HDMI Wii Please!

Antipodes

Antipodes

CAGiversary!
I've been waiting for a good deal to buy a second Wii for personal use in my room. Given that composite/component isn't a popular input option for monitors, I would love for a Wii revision that includes a HDMI output. If it could also natively upscale to 1080p, that would be the icing on the cake.

An alternative would to buy a $300+ AV receiver for my room that can do that component->HDMI upscaling. The extra money isn't an issue given that I'd use the receiver for other purposes, but I'm really terrified that it will add input lag.

Nintendo doesn't seem to be announcing a successor to the Wii yet, so it would make sense to modernize the Wii's output format. Possibly a bundle with Zelda: Skyward Sword? Cmon, make it happen Nintendo: I'd be in at MSRP!

Any thoughts and/or rumors?
 
There's never going to be a Wii with HDMI natively in it. Don't hope for it - it's never going to happen. That's why there's no rumors for it - it'll never exist.

Your only real options are this or this. There are reviews for each over at Wingdamage: VD-W3 and the Wii2HDMI. The general consensus of each is that they simply allow you to use an HDMI cord with the Wii - they do not honestly provide upscaled input. The VD-W3 has an upscaler that doesn't make things sharper, while the Wii2HDMI simply converts the analog signal to digital.

But again, there is not going to be a hardware revision to add an HDMI port into the system. For one, the system doesn't have the processing power to upscale the graphics, and simply adding an HDMI out won't change that. Nintendo isn't going to covertly upgrade the power of the system either, because that would cause a backlash and force the cost of the system up. They are extremely frugal. Recall that with the Gamecube, they actually removed component output with later hardware versions, as they claimed less than 1% of the userbase actively utilized it, which was both the product of A) HD television sets still being relatively expensive at the time, and B) the component cables themselves were produced in small quantity and hardly advertised.

You either get one of those adapters or use a receiver (as you suggested in your post). Do not wait for a Wii HD. It won't happen this generation. If anything, Nintendo might have that for the Wii's successor, but even that is somewhat doubtful. I won't say the next system won't have HDMI - it assuredly will. But that's the only time you'll get something that truly upscales Wii games, and even then, Nintendo doesn't seem too worried about that kind of functionality. They can't even fully emulate the Super NES's FX chip for their virtual console (a weird claim to make when homemade emulators seem to have little trouble doing so), so I'm not exactly holding my breath thinking they are working on an upscaler-capable emulator in whatever follows the Wii so that I can play Mario Galaxy with sharper visuals.
 
Well, I'll be holding out on either a discount or a HDMI revision, no matter how unlikely that may be. I'm not in a rush given that this would be my second Wii.

Thanks for the links! At those prices though, I'd rather go with a less specialized solution of an AV receiver. If input lag numbers were readily available for AV receiver conversions, this would be a minor issue. Unfortunately, this number seems extremely hard to find. As long as there are no lip sync issues (which may involve delaying the video = more input lag), the target market is happy.

While you do make good arguments against Nintendo, console companies releasing revisions to keep their hardware consumer friendly is not unheard of. An easy example would be adding HDMI to the X360.

Lastly, I disagree with the statement that upscaling takes too much processing power. At its core, it is a relatively simple process of mapping pixels to more pixels. All HDTVs do this, and they don't have powerful processors. Upscaling to a higher resolution is not the same as actually creating the source at the higher resolutions. It would still be 480p upscaled, only done on the Wii so that input lag is controlled.
 
The 360 is an HD console. The Wii is not. It makes sense for one to have an HDMI port. The HDMI port on the 360 also came alongside other revisions to the hardware (primarily ones designed to address overheating issues). There's really very little reason to compare them, and Nintendo generally doesn't look to other companies for much inspiration on what they should be doing. Some people have gaming PCs that need power supplies that need several hundred watts to power their video cards. If you put one of those high power PSUs on a machine that won't ever tax it to that level, then it's inefficient. It'll still run, but there's no reason for it to be there. Same idea here.

The Wii sells very well. Console revisions historically do not appear unless a manufacturer wants to spur sales. Nintendo is not currently having that problem, and even when they do, they'll have no reason to redesign the Wii, as its console life span will be rapidly ending. There's no reason to expend that amount of time and money on a system that's about to be replaced and would barely affect the sales bell curve.

Your last paragraph couldn't be more wrong. Sorry. Upscaling is not a curative. Generating sharper visuals requires the system to generate content at higher resolutions, which is a complex combination of drawing more pixels, applying shaders and other effects to them, and doing it several times a second. That requires more power, which requires redesigning the innards of the console to incorporate more graphically intensive hardware, which requires more cooling, which requires a new power brick, which may or may not impact how current games run on the system (see how modern PCs have trouble with old games unless you run wrappers/properly coded emulators to ensure compatibility), which may or may not break the system's OS, and the OS itself would need to be reconfigured to handle it. Netflix would need to be redone on the Wii to accommodate potential HD content pushes. This doesn't even take into account how the BIOS works, which would break a lot of functionality since hackers have determined that Nintendo designed that whole thing very poorly. It's not a simple problem with a simple solution.

If you wait for an HDMI native Wii, it'll happen a few years after the sun supernovas.

Again: Nintendo took out component on the Gamecube. That's all the proof you need.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Again, you are not understanding upscaling. Easiest way to explain this is to think of what your HDTV does when it receives a 480p signal. It will upscale the 480p input to 1080p. It required no extra processing power from the input source. Now put that scaler in the Wii.

If you understand that, you will realize all the stuff you mentioned about shaders, netflix, etc does not matter. The console is still 480p source! The source is simply upscaled on the Wii, rather than on your TV.

Now, if you are wondering what the value of this is. Simple answer: input lag. TVs/Receivers prioritize image quality over input lag, because their main market is people who watch movies/sports. This means more complicated scaling algorithms which can hold frames (lag) and interpolate them to provide a smoother image.
 
And here's a thread I found with someone with the same idea:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=17963373#post17963373

"To improve the situation, I need to add a faster scaler into the mix and bypass the TV's scaler. I mentioned the tuner card because one possible solution might be to plug my Wii into a PC and then use the PC as a scaler."

Simply put, it would be a great assurance to me if the Wii did the scaling since it would be suited for games. Expensive HDTVs can actually be worse than cheap HDTVs in this respect, because they will process the image as much as possible to provide the best quality.
 
I'm not even going to argue specifications or processing power. The wii will never have HDMI.

I'll bet anything on it.
 
Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? Probably not. Really depends on how much longer till they plan the console's successor. The sooner the less likely.

The processing debate is really a red herring though, and even though it has dominated this thread, I'd like not to focus on it. I do not expect the Wii to have true 1920x1080 resolution.
 
I agree, not going to happen. Nintendo's focus for 2011 is the 3DS and after that their focus shifts to Wii2. Nintendo isn't going to bother releasing a new Wii which would be targeted at such a small audience, most people who would buy a Wii at this point most likely would not care about HDMI. Any changes they make to the Wii would be to make it cheaper to produce, not adding to it.
 
Sorry I'm chiming in late but there is no point, the quality of the games won't get any better. You can get a componet? cable but thats about it.
 
I'm not sure why you don't think it's impossible for there to be an HDMI Wii.

It is impossible. Nintendo isn't going to put out a revision to the Wii that allows it to have HDMI. Raising costs isn't how Nintendo works. They're all about the best gaming on a small budget.
 
[quote name='Antipodes']And here's a thread I found with someone with the same idea:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=17963373#post17963373

"To improve the situation, I need to add a faster scaler into the mix and bypass the TV's scaler. I mentioned the tuner card because one possible solution might be to plug my Wii into a PC and then use the PC as a scaler."

Simply put, it would be a great assurance to me if the Wii did the scaling since it would be suited for games. Expensive HDTVs can actually be worse than cheap HDTVs in this respect, because they will process the image as much as possible to provide the best quality.[/QUOTE]

You actually have your answer in your AVS link as to why this isnt going to happen. This person is considering using a PCs video card as an upscaler as a way to eliminate his TVs, slower upscaler. This cost could be from $50 to hundreds depending on the card and may not eliminate the issue when passing the data back to the monitor. Plus you have the overhead of the PC doing the upscaling. It really isnt a cost effective solution.

Now a dedicated SOC could handle some of this, most certainly, look no further than the DS for scaling GBA games and the 3DS upscaling DS games. But those are using a portion of the newer systems power to handle that process. That is an R&D cost that is justifiable in a new system to provide a bridge from one generation to the next, but it most certainly isnt for a hardware iteration.

But what about the 360 you ask, as Strell mentioned, the 360 was already an HD system you can get 1080p over component so the addition of HDMI was trivial (no scaling needed) considering they were already doing motherboard revisions and necessary since they were competing directly with Sony's PS3.

So Wii with HDMI... Impossible? No. Financially untenable, out of character for NCL, and outright pollyannish to assume otherwise? Yes.

So, if you must use your Wii via HDMI with a monitor, an external adapter and all of its quirks are your only option.
 
The AVS example was an extreme solution. It was mainly referenced as an example to illustrate the "why?" questions about me wanting a built in scaler. The simple problem it would solve is that HDTVs often add input lag during their upscaling process because they favor image quality over time constraints. Personalized solutions (in this case, a PC) are generally not cheap.

On the other hand, a simple built-in scaler is very cheap to mass produce. Budget HDTVs/monitors that are not much more than $100 all have scalers in them. If you are concerned about the "simple" part, that actually is generally preferable for games. A good example of that would be the "game" mode in HDTVs which is simply to cut down on all of the extra processing frills that come at the cost of lag.

I'm not here to say the Wii isn't successful or needs HDMI to be successful. I'm considering buying a *2nd* Wii so you're preaching to the choir. However, with the long current console cycle, a revision aimed for convenience isn't unheard of. Sony and Microsoft pulled it off and it gave them a nice boost to their sales. DS has done it many times and added more functionality. Again, that was met with great success.

I saw this article on IGN today which is a Q/A about the Wii's future:
http://wii.ign.com/articles/115/1154087p1.html

Call it a pipe dream all you want, but I'm still hoping for a Skyward Sword/Zelda Anniversary Wii that has HDMI.
 
I don't see a Wii with HDMI till the next system and from what I read online that might not be to far off. I have read that the 3DS is really a test and they plan on making a 3D version of the Wii. The article I read stated that rumors were it would not require a 3D tv and would work some how like the 3DS does. Not sure how this is as I thought the 3DS had a 3D screen on it. However made me think this was all speculation and nothing fact. However it does make since that all 3 next gen platforms will be able to do the 3D.
 
[quote name='Antipodes']On the other hand, a simple built-in scaler is very cheap to mass produce. Budget HDTVs/monitors that are not much more than $100 all have scalers in them. If you are concerned about the "simple" part, that actually is generally preferable for games. A good example of that would be the "game" mode in HDTVs which is simply to cut down on all of the extra processing frills that come at the cost of lag.[/QUOTE]

Why do you think that Nintendo wants to spend any extra money at all for a part that a niche audience are clamoring for. As stated earlier, not only did Nintendo sell the GCN's component cable only on their website, they actually removed the port in a hardware revision.

If Nintendo released a Wii 1.5, they would want to reduce costs, not increase them. Hope all you like, it's not happening.
 
[quote name='Antipodes']
Call it a pipe dream all you want, but I'm still hoping for a Skyward Sword/Zelda Anniversary Wii that has HDMI.[/QUOTE]

It is a pipe dream, but hey one day maybe I'll see Mother release Stateside again.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top