have the odd assumption that the only function which can be externalized from your TV is the resolution upscaling. You miss the fact that there are actually many things every TV does internally to an analog signal to convert it to a digital one — including converting resolution but also translating into digital colors — and some TVs are better at some of these than others. When your TV sucks at one of these elements of conversion, you benefit from an external device.

no need to get snooty, mr.! i admit it's possible for some color processing to be done by the tv as well, i was just speculating that 'enhanced' color sounds like an artificial enhancer. i didn't say it was for sure. and forgive me if this is another stupid question, but wouldn't the VDIGI already be doing the digital conversion of the color for your tv even without the enhancer turned on?

why do you think that is? it sounds very odd to me that even with the thing set practically to bypass that you're seeing a difference...

different cable types have different brightness standards. you can't connect different cable types using the same settings and get the same results. if you connect something to your tv through HDMI, you'll usually see your tv automatically set its black levels to "low" to accommodate, whereas with component your black levels are supposed to be set to 'high' (your tv may have more than just those two options).
the wii is outputting a component signal, meaning that in order to display the image correctly i'd assume your tv should still be set to 'high', but my gut tells me that it's possible that because you have an HDMI connection to the tv your black level setting is on 'low', and that's why you're seeing the deeper blacks and colors. again, just speculating, but double check just to make sure this isn't the case.

I bought an LCD backlit LED 40 inch of Sharp. Did a very serious research to find a good gaming TV for the Wii and so far I'm happy - no input lag, no motion problems, great colors, works with all vc games of course. I couldn't recommend Sharp more - Sony and Toshiba actually purchase their displays from Sharp now.
tfu tfu tfu.

@romulux

No, that's not the case; believe me, I've gone through every possible setting on my TV in great detail in order to get the best images. With the component cables, if I boot up one of those games that shows little black color bars and instructs you to make sure you can see all four different shades of black, it's impossible for me to see all the shades without artificially upping the contrast and brightness on my set so that there are no true blacks left at all (and yes, I have a low / high black-level setting that I also toggle as part of this process). In other words, when it has to convert an analog signal, the distance between the brightest and darkest elements on the screen turns out to be quite short, so that I have to choose between true blacks, while losing a ton of detail, or seeing all the detail but having those horrible light blacks everywhere. I also have trouble balancing the colors and not ending up with a washed-out image, no matter what settings I use.

With HDMI, on the other hand, the blacks are true blacks and I can see every shade in between clearly and retain very bright highlights and colors. To give you another example, I can use my Blu-Ray player to upscale DVDs over either component cables or over HDMI, and I've compared the two (using the same resolution) to find that the former, no matter how much I play with the settings, always looks far inferior to the latter, in just about every measurement of contrast, blacks, and colors you could apply.

Again, it's a completely different set of circuitry in a TV that converts an analog signal into something useable and that, on the other hand, converts a digital HDMI signal into something useable. Many TVs are basically built for HDMI and digital input, and only include a cheap, half-assed compatibility with component out of obligation, producing a pretty terrible image quality if you choose to use it. I've seen this in action on my TV and others.

i see what you're saying, but i still don't understand what the 'enhanced color' mode does that the normal digital conversion doesn't.

their site doesn't offer much info on it but the price of the scaler seems to have gone back up to $60. i was hoping it'd keep dropping to the point where it'd be practical to buy one...

waveboy, i see upscaling introducing jaggies and softness alike. bad upscaling is supposed to have a blurring effect, the jaggies are mainly already there in the game and just become worse. the idea that HDMI is better simply because it's digital isn't true; HDMI uses it's own coding that your signal has to be converted to by the outputting device and then your tv alike, so it's not as if having an all digital path from your system to your tv gives you a pure and untampered with signal while analog has all the crappy conversions, the signal goes through some changes no matter which cable you use.

Check this chart. There wouldn't necessarily be any perceptible difference at that distance and screen size. Some people tend to disagree on this issue, but I believe that the 1080p thing is overblown, and that many living room-size / TV-size setups don't benefit at all from going past 720.

My HDTV hates my Wii. With a passion.

Looks much worse than when on my SDTV but I've been too lazy to relocate my Wii to the other room.

no, at least not for my tv. downscaling can be just as bad as upscaling, even though you're starting with a higher quality source. the way i see it the less scaling work the better, whether it's up or down.

720p vs. 1080p doesn't matter on tv sets, like warioswoods said. if you were using a projector, maybe. there is one big advantage to a 1080p set though and that is that you can almost always feed it the native resolution. devices that output in 1080p literally output in 1080p whereas "720p" is all over the place; most 720p sets are actually 768p because it's easier to manufacture that way.

some devices output 720, others 750, and some 768, so even if you have a 720p tv and you select 720p from your device you still may have to do some scaling. the xbox 360 is the only device i've found that actually outputs at the native resolution of 768x1366 and i notice a clear difference in picture quality without any scaling involved.

warioswoods, i wanted to ask whether you're able to use "just scan" (or 1:1, dot for dot, whatever) since your wii is connected through an HDMI. i just recently learned about overscanning and i'm glad my tv lets me avoid it when using a digital connection but it kind of sucks that you're stuck with it if you use component. do you gain any extra screen without the overscan, or are there just black bars around the image instead? either way, i'm sure the picture would look better without being blown up... guess that's another advantage of using HDMI i overlooked.