Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Sweet! That's great news!

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Maybe I'm just being overly cynical, but I didn't see anything in this interview that confirmed that Nintendo's own first party component cables would be available at brick & mortar retailers from launch. We already knew that third parties will be selling their own component cables from launch day, like Psyclone's $65 component cables but I'd rather not pay that much for a third party product. If on launch day it turns out that we still have to order Nintendo cables online, then that's exactly what I'll do.

I guess we'll know well enough what the situation is come November 19th. Even if I do have to wait a while for component cables, I'll only be concerned about it up until I get them. I doubt if one year from now I'll be begrudging the fact that I had to wait another week or so after launch to play games in progressive scan.

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Even if they're 3rd party cables, Nintendo has never had anything but the most basic, silver-tipped cables. Very rarely do I ever use the packed-in Nintendo cables, or their "official" ones, but instead opt for the higher-quality, gold-plated cables from Psyclone, Pelican, or even (gulp) MadCatz.

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Dr. Pill (#2), I doubt Nintendo would comment on third-party accessories, especially something like component cables. I highly doubt they would license anything like that to third-parties, and because of that they would never talk about them.

Anyway, I never had a problem getting GameCube component cables. I got a TV with component inputs, got on Nintendo's online store, ordered the cables, and received them a little while later. No problem. ^^

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#3, PLEASE help me with something:

WHY IN THE FLYING HECK would you pay more money on cables?
WHY OH WHY?!?

Here is the deal: A cable trasmits a signal. That's it. It doesn't do anything else.

If the signal is transmitted, it's done it's job. There is no rust that could magically appear to interrupt the signal, no blue fairies live inside the wires that might stop the magic flow of electricity.

Right now I have home-made cables running everything in my (VERY EXPENSIVE) home theater system. 2 bux at radio shack and some cheap speaker cable = component cables strung 18 feet that work PEFFECTLY.

There can't be snow, there can't be anything: if the signal is transmitted, it works. period. It works with 65 dollar monster cables, it works exactly the same with name brand cables, exactly the same with cheap cable, and EXACTLY the same with crappy home made cables. All are absolutely the same in every way shape and form, no differences in picture or sound quality are possible ever- period.

Why would you pay more?

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@5 (melcrose):

While I agree that a Nintendo component cable is just as good as some random "gold plated" third-party cable, I suggest you learn a bit about transmission line theory and high-speed signal propagation before stating nonsense like "All are absolutely the same in every way shape and form, no differences in picture or sound quality are possible ever- period." That's simply not true.

Yes, the purpose of a cable is to transmit a signal. I believe everyone knows that already. The point is that signals don't magically teleport from point A to point B, and the very process of travelling through the cable can effect the signal. If the signal at point B is the same as at point A, then the cable did its job. But, cable quality can make it so that B is not the same as A -- and that's a bad cable.

Of course, this isn't to say that Monster cable marketing is right. That's mostly BS too. Most people claim the issue with cables is attenuation -- ie. that significant signal loss occurs due to cable resistance. This is true for cable runs over 100 ft, but isn't really an issue for runs under 100 ft. Likewise, people tend to go on about "gold plated" connectors versus "silver plated" connectors. The only real benefit to gold doesn't lie in signal quality, however, it deals with corrosion; and, honestly, I don't think I've ever seen a cable corrode in normal home theatre conditions.

Nonetheless, there are cable issues that are important. First off, component video is designed to be sent through 75 Ohm impedance matched coax. All commercial component cables regardless of brand pretty much come close to the mark. Homemade component cables made out of speaker wire, however, don't even come close. It's simply foolish to think so. Of course, it is possible to make great homemade component cables using cheap R-6 or R-59 coax; but, certainly not speaker wire.

All in all, however, it really depends on signal frequency. Hence why I said it's all irrelevant for 480p (heck, even speaker wire cable would be good). The higher the signal frequency, the smaller the signal wavelength. As the signal wavelength becomes smaller, the propagation of the signal through the cable acts less like a lumped system and more like a transmission line. In particular, the smaller the wavelength, the more sensitive the signal is to impedance mismatch. While cables are supposed to be 75 Ohms matched, they general differ by some amount. Higher quality cables differ less. For high frequencies, impedance mismatch leads to signal reflection which causes image ghosting and ringing.

480p requires about 13.5 MHz of bandwidth, which leds to a wavelength of around 70 ft; 720p has a wavelength of about 25ft; and 1080p is around 13 ft. The closer the length of your cable is to the signal wavelength, the more impedance mismatch effects you. Again, for 7ft, or 720p at >12.5ft.

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Odd, the last few sentences of my last comment are messed up.

Should have read: "One would clearly see a difference between crappy cables and quality cables for 1080p at >7ft. The same for 720p at >12.5ft. Very easy to notice in scenes with sharp vertical edges -- it'll be a ringing nightmare."

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The first-party GameCube Component Video Cable has always featured gold RCA connectors.

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jdb is correct, the impedance of the cables does make a difference in signal degradation. The only thing I'd add to that explanation is that how you lay the cable makes a difference too. If you coil the cable up to make things look cleaner, it will result in more signal degradation than if the cables are stretched out. Of course, having a cable no longer than you actually need is optimal.

Flev

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