Wii cables and TV resoloution

[Jackster]

I was just chatting to one of my friends and he brought up the fact that 480 isn't actually SD in Europe, it's 576 I think. Has it been confirmed if the Wii does 576 or is it 480 even in European models?

 

And also, should I see a big difference between 480i and 480p? I'm not sure if it's worth the hassle of trying to find component cables or not.

 

Thanks

[Dante]

In the first page of video displays explained thread.

 

5 - PROGRESSIVE SCAN

As a standard, games run in interlaced mode, which means that every other horizontal line on the screen is displayed in sequence – odd lines first, then even lines, resulting in onscreen flicker. Most upmarket TVs and monitors have a "natural" display mode or 100Hz mode, which is designed to make the image more stable, but it's not progressive scan, as the display is still interlaced.

 

In NTSC regions, because of the 480 lines displayed onscreen, interlaced display is known as 480i, and in PAL regions because of the 576 lines, 576i (i for interlaced).

 

Progressive scan means that the odd lines and even lines are displayed together, giving a much richer, stable image and much less flicker. This is known as 480p/576p for obvious reasons.

 

Again, NTSC regions are 60Hz and PAL are 50Hz by default, so this can be addressed as 480i60/480p60 and 576i50/576p50 respectively. Jesus, what a mouthful!

 

Here's an exaggerated diagram from Wikipedia to explain the difference. The refresh rate is at 10Hz to slow things down enough to make the flicker obvious, but the same idea applies to anything in interlaced mode and at any refresh rate. As you can see, progressive is much smoother and sharper.

 

 

It is false to say that PAL GameCubes did not support progressive scan – they actually did, it’s just that PAL games did not include the option to display in progressive. If one connected the Nintendo Component Cable to a TV capable of displaying in 480p, bought an NTSC game capable of the progressive display and ran it on a PAL GameCube using Freeloader, progressive scan is entirely possible.

 

480 interlaced and progressive is the highest resolution that Wii will be able to display. As a comparison, Xbox360 can display 720p (720 horizontal lines resolution in progressive) which is considered High Definition. 480i and 576i are what are known as SDTV (Standard Definition TV) and while 480p/576p is not High Def, it's what's known as EDTV (Enhanced Definition TV).

 

Not every TV supports anything higher than 576i. If there are component connectors on your TV, it’s likely that you’ll be able to run Wii in progressive scan, but double check your TV’s manual before buying the cables. If you own a HDTV, you’re all set anyway.

[Jackster]

Ummm oops.

 

Sorry about that.

 

So WIi only does 480i/480p then. I guess I might as well try to hunt down some component cables, anyone know if they'll be easy to find in the UK?