All in one weekend I’ve plunged into the depths of both working with a brand new HD LCD television and having an actual real television set in my house (previously, I just had my PC hooked up to a 21" CRT monitor and watched “tv” that way).
I’ve been jonesin for a LCD HDTV for a while but there’s no way I am going to get myself one until I can pay cash, which won’t be for a while. But my dad got himself one this weekend (er, he paid, i did all the research and setup) and I got myself his old 27" CRT.
So, part of my World Domination Television Plan was to not only get a LCD but once I had one, get a Wii - because I couldn’t play Wii through my monitor (maybe I could but that’s neither here nor there.) The Wii fit into the plan simply because I would finally have a TV to which I could connect a console.
But now that this honest-to-god television has fell into my lap, for free, and the Wii is more tempting than ever (availability may vary by location). In fact, for some reason my mom is quite interested in me having a Wii. Maybe because I mentioned the “exercise” factor.
Anyone here have a Wii that they play on a CRT tv? Or is it just not worth it without a new-fangled widescreen HD setup? Is it still fun on 27" of mediocre resolution? Should I ask Santy for one this Xmas and pray really hard? Or should I just let it ride until I’m good and ready to play it on a Real Man’s Television in the distant future when I can afford such a luxury?
I have my Wii hooked up to a 12 year old 27" Samsung CRT. Not having an HDTV I can’t tell you if the picture looks less on a CRT than on an LCD but to me it looks like everything else on a CRT. That is to say fine.
We initially had our wii hooked up to a 20" TV, and it was absolutely a blast. Then we bought a 42" LCD and hooked up the wii to that, first with the standard RCA cables, then with the aftermarket component cables.
It does make a difference based on the size alone, especially in seeing more screen when pointing with the controller. The widescreen or HD vs. standard def or fullscreen, not so much. Fact is, wii was designed to not be nearly so much about graphical capability as it was the unique control scheme and “family friendly” persona. Some fairly major wii games (such as Mario Party 8) aren’t even designed for widescreen TVs. It puts up ugly bars on the sides of the screen.
My HDTV is a CRT (I prefer CRT to LCD and plasma though I know that many people like the appearance of sharpness you get from the others) and my Wii works just fine on it. I have also used it on more normal televisions without a problem. The thing is that the Wii’s 480p mode isn’t that impressive. There are a few games (Marvel Ultimate Alliance comes to mind immediately) where they didn’t design the text to be read clearly on an interlaced image but pretty much all of the big titles were built with a standard definition image in mind. Zelda in fact looks better in my opinion on a standard definition since it blurs over some of the harsh edges that become very visible in the high definition (I know that in the past few years there’s been a tendency from marketers to redefine “high definition” as only the high end of the current market but I don’t care for that moving goal posts definition; HD to me are the television standards above the standard NTSC and PAL just like it was when it was introduced and as it was available for more than a decade before someone came up with the idea of “EDTV”).
Funny thing is, I have a CRT HDTV too, and IMO it’s sharper than any of the flat TVs hands down. There’s a pixelization and graininess to plasma/LCD/DLP that CRT avoids neatly. And I love my Wii on it. Course, the OP’s TV isn’t HD, so I can’t speak to that.
That’s what I meant by “appearance of sharpness”. The fixed resolutions of many LCD’s and plasma can look pixelated when dealing with video games that aren’t built to account for it (some do, most don’t) or some DVD’s. To some people this pixelation appears to be a sharp image but I don’t care for it. There are LCD and plasma screens that compensate for this but the general consumer wants “sharp”.
I’m also one of the hold outs on CRT’s for computer monitors. I can understand why someone might prefer an LCD (lower energy use, less heat, less desk space) but for gaming I think CRT’s are much better.