Wii component quality across console revisions

[andykara2003]

I have a question and I wonder if anyone would be willing to shed any light on this?

As I'm sure you people know, the Wii's component image quality is not too great. I've been emailing back and forth about this with the owner of this site:

http://retrorgb.com

He seems like a decent guy and his site is quite comprehensive regarding image quality comparisons between consoles etc.

Anyway, he says he's sure that he's seen 4 or 5 Wiis that have a superior component image quality to other Wiis. The Wiis that he's seen that have the (supposedly) better image are all black NTSC RVL-101 (non 'cube compatible) Wiis. I'm very interested in this and would really like to get to the bottom of it - so I have started to buy a few of the consoles to test.

I've tried a PAL RVL-101 Wii against the original PAL RVL-001 and there was absolutely no difference in image quality. I've ordered a US NTSC RVL-101 to test against the PAL Wiis and I would like to test more NTSC Wiis as well.

I was wondering if anyone might any more in depth information as to exactly which hardware revisions might have this 'upgrade' in image quality?

Thanks very much :)

[tueidj]

I think it's a myth.

[andykara2003]

You may well be right. I'd still like to explore the possibilities of this though.

The thing that gives me hope that there could be something in this is that the guy who runs the RetroRGB website is so sure that he's seen them.

If you have a look at his website, he's very thorough about image comparisons, RGB stuff etc. As I say we've emailed back & forth a bit & he's looking into this as well. He mentions the Wii's component output differences in the first paragraph on this page:

http://retrorgb.com/gamecubevswii.html

Of course that doesn't guarantee that any of this is true but if you check out the rest of his website, he's very well versed in all this kind of stuff.....

[Ashen]

I remember a while back reading about the PS2 slim having improved composite quality compared to its phatty brother, this was apparently because they changed some component(s) in a revision of the new slim consoles. I guess its possible here also.

[tueidj]

I can't really take a site seriously if it blindly always recommends 480p over 480i (480p on some tvs, especially CRTs, is blurry as hell due to the higher frequency signal not being handled correctly), or recommends using RGB output for a console that uses a YUV framebuffer internally.

[BenoitRen]

I've read the Saturn and PlayStation pages a couple months back, and as a result can't take the website seriously either. This is even after several threads by Saturn enthusiasts pointing out the errors, which he's taken note of at least a year ago, because he's posted in all of them.

To name an example that I personally have the most experience with:

Very few PS2 games output in 240p, but many output 480p.

In reality, relatively few NTSC PS2 games have a progressive scan (480p) option. Even fewer PAL PS2 games have a progressive scan option.

Wikipedia's 480p lists for the GameCube and PlayStation 2 are notoriously bad as well, and he links to those.

EDIT: Whoops, wrong link.

[andykara2003]

Nice one - really great to hear all your input on this & well noted.

I found out that there were 3 revisions of the AV chip:

AVE-REL BU9055EKV - http://www.logictoyz.com/nintendo-wii/n ... r-dac.html

AVE-REL BU9955EKV - http://www.logictoyz.com/nintendo-wii/n ... r-dac.html

AVE-RVL A C8391 - http://www.logictoyz.com/nintendo-wii/n ... r-dac.html

Maybe someone knows if one of these is significantly different to the others regarding the output?