marcel Posted August 27, 2006 Posted August 27, 2006 hey, is it possible for nintendo to make a rgb scart with an optical audio out cable with it? and is it than possible, and can developers than support 5.1 surround sound via it? or does it need a change in the audio card by nintendo? (i added a poll with options you like on the scart cable for Wii)
Smowza Posted August 27, 2006 Posted August 27, 2006 Wii has no 5.1 decoder so having an optical out is a little pointless isn't it? i just want component out with the audio seperate so i can plug it straight into my amp (hopefully they will sell this seperatly).... but we all know it will just come with a standard scart (like the cube) packaged in the box.
conzer16 Posted August 27, 2006 Posted August 27, 2006 Wii has no 5.1 decoder so having an optical out is a little pointless isn't it? i just want component out with the audio seperate so i can plug it straight into my amp (hopefully they will sell this seperatly).... but we all know it will just come with a standard scart (like the cube) packaged in the box. What he said.
pedrocasilva Posted August 27, 2006 Posted August 27, 2006 hey,is it possible for nintendo to make a rgb scart with an optical audio out cable with it? and is it than possible, and can developers than support 5.1 surround sound via it? or does it need a change in the audio card by nintendo? (i added a poll with options you like on the scart cable for Wii) no, it shouldn't be, unless they build a port from ground with it embedded... That doesn't make much sense though, because if so, then it would be best just putting the optical out on GC... fiber optics is expensive, why putting it embedded in the console but unusable, and wasting like... 0.5 meters of fiber optics on each scart cable? it's way more expensive that way. Impossible to happen; I'd say. You're confusing things though... Wii does 5.1 surround (actually it can do 7.1 surround) without any problem... It's just that it is Dolbi Surround Pro-Logic II(x) and not Dolbi Digital, and yes, That would need a little work to implement on GC's audio DSP. (dunno know how much). Anyway... GC (and Wii's) audio chips are not bad at all, infact they have features that no other audio chip in the world has. A chip for gaming, 5 years ago didn't needed dolbi digital, specially because AC-3 has some lattency... Sure things changed in the last 5 years... and it's nice to have 5 sound channels... but on the other hand it's also a advantage if those 5 audio channels being made out from 2 true stereo channels who have to be decoded, thus even if you put 5.1 surround sound in your console's options... And only have a stereo TV... you'll still hear all the sounds, not loosing then somewhere along the way, it's good for it's ease of use and idiot proof. Also sound is not like graphics cards, it's not reinvented every 6 months. (that doesn't hold true for graphics anymore too, though, as a 5 year old card/console already outputs pretty graphics)
marcel Posted August 27, 2006 Author Posted August 27, 2006 hopefully nintendo will make an rgb scart with audio outputs seperated so that i can plug it right into my home cinema system,so i dont get signal loss. And let the people chouse between 1 with audio seperated and one with just a scart, just like the microsoft did with the xbox360. btw has enyone noticed that for example resident evil 4 has great surround sound with dpl2. but shadow the hedgehog(i rented the game, man what did that game sucked) its worthless. its like there comes nothing from behind. In re4 you hear the fire(in the town where you start)behind you.
pedrocasilva Posted August 27, 2006 Posted August 27, 2006 hopefully nintendo will make an rgb scart with audio outputs seperated so that i can plug it right into my home cinema system,so i dont get signal loss. And let the people chouse between 1 with audio seperated and one with just a scart, just like the microsoft did with the xbox360. btw has enyone noticed that for example resident evil 4 has great surround sound with dpl2. but shadow the hedgehog(i rented the game, man what did that game sucked) its worthless. its like there comes nothing from behind. In re4 you hear the fire(in the town where you start)behind you. that's the diference between using the hardware and not using... Like I said sound doesn't get re-invented every 6 months... vynils actually have more audio quality than a CD, and 8 inch tapes are still used for quality audio recording. Dolbi Surround has actually been around since the 70's and Pro Logic IIx is the last of it's lineage, this means it's actually backwards compatible, if you have just a Dolbi Surround, Pro Logic, Pro Logic II decoder it'll still work like a charm, otherwise it'll work just fine with the channels mixed in regular stereo. The real advantages Dolbi Digital has is that it has separate channels instead of encoding them into 2 channels and then decoding them. also, it has a separate bass/groove channel. but these 5 channels don't work right if you have them enabled and play in stereo TV, there'll be sounds missing. On the other way, since it was encoded into 2 channels, analog sound will never come that clean, I mean... if you want steps coming from behing it doesn't mean that if you hear the channels separatedly the front ones won't have faint steps if you hear closely, it's just that those steps will be louder on the back speakers. Talking about the audio chip... Metroid Prime 1 & 2 is just MIDI's... No one would tell... Metroid Prime 3 will be the first one orchestrated (playing AC-3)... That my friend... is something that the Xbox couldn't even dream of doing, playing MIDI's like that and making the transitions between them seemingly without abrupt pauses, cube's audio DSP is pretty advanced for what really matters, games... it's like a mixing table on a chip that can do all those in real time... sadly only exclusive titles, mostly first party know how to use it that way. As for the scart, Nintendo should put a separate a audio out in there, a normal analog one to link it directly to the audio system, there's third party GC cables that have it. There's no excuse for Nintendo not to implement it on the oficial RGB cable.
Cube Posted August 27, 2006 Posted August 27, 2006 Wii has no 5.1 decoder so having an optical out is a little pointless isn't it? i just want component out with the audio seperate so i can plug it straight into my amp (hopefully they will sell this seperatly).... but we all know it will just come with a standard scart (like the cube) packaged in the box. What's wrong with component (or is it composite? - the Red, White and Yellow one), with a scart adapter, like the one that came with the Cube? I have my GC audio connected to my hi-fi via the Red/White cables, and have got it connected to my TV with the Yellow connected to the scart adaptor.
pedrocasilva Posted August 27, 2006 Posted August 27, 2006 What's wrong with component (or is it composite? - the Red, White and Yellow one), with a scart adapter, like the one that came with the Cube? I have my GC audio connected to my hi-fi via the Red/White cables, and have got it connected to my TV with the Yellow connected to the scart adaptor. Yes. That one was good enough, the problem is the better image quality is with a RGB cable that "lacks" that option. Thus if you wanted "easy" Dolbi Pro Logic IIx (7.1) out of the box, like rogue squadron III you had to settle for the worser image quality of the standard cable. the RGB cable should be like this: The problem is that most third party RGB cables lack real RGB (Infact I think only logic 3 and GAME ones have real RGB), that's due to Nintendo switching one pin in the combination, I believe from what i've read.
marcel Posted August 27, 2006 Author Posted August 27, 2006 yea, the Wii cable must have that. theres no excuse to exclude it. from the official rgb cable. ive got another question will the audio on Wii be better (hear a diverence) than from the gamecube ?
pedrocasilva Posted August 27, 2006 Posted August 27, 2006 yea, the Wii cable must have that. theres no excuse to exclude it. from the official rgb cable. ive got another question will the audio on Wii be better (hear a diverence) than from the gamecube ? depends... Since in the end the quality of a music doesn't depend solely on the chip but also on the composer, there's no questioning that FF6, CT and Zelda aLttP still sound good even today. Since you have more space on disc you're likely to hear orchestrated (ac-3) soundtracks more often instead of MIDI's, and if developers would learn how to use the cube/wii audio chip you might have games sounding like the best you had on cube. Don't think MIDI's are bad, specially on cube's DSP (using metroid prime and Wind Waker as a example) but orchestrated brings in real people playing intead of a sound library pushing the notes when needed. these always come in handy in epic games. it also provides obvious advantages with sung music, be it epic with chores (like in Zelda OoT/Zelda WW/TP adverts/trailers) or really J-pop (like ToS original opening) Some games had highly compressed soundtrack or sound effects, there's no reason to do so anymore, thus the quality might improve. In third party games, since PS2 is not the lowest spec available anymore, the developers won't have to worry about PS2 being able to push it, dolbi surround should appear as a standard (some games this generation lacked it). As for chip performance increments... even if they leaved the architecture unchanged... the original was able to push more than 100 sound channels without hassle (unlike Xbox), with, say... double the clock rate... it could push twice as many... but do you need 200 audio channels? will it make a diference in the ears? like I said audio doesn't get re-invented every 6 months. Good audio yesterday is not crappy by todays standards.
SpinesN Posted August 28, 2006 Posted August 28, 2006 Indeed. Yet audio processing is not the whole story. You also need to send and play the signal. Be it optical or coaxial I just hope we get some nice cable to hook up to more than two speakers this round :/ (not just those bloody online only HD cables *anger*) On a side note CT and FF6 music > *
Blue_Ninja0 Posted August 28, 2006 Posted August 28, 2006 But 99% of TV's that have scart inputs, also have audio out, solving the RGB audio problem. If using the TV's audio-out gets sound quality lower, then i agree with you. Pedro, what is the x in the Dolby Pro Logic IIx that you use? How many different versions of it are there? And i was unaware that DPL2 could decode 7.1
pedrocasilva Posted August 28, 2006 Posted August 28, 2006 But 99% of TV's that have scart inputs, also have audio out, solving the RGB audio problem. If using the TV's audio-out gets sound quality lower, then i agree with you. Pedro, what is the x in the Dolby Pro Logic IIx that you use? How many different versions of it are there? And i was unaware that DPL2 could decode 7.1 I don't know if quality gets lower, should depend on the TV system too, but tecnically it doesn't get any better so why linking it into the television in the first place? the latency will be higher and signal loss will always takes place, it's really a useless stage. There's a lot of people playing in their rooms in slighly old TV's, who lack that audio out, or just have a mono out, most of these people could have a decent sound system in their PC's and would like to take advantage of it. The more expensive cable that provides better image quality in GC takes that option from them, of course there's always runaround options, but it would be easy for Nintendo to provide a solution bringinf the best of both worlds together. As for Dolbi Standards... Dolbi Pro Logic II is 5.1, and Pro Logic IIx is 7.1, simple as that. In 2000, Dolby introduced Dolby Pro Logic II (DPL II), an improved implementation of Dolby Pro Logic. DPL II processes any high quality stereo signal source into "5.1"—five separate full frequency channels (left, center, right, left surround and right surround) plus one low-frequency-effects (deep bass) channel. Dolby Pro Logic II also decodes 5.1 channels from stereo signals encoded in traditional four-channel Dolby Surround. Dolby Pro Logic IIx A newer Dolby Pro Logic IIx system is also now available, which can take stereo and Dolby Surround (sometimes called Dolby Stereo Surround) source material and up-convert it to 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1 channel surround sound. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Pro_Logic Factor 5 (who designed the chip) enabled DPLIIx on their new Dev Tools back in 2003 just after launching Rogue Squadron 3, who was the first game to use it... Factor 5 has done a bang-up job of creating stunning audio set throughout the entire game. Familiar tunes, crisp explosions, and decent voice recording are all made even more impressive through the use of Dolby Pro Logic II and Pro Logic IIx 7.1 -- a rare treat indeed for those gamers with the right hardware to decode the sound.Source: http://cube.gamespy.com/gamecube/star-wars-rogue-squadron-iii-rebel-strike/498273p1.html Most games don't support it becuase Pro Logic IIx was really new back in 2003 and few people have decoders for them, when compared to Pro Logic/Pro Logic II or older... still, GC is able to fully support it, so will Wii.
RedShell Posted August 29, 2006 Posted August 29, 2006 Yes. That one was good enough, the problem is the better image quality is with a RGB cable that "lacks" that option. Thus if you wanted "easy" Dolbi Pro Logic IIx (7.1) out of the box, like rogue squadron III you had to settle for the worser image quality of the standard cable. Yeah my TV has no audio out and I wanted both RGB and DPLII from my Gamecube so I solved that problem with one of these: http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=33041&criteria=SCART Not that exact model (my one doesn’t have S-VHS) but you get the idea. Basically you plug your RGB cable into it and a couple of composite cables that go to your AV Receiver, then put the scart block in your TV. You get all the picture benefits of RGB and the sound is sent to your AV Receiver with no quality loss whatsoever! Perfect solution for TV's without audio out. :awesome:
Blue_Ninja0 Posted August 29, 2006 Posted August 29, 2006 Comparing the price of all the hardware required to 7.1 Pro Logic IIx and the ammount of games that use and will probably use it. It's not worth it, right? Considering the price. I'll just stick to my DPL2.
pedrocasilva Posted August 29, 2006 Posted August 29, 2006 Yeah my TV has no audio out and I wanted both RGB and DPLII from my Gamecube so I solved that problem with one of these: http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=33041&criteria=SCART Not that exact model (my one doesn’t have S-VHS) but you get the idea. Basically you plug your RGB cable into it and a couple of composite cables that go to your AV Receiver, then put the scart block in your TV. You get all the picture benefits of RGB and the sound is sent to your AV Receiver with no quality loss whatsoever! Perfect solution for TV's without audio out. :awesome: I'ts a little expensive and not really that easy or intuitive to do for the regular customer who whants to take advantage of his stuff, not everyone looks for solutions like these. Sure, there's always a workaround, I have two official RGB cables that I bought for 1€ (each) I could even open one of them and put the audio out's myself, but Nintendo should simply include them. Comparing the price of all the hardware required to 7.1 Pro Logic IIx and the ammount of games that use and will probably use it. It's not worth it, right? Considering the price. I'll just stick to my DPL2.Right. it's not worth the upgrade, but in my opinion the upgrade from DPLII to Dolby Digital is not worth as well... In 2003 most sound decoders were already Dolby Digital compliant, so it's like a "overdrive", there's not a lot of DPLIIx-only decoders, but most Dolby Digital systems support it (if not all). It's really a middleterm, and a good argument against those bitching that their new Dolby Digital systems are not being used with wii. So I'd hope the developers take advantage of it.
blender Posted August 29, 2006 Posted August 29, 2006 the speaker in the wii mote coupled with pro-logic is a "poor mans" immersive surround sound of sorts and the best you can hope for.
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