Twilight Princess on Plasma?

September 18, 2006 3:15 PM

Will the Nintendo Wii and a Plasma TV get along?

Two and a half years ago, when Nintendo dropped the bomb that a realistic Zelda was in the works, my boyfriend promised to invest in a nice plasma television so that I could enjoy it in all it's glory. Miraculously, here we finally are with a release date in sight. The plasma discussion has stirred up again, and he has done his research and knows what he wants.

However, recently I read in a forum that with an "inferior" system like the Nintendo Wii (with no HD and roughly a third as powerful graphics-wise as the PS3 or Xbox 360) a high-end large screen plasma would only accentuate it's "flaws". My admittedly uneducated thoughts on the subject have always been, "Nicer television, nicer picture." Am I wrong? Would it be better to play Twilight Princess - or any Wii game for that matter - on a widescreen tube television (if they even make such a thing)?

So I guess the question comes down to this: I know a plasma isn't necessary for the Wii like it would be for an Xbox 360 or PS3, but would getting one actually hurt the experience?

Perhaps it's mostly speculation at this point since nobody has a Wii yet, but someone here is bound to have more insight into this than I could ever gather.

This game is a pretty big deal to me, as is the console itself, and I want the experience to be as great as I can possibly make it. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

posted by pigwidgeon to technology (16 comments total)

I'm not technically minded per se, but I can't imagine that Nintendo would make a modern system that would look like shit on any modern TV. I'm fairly certain they'll get along.
posted by Effigy2000 at 3:40 PM on September 18, 2006

Your first problem is that you are reading forum posts about video game consoles. Stop doing that! There is a special brand of pre-teen that thrives on some misguided notion that this hunk of plastic from Japan is immutably better than the other hunk of plastic from Japan. For there to be 'flaws' in the output, it would mean the Wii is worse than its predecessor, the Gamecube, which handles HDTVs delightfully:

The Wii will output 480p widescreen, as do earlier models of the Gamecube. If you bought an HDTV or progressive scan-capable "EDTV" this should be fine. Zelda will look better on a ED or HDTV than on a SD (normal) TV. I know this as I use 480p on my GC, and it is noticeably better with progressive scan enabled, and noticeably better than on SDTVs.

One caveat is that the Wii will not ship with component cables, which you need to support 480p. You will have to buy a Wii component cable set with the system to get the benefit.
posted by neustile at 3:43 PM on September 18, 2006 [1 favorite]

On a tangential note: Are plasmas even okay with videogames? I've read elsewhere that there is a serious risk of burn-in, and that LCDs are the way to go...
posted by unexpected at 3:48 PM on September 18, 2006

The Wii will output 480p widescreen

This is to say that the Wii will give dvd-quality output, and a tv that shows dvds well (ie, all of them) will show Wii games well.

OTOH, I wouldn't blow umpty grand on a 500-inch 1080p tv that you're going to use to watch 480p movies and 480p Wii games.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:02 PM on September 18, 2006

Are plasmas even okay with videogames? I've read elsewhere that there is a serious risk of burn-in, and that LCDs are the way to go...

ISTR that they've gotten the burn-in problem for plasmas down to similar levels as CRT tvs -- ya gotta think about burn-in, but it's not an instant killer.

I would not purchase an LCD tv for the Wii that I had not used to play my favorite Wii games on. Too much chance for slow pixel updates to wreak havoc.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:04 PM on September 18, 2006

Are plasmas even okay with videogames?

When I bought my plasma a couple months ago, I was told that the risk of burn-in from any source (black bars from viewing non-HD content, games, etc) is much, much slighter than it used to be - it's seemingly still there, but only if you play fairly static games (like Pong? I dunno what a "fairly static" game would be...) for 10-12 hours at a stretch.

The TV I bought (a Samsung) has several different methods for "fixing" pixels so that they don't burn-in, the simplest of which is a screensaver - if the screen doesn't sense motion for 3-4 mins it kicks on a moving screensaver. The literature I got with it also says that with "normal" use (it defines "normal" but I don't have it in front of me...) burn-in shouldn't be an issue.

IANAG (I am not a gamer) but it seems to me that the newer generation of plasmas has mitigated the burn-in issue fairly well.
posted by pdb at 4:06 PM on September 18, 2006

This is to say that the Wii will give dvd-quality output, and a tv that shows dvds well (ie, all of them) will show Wii games well.

It is true that the Wii has dvd-quality output, but you cannot make the claim that all TVs that can show DVDs support DVD quality output (480p resolution.)

If your TV supports progressive scan (normally known as an 'EDTV' or HDTV), the Wii (and certain DVDs) will look better on it than a 'normal' interlaced SDTV.

No, a super fancy HDTV will not help you much. But there is a very striking difference for Gamecube play (which the Wii will equal or enhance) on a ED or HDTV at 480p over an SDTV.

I should also point out that the final specs of what the Wii can support resolution wise has not been confirmed. All we know is that it will support 480p widescreen. It is somewhat possible that future games support 720p in the future over component cables. It does not hurt to plan for the future when buying a new TV.
posted by neustile at 4:13 PM on September 18, 2006

neustile, Cnet is reporting that Wii will ship with component cables.
posted by hilker at 4:14 PM on September 18, 2006

Except that you can tell pre-purchase how fast the pixels update, but you can't tell if they'll burn in. IMHO, LCD tvs have made much more progress on pixel refresh than Plasmas have made on preventing burn-in. Burn in is still a very real concern for plasmas, in my experience, and videogames are about the worst thing for causing burn-in. Plasmas are also especially susceptible to burn in during their break-in period... not the time you'd want to be engrossed in a new zelda game 14 hours a day.

If you hear the 'don't bother, it's only a wii' argument from someone, you can safely discard everything that person says about anything. If you've ever played venerable old super monkey ball in 480p in widescreen, you know that a nice TV makes a big difference, even for the lowly gamecube. Get a Sony Bravia LCD, they're a very good value and their vivid color mode looks just fantastic for all games.
posted by ulotrichous at 4:18 PM on September 18, 2006

neustile, Cnet is reporting that Wii will ship with component cables.

That's encouraging, but they don't seem so sure and I've read a lot of other places that it'll just be composite in the box. We'll have to wait and see--
posted by neustile at 4:27 PM on September 18, 2006

I wondered about the whole burn-in issue with plasmas and videogames for a while, because videogames generally involve quick-moving images8212;how would that cause burn-in? Turns out the reason why videogames are so bad is because of the on-screen displays that show your stats (like your health bar/score, crosshairs in a shooter, etc.) Those tend to stay in the same spot all the time and change relatively little compared to the rest of the screen. Basically, if you play a ton of Halo 2, after a while you'll see the ghost of your ammo counter, crosshairs, health meter, etc. burnt into the screen. As nearly all videogames have these sorts of persistent stat displays, nearly all videogames are going to be a problem.

As for the "inferior display" issues, I can think of exactly one way this might be true. Because LCDs (and perhaps plasmas as well) are much crisper than CRTs, it becomes much easier to see defects in the image like compression artifacts. Viewing JPEGs or XVID movies for the first time on an LCD after years of CRT use was a bit disappointing, because suddenly you could see all the little blocky flaws in the image where previously they were blurred by the CRT. Thus it's possible to believe that the image has degraded when in actual fact you're seeing the image properly for the first time.

A similar phenomenon occurs with bad PC ports of console games; because PC games run at much higher resolutions than console games, you'll often notice spots where low-resolution textures were used because hey, it's a console game, no one's ever going to look at the control panel on this wall very closely. The better developers will redo all the textures in high resolution for PC.

Note that none of these issues represents a fault with your television at all. Furthermore, you'll get used to them. So don't sweat it.
posted by chrominance at 6:44 PM on September 18, 2006

There is perhaps a slight shade of truth in some of those statements. Assuming the Wii outputs a 480 signal, it will need to be rescaled to display on a natively 720p or 1080i display, just like a Gamecube or a PS2 does today. In a technical sense, this won't have quite as high fidelity as a natively HD picture, such as one generated by a 360 or a PS3.

HOWEVER, I play Gamecube and PS2 games on my 720p native (LCD rear-projection) display all the time, and (my 2c) they look great to me. And I tend to be a little bit picky, since I work on video game graphics engines for a living.

As a final, non-video-game-related note, if you're watching DVDs on an HDTV, you should definitely get a playback device (for me, this is my 360) which has block smoothing, since such a nice display will happily show you MPEG artifacts in all their glory.
posted by blenderfish at 11:24 PM on September 18, 2006

One thing I personally would worry about more than possible poor image quality is the fact that most plasma TVs have a not-insignificant (50-100 ms) picture delay. This isn't a problem when watching DVDs (at worst, you might have to delay the audio a bit), but for videogames (especially the twitchy kind) it's a dealbreaker. (I simply can't play Contra well on my brother's new plasma screen, f'rinstance. I'm being denied Contra!)
posted by neckro23 at 11:39 PM on September 18, 2006

and a tv that shows dvds well (ie, all of them)

Once you get over about a 40" HDTV, DVDs look like crap, even with a good-quality descaler and a digital video connection. There just isn't enough there there.

That said, big freakin' deal. I'd take the Wii at 480p over the much more expensive consoles any day, because it just looks like the games will be way more fun. If you only care about video quality, hook your PC to the TV and forget about consoles.
posted by rxrfrx at 5:01 AM on September 19, 2006

Thank you all for your input!

chrominance hit the nail on the head as far as my biggest concern - seeing the low res textures and compression artifacts and such in all their HD glory.

It does seem, though, that many of you are using your nice fancy televisions with GameCubes and that you are enjoying the hell out of it, and that's exactly what I needed to hear. I doubt I'll get too hung up on any minor imperfections - I mean, it's Zelda for crying out loud! There are more important things to be concerned with when you're racing around Hyrule! =)

Now I just need to worry about accidentally throwing the Wiimote into the screen as I'm flailing my arms around excitedly, but that's another topic all together...

And to those who've mentioned staying far, far away from video game forums - you couldn't be more right! Those kids are downright scary.

Thanks again!
posted by pigwidgeon at 10:27 AM on September 19, 2006

Dude, I play my NES on my plasma. It looks exactly how it should, but really big.

If you get a good plasma, it will take whatever you give it and make the best of it.

Oh, but Duck Hunt doesn't work, as there's a slight lag and the Zapper can't go back in time.
posted by SlyBevel at 1:21 PM on September 19, 2006