Gaming Forums => Nintendo Gaming => Topic started by: Mannypon on March 25, 2010, 07:19:16 PM
Title: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: Mannypon on March 25, 2010, 07:19:16 PM
Hey everyone, starting this thread to discuss an item I ran into about 2 days ago. Now I do like to consider myself to be tech savy but not enough to really get into the details on how this might work or weather it is worth the investment. What I'm talking about is a third party upscaler for the Wii which upscales the output to 1080p. Here's the link to a page with further info on the item and a pic.
Now, I'm in no way trying to advertise this item by way of this thread, I just wanted to create some conversation on its possible merits. I went ahead and took a risk and ordered the item, which is expensive for my taste but I figured what the hell. As soon as it arives, I'll provide my impression of its quality and would be happy to field some questions any of you may have.
For the time being though, can anyone with a little more know-how explain how this works and if the results could be considered decent? I know that HDTVs already have upscaling features standard but I've heard the quality is not the greatest and that there is some lag. Here's hoping this doesn't fall into that category.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on March 25, 2010, 07:20:47 PM
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: Mannypon on March 25, 2010, 07:47:07 PM
dam, shouldn't have been so quick to make the thread then lol. Well, mods close this thread out then, I'll post my impressions on that thread when I recieve the item. Thanks for the heads up.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on March 25, 2010, 07:50:12 PM
We do look forward to you impressions though, so please test it out as best as you can. Try and get the best pics you can from it and post them here.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: Mannypon on March 25, 2010, 07:53:01 PM
Alright, I'll keep this thread alive then once the item arrives. Any pointers on how I should take a picture of a screenshot on my tv? Is it as simple as just pointing the cam and snapping a shot? I've always thought the light from the tv would make the shot look somewhat blurry or unclear.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: vudu on March 25, 2010, 08:36:25 PM
If you have a means to do direct-capture it'll get you the best results. I'm sure MegaByte can direct you to a good one if you're interested.
Well, mods close this thread out then, I'll post my impressions on that thread when I recieve the item.
It's probably best for this to have its own thread, so I'm going to keep this one around.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on March 25, 2010, 08:42:11 PM
I only linked him to the other thread because he asked "can anyone with a little more know-how explain how this works and if the results could be considered decent?"
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: Mannypon on March 25, 2010, 08:43:31 PM
I'll look into the direct capture and see if its something I can get around to doing (and wont cost too much money lol, I'm already 85 down on this experiment) If not, I'll resort to regular pics and zoom in on any areas I see of interest or notice a change in quality.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on March 25, 2010, 08:50:03 PM
HDMI direct capture? Sure! That'll be $350 for a PCIe addon card, like the one I don't use, yet.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: Mannypon on March 25, 2010, 09:34:14 PM
Would you be able to do it to a pc graphics card with an hdmi connection?
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on March 25, 2010, 10:08:07 PM
Not at all, totally different world. That's only for displaying your PC graphics on an HDMI-compatible screen.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: Kytim89 on March 26, 2010, 12:36:19 AM
Believe it or not, I actually predicted a device like this would come forth about a year ago. I must be pyshic? :cool;
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: Spinnzilla on March 26, 2010, 12:42:13 AM
exactly how much different would Wii games look in HD?
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on March 26, 2010, 12:56:11 AM
Believe it or not, I actually predicted a device like this would come forth about a year ago. I must be pyshic? :cool;
They've been around for at least 2 years already.
You ruined my fun. Thank you very much.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: Mannypon on March 30, 2010, 06:14:16 PM
Looks like Kotaku has a review of for said item. It seems like the item is questionable and not exactly worth the investment for most. Looking at some of the pictures gives me mixed feelings. If you look at the Zak and Wiki title shot, the background image seems to get darker and almost blurred out but the title seems to be more detailed in HD, especially the treasure chest which seems to have a gleam to it on its right side thats not in the standard def picture.
Well, I'm still awaiting the arrival of mine in the mail so hopefully I can give some further feedback on it at that later date. Hopefully Dcemu's review comes up soon to get a second opinion.
My bad, forgot to post the link http://kotaku.com/5505009/wii-upscaler-review-can-the-wii-really-do-high-definition (http://kotaku.com/5505009/wii-upscaler-review-can-the-wii-really-do-high-definition)
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on March 30, 2010, 06:46:25 PM
Using digicam shots are pretty much weak evidence for the review, but there were a few words of worth:
"Some of these devices are pretty good. Others, not so good. And most completely irrelevant, since many TV sets and console already do the upscaling for you."
BINGO. It's more of a question of which device do you want to do the upscaling? The TV, or the converter dongle?
As for the color differences in the digicam shots: The the converter is an analog device, that has its OWN interpretation of the color/brightness/etc. settings in the analog video feed (someone else's opinion on "optimum color settings"), affecting what's fed to the TV, and the TV will interpret that feed afterwards using its own settings in the menu. So in a sense, the $70 dongle is probably doing 2 things the TV already does.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: D_Average on March 31, 2010, 01:14:26 AM
Just checked out the Kotaku review. Why so many menu shots, and jeez, the biggest gaming blog can't afford a capture card?
Looking forward to your impressions. If this thing works well on games like Galaxy I just may have to partake.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: Mannypon on March 31, 2010, 12:57:46 PM
Since you want to see Galaxy with this thing, I'll use it for some of my comparison shots when I get it in. I can't do direct feed shots but hopefully the images I take are good enough to tell a difference.
I also have Madworld, HotD: Overkill, Zelda:TP, and Okami among others. Aside from Galaxy which other game should I use for comparison shots?
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: D_Average on April 01, 2010, 01:45:28 AM
Awesome! I'd be curious how Okami fairs on it, thats a game that would really shine in silky smooth HD.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: Mannypon on April 01, 2010, 08:17:17 PM
Well it looks like my item has arrived but I won't be able to pick it up today and probably won't be able to really test it till Saturday night or sometime Tuesday. For the time being though, I've found some video of the upscaler in action. 2 videos are camera footage and the other 2 are direct footage it seems. Here are the links for the videos.
Cam video 1 http://www.wiinintendo.net/2010/03/30/vdigi-vd-w3-wii-hdmi-upscaler-processor-test-1/ (http://www.wiinintendo.net/2010/03/30/vdigi-vd-w3-wii-hdmi-upscaler-processor-test-1/)
Cam video 2 http://www.wiinintendo.net/2010/03/30/vd-w3-wii-hdmi-test-on-new-super-mario-bros-wii/ (http://www.wiinintendo.net/2010/03/30/vd-w3-wii-hdmi-test-on-new-super-mario-bros-wii/)
Direct video 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0BNjheY_EM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0BNjheY_EM)
Direct video 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6foeBxAHTso (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6foeBxAHTso)
I'm no expert but I guess you can see some type of difference in the comparison videos. From what I can see, the colors seem to be darker and some lines seem to be smoothed or blurred out. Anyway, I'll leave others more knowledgeable put in their thoughts on the videos.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on April 01, 2010, 08:36:09 PM
One thing I forgot to add, many HDTVs will remember settings for different inputs, independent of other inputs. If you're going to compare the two input ports, you have to make sure that both have the same menu settings; you can't just plug them in and take your pictures and go "a-ha, they are kinda different!"; duh, they were different before you plugged anything in. I doubt any of the "reviewers" remembered to calibrate.
I see no difference in clarity. The darker images look oversaturated, maybe due to the converter's crazy opinion on color settings; oversaturation is a bad thing in the feed because it destroys native texture details, like other "extreme" settings do: in contrast, brightness, etc.
At best, here 1080p describes the signal, or the potential of the video feed. The Wii source content it's trying to translate hardly reaches this potential. Take your 0.3 MP webcam image and resize it to 5.0 MP -- not too hot.
The rule of thumb for video conversion is: "trash in, trash out"
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: Mannypon on April 01, 2010, 08:45:03 PM
I'll have to keep the source settings in mind when I get around to taking some pictures. I can't really tell much from these feeds so I don't have too much faith in how much I can get out of snapshots in my bedroom lol.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: BranDonk Kong on April 02, 2010, 01:41:38 AM
Manny, your video URLs are completely messed up. You can figure out the wiinintendo ones, but the YouTube ones don't work at all.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on April 02, 2010, 01:51:28 AM
Well it looks like my item has arrived but I won't be able to pick it up today and probably won't be able to really test it till Saturday night or sometime Tuesday. For the time being though, I've found some video of the upscaler in action. 2 videos are camera footage and the other 2 are direct footage it seems. Here are the links for the videos.
Cam video 1 http://www.wiinintendo.net/2010/03/30/vdigi-vd-w3-wii-hdmi-upscaler-processor-test-1/ (http://www.wiinintendo.net/2010/03/30/vdigi-vd-w3-wii-hdmi-upscaler-processor-test-1/)
Cam video 2 http://www.wiinintendo.net/2010/03/30/vd-w3-wii-hdmi-test-on-new-super-mario-bros-wii/ (http://www.wiinintendo.net/2010/03/30/vd-w3-wii-hdmi-test-on-new-super-mario-bros-wii/)
Direct video 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0BNjheY_EM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0BNjheY_EM)
Direct video 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6foeBxAHTso (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6foeBxAHTso)
I'm no expert but I guess you can see some type of difference in the comparison videos. From what I can see, the colors seem to be darker and some lines seem to be smoothed or blurred out. Anyway, I'll leave others more knowledgeable put in their thoughts on the videos. [/b]
I have no idea what you were trying to do with those links but I fixed them for you.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: Ymeegod on April 02, 2010, 02:49:11 AM
Scalers have been on the market for 8 years now and no they really don't do much for the money invested. At best they do some AA which cleans up some areas but sometimes leave other areas blurry as some noted.
Basically you take an imagine blow it up and break the pixels into more bits then run it though some filters and out comes a somewhat sharper image at best.
Tried these a few years ago on last gen and wasn't impressed. Best investment would be a TV with the highest image quality and newest filters.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: Mannypon on April 05, 2010, 02:29:28 PM
Its a little late given all the info thats already out (and I'm sure my results aren't going to change anyone's mind to those that have already reached their conclusions) but I finally got around to hooking it up and have taken some comparison pictures. I don't have the time right now so I'll be back tonight once I get home from work and get myself situated. A quick note from what I"ve seen is that initially, I couldn't really tell much of a difference during gameplay when I did the switch but once I compared the pictures I did notice the slight differences in color. Its not much based on my untrained eye. Some of the changeds look slightly better and then some make it slightly worse. FYI, I used Mario Galaxy and Okami as the experimental games.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: Crimm on April 05, 2010, 09:40:19 PM
You know, vdigi made the VGA cable I use on my Wii. I believe my HDTV upscales the input, but it does look nice. So from my experience, their products are good quality but they take FOREVER to get to you (six weeks for me) because they come from Hong Kong!
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: Mannypon on April 06, 2010, 02:40:43 PM
I finally got around to taking some pictures. Don't think it'll do much to sway anyone's opinions at this point but I said I'd do it so here they are. 480p http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/480p5.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/480p5.jpg) 1080p http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/1080p5.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/1080p5.jpg) 480p http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/480p4.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/480p4.jpg) 1080p http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/1080p4.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/1080p4.jpg) 480p http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/480p6.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/480p6.jpg) 1080p http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/1080p6.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/1080p6.jpg) 480p http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/480p7.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/480p7.jpg) 1080p http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/1080p7.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/1080p7.jpg) 480p http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/480p8.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/480p8.jpg) 1080p http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/1080p8.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/1080p8.jpg) 480p http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/480p9.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/480p9.jpg) 1080p http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/1080p9.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/mentallyerect/1080p9.jpg)
EDIT: Sorry, I initially had the pictures in the post itself ,side by side for an easy comparison, but for some reason they weren't showing after I posted it to the thread so I instead provided the links.
Title: Re: HDMI upscaler for the Wii available now, so it seems
Post by: AV on April 28, 2010, 10:27:29 PM
IGN reviewed the thing. They weren't very impressed
