Wii on a HDTV somewhat a dissapointment

[[DT]]

Again, the Wii looks fine on our Sony 50" - SD material looks fine on it as well (including DVD). If you live in an area with decent cable or have access to sat via D* for example, you can subscribe to +plenty+ of HD programming (or pick some some free HD network broadcasts OTA).

BTW Wezles ~ You said in another post there were sets without upscalers, and I asked for a few model examples. Never heard back from you, I was just curious about that.

I've done some auditioning of low/mid grade upscalers, and I'd say for the most part, the scalars in mid-grade/low-highend sets and most decent STBs (like the HR20 that D* uses) are very good. I've seen some $2000 products that do better, but only slightly.

There's also this outstanding suggestion that somehow providing a native HD signal via an external scalar/scan-converter somehow creates a magical HD source signal - whether it's scaled at the STB, an external DVDO box or the like, or in the set, it's still converting less data than is normally needed for the target HD resolution (ie., no free lunch).

There's no particular tech that somehow achieves better resolution as the set gets bigger. We're still talking about a finite number of lines.

SD CRT based output looks softer and has a natural anti aliasing effect. It's always been this way. SD sets have wide black dot pitch/line pitch, so it effectively fills in the gaps in the scanlines vs. filling them with scaled data (resulting in more visible "jaggies").

As the set size grows *something* has to scale up with the size - if the resolution stays fixed, the scanlines get further apart and/or get bigger (which results in less clarity). I've been watching the remastered Treks (TOS) here in the new office on an old Sony 27" Trinitron, from 10' feet it looks decent, from 4 feet you can clearly see scanlines, bleeding, interlace shimmer, etc. Make the set 60" and that would all be 2X as bad.

The information in all these TV threads is usually pretty decent, but there's always a few significant details omitted (and some fallacies introduced).

BTW, if you have an HD set, do yourself a favor and get an upscaling DVD player (or an HD-D or BD player w/ DVD upscaling) I've seen at least 3 tests of DVD to an upscaled set (or via an external upscalar) vs. an upscaling DVD player with a good chip like the Realta/Optix or Reon. The upscaling DVD players all came out ahead (the additional data available on well mastered DVD can be used to pre-decode a higher quality picture with less artifacts/macroblocking vs. a simple upconverter) - one of the new times I'd say the signal is better. Of course with an HDM player you can also score some outstanding HD sourced material

 

[wezeles]

One personally i came accross was the westinghouse lvm-42w2.. you can find plenty more on google aswell they are usually listed as HD Monitors or HD Displays and people get suckered into buying these because they are told they don't need the t.v. tuners when they have a cable/satelite box "which alot of people have"..."and in the end this just makes it cheeper for them"...

So my boss picked this particular model up because it was 1080p and he thought wow its gotta be the best, now this isn't a HDTV its a HD monitor there is not a tuner for channels just the input channels, and although it has S-video and Componet inputs it will not upconvert/scale a single thing.. its basically a big computer monitor

The reason he grabbed this one was because for the size and tech it was "superior" for a lower price and of course it was recomended by the guy trying to make a commission...

Now he has Comcast HD cable same as me and in our area we have about 75 channels dedicated to HD from 720-1080 on Comcast including the on demand movies HBO's,showtime,sports packages ect ect... A nice amount but to get this amount you have to already have digital cable and a HD box and pay a little extra for it... So now he has a little over 400 channels he pays for to get this bundle.
Now he's got HDMI hooked up and the HD channels look good but he goes to turn on his favorite channel that is still in SD and he can barely see a thing, its nothing but a shrunk down pixilated POS.
He's mad of course, I saw him that night at work after he just blew about 3 grand on the new t.v./monitor and he told me the story...

This happens alot even though these monitors/displays are ment specifically for HD content alone people get suckered into buying them because of the price, but untill HD is 100% they are pretty much useless except as a large computer montior or for a fancy repeating display..

needless to say he paid another few hundred bucks for an upconverter and switch box and cables to get everything working... Granted his picture isn't HD perfect not crisp and clear just like you said, this in a sence is a way to blow up a picture without making it look distorted...

but there is no jaggies/pixilations on the screen and he can go about his everyday television watching and really only notice the differeance when he comes across an HD channel... Beyond that it now looks like any other SD/ED/HD t.v. just depends on the signal getting sent into it and how good it is...

If you cant watch any signal but HD and its straight up awful this is probably your issue.

The jaggies and pixles people complain about is the internal scaler/upconverter trying to blow up the picture but ending up short and leaving holes or filling them in too much.. Size of the t.v. isn't going to matter! the native resolution will make a differance because the more little dots it has to fill the harder of a job it has and a cheep upconverter wont have the power to make it look right...

The excuses you hear about the content not being good enough for your t.v. to display is a crock... they are just skipping out on you because they think they can... If i had this on my t.v at all i would have taken it back right away... It's too big of an investment to just blow off...

And even though we are getting more HD channels everyday its not the majority of them. By the time it is your t.v. will need ot be replaced anyway...You didnt just spend 3 times the amount you normally would for a t.v. of the same size to not be able to watch everything you have on it!!

Don't buy into the hype and don't make excuses for your t.v. get mad and fight back, its the only way they will change. Sure HD is great but not good enough to replace everything you currently have or have ever owned..

 

[kwirges]

Lol...I wouldn't go so far as to say your TV is 'state-of-the-art'...I mean sure it's HDTV...but there's better and more 'state-of-the-art'...lol

Ok, first things first...I'm not sure where you come from if they make LCDs bigger than 40"-42" but here that's what they go up to...and for a reason...It looks terrible otherwise!!! Don't get me wrong the technology is getting better, but it you want a huge TV Plasma is the way to go...Although it's not ideally suited for gaming...you can put on the 'Burn-in-reduction' setting...

We have a 42" and it's fine...Yes of course the wii is going to look terrible when you compare it to an Xbox 360...and if that's all your rant was about...there are about 500 other threads that are open for you to complain in instead of making a new one...You may now have meant to get crappy, but you did....

I didn't make this thread.

 

[jimbo]

lol everyone wishes the wii had better graphics but thats life.

and they will be better next time

 

[wezeles]

lol everyone wishes the wii had better graphics but thats life.

and they will be better next time

Not everyone just us current few with HDTV...lol everyone else can't even notice a differance between any of them! Lucky bastards... ha ha

It will be better next time in the 2010-2012 time frame when new gen consoles start comming out again, by then HD should be pretty popular and cheeper to make. Hopefully it will come as a standard format for just about everything that plugs into the t.v.

 

[[DT]]

One personally i came accross was the westinghouse lvm-42w2.

That set is listed as having a Faroudja Genesis upscaling chip (which is outstanding). You're right in that it doesn't have a tuner (but with pay content, nearly everyone is using a STB). I see references to it scaling on dozens of forums. No matter, I wasn't trying to call you on it, I was just surprised there were "TVs" configured like this (FYI, AudioHolics used a 480i input signal for the standard tests).

I guess I just don't agree that HD sets are limiting given the huge amount of HD content via cable/sat, high quality upscaling DVD players, HDM players, HD spec consoles (360 and PS3), etc.

Did you see D* had printed flyer for their new HDPC-20 external tuner for HTPCs? Outstanding, as I've had mine stashed for months (needs a new drive and a tuner solution).

At least for us we use SD broadcast content so rarely (to be honest, we don't watch anything other than HD channels which are either upscaled before broadcast, or broad in HD native source) - it's not an issue.

The Wii with it's 480P output looks fine considering the game content/art direction is usually more towards the cartoon-ish - at least the games we enjoy (Mario, even Zelda for that matter). I think people are analyzing the output way too granularly - it's a fun little video game system that's not diluated with a few jaggies.

Everyone is different/YMMV/standard personal take on this disclaimer as always.

 

[huscos]

LOL. You take things a little bit too seriously.

First, read the posts here. 99% of the people say that it looks great on their HDTV. If yours is different, then it might be the settings on the Wii, the TV or just the capabilities of the TV itself. Upscaling capabilities are important.

Second, maybe you should stop comparing it to other consoles. If you didn't know that the Wii isn't a graphics powerhouse, then you didn't research as much as you claim on your TV (for months . . . and you bought a Sharp. Ahem.).

 

[wezeles]

Dish is deffinatley the way to go for your daily HDTV watching.

I've got the Motorola DCH6416 HD&DVR STB.
Comcast doesn't offer the same quanity of channels alot are not a native 1080i signal just at best upconverted unlike with Dish, but in the end they offer more overall content, they just make up for it with HD on-demand. I wasnt 100% happy till i got this box when i moved.

The older version I had the Motorola DCT 3400 worked fine but I acctually had it connected with s-video for my SD and ED t.v. signal's because it did a horribal job of trying to upconvert when using only a HDMI cable...
It could have just been the particular box, or the combo with my t.v. because when my t.v. has a HDMI it expects atleast 720 signal and there is no adjustment for it.
I'm not even sure if it even had an upconverter built into that box, havent looked it up.

The nice thing about the multiple inputs below HD level is i can pretty much narrow down what type of scalling each individual input channel needs... So if i wanted to watch SD/ED content toss it on the S-video Cable input. If i wanted HD content i just changed it to HDMI-Cable input simple enough... From each channel "except HDMI and DVI" i could make whatever asjustment needed. These are the types of options you need to look at new tech.

So overall i guess im satisfied with HDTV still not 100% of are even in this format channels just the major ones right now, although i do get my use out of discovery, ABC,HBO,Starz ect.
The best news i got was that Comcast DVR customers are able to download Tivo software onto there own DVR boxes this spring and finnaly ditch are horribal DVR setup.

Beyond that i dont expect mutch outta my HDTV except to stay relavant for everything i watch for the next 20 years atleast...