I just spoke with GD a little while ago. He is knee deep in TV config land

The difference on SOME tvs can be quite drastic between s-video and component.

Oh the difference actually having the equipment in hand makes.

Okay, translating from documentation world to real world here's where things stand. The TiVo DOES have s-video. Bonus. While the tv documentation lists "2 composite AND 2 s-video" inputs, in realty, that's a total of 2 inputs, not 4 (each one can be either of the 2 formats).

So: TiVo is now s-video. Wii takes one of the composite slots. The DVD player will take one of the 2 (separate from the composite/s-video) component slots once I get cables (doing some reading, it just makes sense to spend $20 and get component-specific cables). Had the TiVo had component outputs I'd have used them, but it doesn't.

Antenna will likely be forthcoming. There's a Dodger game on channel 9 in HD on Friday...

Okay, logistics out of the way, cables are connected, the verdict is...

:D :D :D :D :D

I'm watching the Dodgers right now, in SD, through the TiVo. And it's beautiful. Just beautiful. I also spent an hour playing Tiger Woods Tour '07 on the Wii (in widescreen mode). Droooooool.

So

freaking

happy


ETA: You better believe Munchkin's lovin' the 40" cardboard boxes!

You missed dinner. ;)

I want to come play TW07. I can bring Wario World to be goofballs with.
:)

We've got Wario also. That game is crazy fun.

I can't wait for Harry Potter!

Also Mario Party 8!

Have you seen Super Paper Mario?

TV update. Picked up some component cables yesterday for the DVD player. The picture looks fantastic, but there's a problem.

The screen is 16:9. There are 4 options for the mode of display. 16:9, 4:3, "zoom1" and "zoom2". We popped in our Lord of the Rings DVD which is 1.33:1. In the standard 16:9 screen mode, the TV stretches the image. Flipped to "zoome1". That did the trick. The image wasn't stretched, nothing was cut off. It still leaves a bit of letterboxing obviously the ratio isn't exact, but that's fine.

All is good right? Well, we then put Marry Poppins in. Marry Poppins is 1.66:1. Once again, 16:9 stretches it. Switched over to Zoom1...it cuts off the top and bottom of the image :(

Lost was coming on, so I didn't have a whole lot of time to figure things out, but I couldn't find any way to resolve this. Are we doomed to avoid any DVD with a 1.66:1 ratio? Might there be a setting on the DVD player or perhaps some option on the TV I'm missing?

It depends which DVD player you have. On my Oppo, for example, I have a setting called "Wide/SQZ". Since the Oppo always outputs 16:9, it will output a 16:9 image in 16:9, and will add bars to the sides of 4:3 source material, therefore always preserving the aspect ratio of the original disc.

You also might check the settings on your TV - on my Toshiba, for example, "zoom 1" stretches the picture more horizontally than vertically, so while the screen is more "filled", the AR is screwed, while "zoom 2" stretches both horizontal and vertical to the same degree, resulting in a more severe crop on the top and bottom, but still keeping the picture from appearing stretched. This works especially when an SD channel presents a widescreen movie in letterbox. The resulting zoom just gets rid of the black bars on the top and bottom.

By the way, the first edition of the Mary Poppins DVD is not anamorphic, while the current 2-Disc special edition is.