Component Cable Discussion

[Nukatha]

I'm sure a fair number of us who enjoy emu_kidid (and others') work on he Gamecube scene are in the market for component cables.

As a distinctly rare commodity, their price remains rather high on ebay ( http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=gam ... &_from=R40 )

So, I was wondering: What is the most/least that you have paid/are willing to pay for a GCN component cable?

Personally, I'm VERY content with the one I found at a local (read: NOT Gamestop) game store a few years ago for $5 USD. I absolutely love the picture it gives.

What's keeping the prices so high? Is it just ebay people buying 'low' (around $60) and trying to turn around and sell for $100+? Or are these buyer's actual GCN enthusiasts like the members of this site that intend to use the cables?

Just a bit of food for thought.

[Benni]

OH DAMN!

It´s not a stupid cable - there is a circuitBoard inside the plug.
With a "MX" Chip. THIS Chip was ONLY produced for Nintendo.
TESE Chips are not available on the Market.
There is NO Documention about these chips - there is no3rd party tool are any change to build your own cable with a similar chip cause no one knows the exactly pinout.

And also these cables where not sold in every country.

THIS is why it is so expensive.

[megalomaniac]

actually...i think its expensive simply due to supply and demand

when nintendo had these cables available there was a really simple problem....um...no one really had TVs that supported progressive 480p....
it seems like nintendo was a little too early to adopt this video type and the majority of the game player market wasnt ready to purchase a TV capable of 480p...
now that the majority of that market owns a tv capable of 480p, sellers know they can ramp the price to 100$+ and someone will pay for it...
typically it will only be the true GC fanatics willing to spend 100$+...or close to it...

if an alternative chip is finally able to be programmed to perform the same functions as the MX, i imagine (and wonder if) these new chips will also be sold at close to the same 100$ price simply because the current market pricing already shows people are wiling to spend this amount...

sadly, 480p on original GC hardware is gonna continue to be a high cost rarity....the only cheap alternative is to find a wii to play gamecube games since the wii has built in 480p output using a simple 2$ ebay cable...

[wii_HD]

Thing is Nintendo should have made GameCube EDTV 480p output ready just like PS2 and Xbox, but as we are now eleven years down the track its a moot point.

Call it lack of foresight or penny pinching in the design stage. I say both looking at the wii Mini.

I can not seem to find when the component and D terminal (Japan only connector) cables were first released and official list Yen price.

Were they available at the Japanese launch?

[BenoitRen]

Thing is Nintendo should have made GameCube EDTV 480p output ready just like PS2 and Xbox

The PS2 may have been "EDTV output ready", but it is my understanding that very, very few games implemented it. At least Nintendo recommended EDTV so most games could output it.

[megalomaniac]

I can not seem to find when the component and D terminal (Japan only connector) cables were first released and official list Yen price.

Were they available at the Japanese launch?

both cables were available since launch date...


D terminal: September 14, 2001. ¥3500.
Component: September 14, 2001. ¥3500.


Component: November 18, 2001, $29.95.

[wii_HD]

@BenoitRen

There are around one hundred PS2 titles that support 480p as intended - then through homebrew others can be forced - incidentally PS2 can output 720p and 1080i with trickery.

@megalomaniac

Thanks for the information.

[emu_kidid]

I've used 1080i on SMS media player on PS2 - pretty cool to see such an old console go up to such a high video resolution.

[Diminuendo]

might of found some official component cables for about $60, ordered now, check back in a week or two and I'll let you know. (I might of ordered the analog component cable, but I think it's the digital one)

[Diminuendo]

confirmed, this is the digital component cable, for $60, I might charge $65, plus shipping, anyone interested?

Haven't forced 480p yet as my PAL cube has no disk drive attached, but once I have wired up my WiiKey I'll test it.

I'm not going to open this up as I have just ordered a digital component cable with the component plugs cut off, why break a second cable right?

Photos

[andzlay]

This ain't the market place.

[Diminuendo]

checking for interest, not taking orders.

[Benni]

maybe this is interesting too:
http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=av:gamecube_rgb

[Diminuendo]

this is a pretty well known mod

[ActionPeanut]

Ordered a component cable for $99 on eBay a few weeks ago and I thought I'd give a detailed account of what I thought since there isn't much to be found around the web.

I compared Composite, S-Video, 480i Component and 480p component on a 42" 1080p TV, 50" 720p monitor and a 68" 1080p TV. Since the TVs are all in different rooms I wasn't able to decide whether the image scaled better on the 720p or 1080p, though overall the 68" seemed to look the best. That said, the difference between the cables is remarkable.

Since the resolution is effectively the same between all cables I'll give them a percentage based on how I felt they looked, as objectively as I can, starting at 100% for composite and a theoretical 250% for 720p. I have no capture device so there are no photos. If anybody wants I can take some with a camera though they won't show color and contrast improvements, just sharpness.


Composite 100% This will be the standard since probably everyone has used it. Looks okay but it's clear that image information is being lost. All textures, graphics and edges are somewhat fuzzy. There is a certain amount of bleed in reds. Contrast is okay but not great, with dark colors and details hard to differentiate at the bottom of the spectrum and the same problem with brights at the other end. Only possible benefit of composite is that the fuzziness hides compression issues on some images and smoothes out aliasing in games with detailed character models etc. like Twilight Princess.

S-Video 160% I used a cheap generic cable that has both composite and S-Video. Big improvement over composite in most areas. Sharper image, less color bleed, better contrast (darks look much better) and more vivid colors. Strongly recommended if you don't have the money for a component cable.

480i Component 200% Color and contrast are the game-changers here. With a well calibrated TV/Monitor details are visible in the brights and darks that can't be seen with composite. Colors are close to as good as you would get with today's high def sources. Playing through Rogue Leader blew me away, with star fields looking deep and sharp (Death Star's black and white theme and Ison Corridor's nebula looking particularly beautiful).There is also quite an improvement in sharpness, making graphics like game titles and UI look fantastic. I spent a while staring at character icons in Melee and Double Dash, as well as tools in Twilight Princess.

480p Component 210% I was surprised to find that progressive scan didn't change much over interlaced on the whole. Slight improvements in sharpness and contrast, though colors mostly appeared the same. It seems to depend, to a degree, on the game in question. Definitely not the huge change in quality I remember from titles on PS2, which were night and day. Don't get me wrong though, there really isn't much to improve upon the interlaced mode. As mentioned, games like Twilight Princess are sharp enough to reveal aliasing on model edges.

HD 720+ (theoretical) 250% My first experience with GameCube games was on an emulator on my computer (I don't use emulators anymore). Without changing any rendering settings other than overall resolution, games look sharper but whether that's better or not is subjective. I recall that the resolutions exceeded many 2D elements' resolution, revealing jagged icons, graphics, as well as clear aliasing issues on characters and other instances like italicized text. A theoretical cable higher resolution out of an actual GameCube would exceed the design of the games, since they were made too look best at 480p and no higher. The only comparison is the PS2's 1080i mode, which was only used on 3 games IIRC and only effectively in GT4, one of the most graphically advanced games on the system. Even then, menus were still 480p so there wasn't much of an issue with revealing flaws.


So, all of that considered, some people have doubts that the difference is really there. It definitely is. But whether or not the cost is worth it really depends on you. Your girlfriend likely won't give a crap. I gave my roommates a blind test and they thought component 480i and 480p looked best, though they had trouble describing why specifically other than menu graphic improvements. For me, it's worth every cent. Home theater junkies will probably find the cost is justified. It's $100, but that's only the price of two new games yet makes all of your old ones look better. Anyway, hope this wasn't too long. Cheers

[deckard]

Nice write up on your thoughts regarding the component cable. I completely agree that the component cable is worth every penny, which is why they are in such high demand these days now that most people game on an HDTV.

$100 on eBay isn't that bad of a deal either, all things considered. I've seen them go for $200-$300 on eBay and they have only been going up in price. I got a hell of a deal on mine when I paid $60 and purchased one from a member on another forum. Won't ever be selling it, even for the high prices they have been commanding.

[BenoitRen]

The difference between interlaced and progressive depends on your HDTV's upscaler. HDTVs can't do interlaced, so their framebuffer upscales everything into a full image. The difference is more apparent on a CRT screen where you can see small lines shake in interlaced.

Some PS2 games double their internal framebuffer when turning on their progressive scan option. This would be why the difference is like night and day. The resolution of the image is effectively doubled.

[deckard]

Right, unfortunately I got a 40" HDTV instead of a 42" TV that would have had an internal upscaler. Even so, the GC's progressive output looks great in 480p in its native resolution. Haven't tried passing it through the Framemeister yet but I should as I bet it could benefit from it.

[novenary]

I use my cube on an early plasma Pioneer HDTV (720p, not 1080) with an RGB cable which is as good as component in interlaced mode. This TV's built in upscaler is quite awesome so the image looks very beautiful. IMO the digital port is useless unless we figure out how it works to get true digital output (I think some guy here is working on it).

[CosmoCortney]

2009 I've got mine for 90€ (about $125) from Wolfsoft.de *click* (wow.. the price increased a lot during the last years o.O )

They also have a GameCube VGA cable *click*

the quality is amazing. you will never want to play through scart-connector, s-video or composite again