3rd Party HD cables -- did wii make a mistake?

July 12, 2009 5:52 PM

[Wii_Filter] Does it matter of HD component cables are first-party vs. third-party? I've hooked up my Wii to my 40 inch Sharp, and while I know the Wii isn't going to make any stunning graphical leaps with a change of cables, is it possible that using Nintendo's "official" component cable would produce a higher-quality picture?

And before I hear a lot of hate from Xboxers/PS3ers, yes, I know that hooking your Wii up via HD cables is not a "game-changer." But I know there's some improvement -- I'm just trying to gauge if I made a mistake by going 3rd party ($$$ saving).

posted by AlbatrossJones to technology (8 comments total)

We use an S-video connector from Game Stop for the Wii to set up a widescreen 480i connection, and its video quality is much better than the 480i we get with the stock Nintendo composite (not component) connector. Not exactly analogous, but I think you'll be very happy with the results, nonetheless.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:57 PM on July 12

No. Nonononono. Don't worry about it. Perhaps you might get <5% difference between cables - but realistically, that 5% would be from high-end cables, not Wii cables, and even then I doubt it.
posted by Lemurrhea at 5:57 PM on July 12

Provided the component cables are properly built to spec, there will be no difference in quality between the Nintendo cables and one from another manufacturer. Blazecock's example is comparing two different cable types and is not relevant to your situation.
posted by bizwank at 6:00 PM on July 12

If your cable's no good, the artefact you'll typically see is ringing: any dark vertical line on a light background will have a series of increasingly pale ghosts a few pixels to its right. It's pretty hard to design a cable that degrades your video without inducing ringing, so if you're not seeing any ringing there's no point upgrading your cables.

The difference between composite and component is sharpness: component will look less fuzzy. This improvement is a signal encoding technique issue, not so much a cable quality one.
posted by flabdablet at 6:05 PM on July 12

I'm assuming you're referring to the component cables (red, green, blue) as the HD cables? This signal is still 'only' 480p, but it looks much nicer than component (just the yellow for video). I noticed a huge difference on my HDTV. Also, I've got two different sets of component cables for the Wii (don't ask) and I can't tell the difference between 'em. Neither are official Nintendo ones though.
As long as your TV is getting a 480p signal from the cables, that's as good as it's going to get. Make sure you're set to widescreen in the Wii settings.
posted by defcom1 at 6:05 PM on July 12

Arggh composite (yellow video cable).
posted by defcom1 at 6:07 PM on July 12

The improvement in the image is that the image appears a bit sharper (480i vs 480p is actually a massive change btw, more the is visible with the leap from 720p to 1080p) but more importantly that it's not stretched at the right and left sides as with the composite cable- but to answer your q about branding, I've witnessed wii with both third-party aftermarket component cables and with official nintendo ones and can't tell the difference.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 8:37 PM on July 12

Not Wii, but can tell you from recent experience with the Xbox that a $4.95 component cable did the same thing as a much, much more expensive set. Cable is cable, it seems.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 10:19 PM on July 12