Electron Shepherd has just received more stock of their ZERO LAG HDMI dongle for the Nintendo Wii. This simply plugs into the rear A/V port and converts component video to HDMI, using their analog to digital conversion circuit. The price is $24 plus shipping and check out more reasons below as to why you’d want this one over other alternatives:
Purchase Here: https://retrorgb.link/wii2hdmi
I think the main question that needs to be addressed is: Why would you want this over some $8 “1080p” device you can find on Amazon? The answer is simple: Lag and consistency. First and foremost, the dongle from Electron Shepherd is simply using an ADC, with no scaling circuit built in. This completely eliminates any of the variable latency you’d get from a cheap adapter. If you’re playing a turn-by-turn RPG, this won’t make a difference…but ask any Smash player what they think of those “1080p” devices…
Also, you never know what you may find in those Amazon / Aliexpress devices. As I’ve discussed many times, it’s common that multiple companies share the same molds. Or that revisions could change at any time. That results in never knowing what you’re actually getting – You could buy 10 from the same seller and would most likely find multiple revisions. How do you know which is good, if any?
Its my strong opinion that spending a bit more on something reliable is well worth the cost. While technically, it’s three times the price of those other solutions, we’re still talking about about $30 total. And that brings me to the other question that needs answering:
Why would you want this over internal HDMI mods?: Price and “installation”. You can simply plug this into any Wii except a Mini and get 480p output (just remember to set your Wii’s menu to 480p, 16:9). That’s it. No other installation necessary. And while it certainly won’t get you the pixel-perfect, digital-to-digital conversion of an internal mod, the quality is good.
So, why WOULDN’T you want this dongle? There’s actually a few reasons. First, if you already own some quality HD Retrovision cables, you might want to pick up an external ADC and use that. While it’s not nearly as setup-clean of a solution as the wire-free Wii2HDMI, if you’re converting multiple consoles from component to HDMI (Xbox, etc), it might be cheaper overall.
Also, if you planned on using a scaler like the RetroTINK 5x, that will do the analog to digital conversion for you. Just getting a set of HDR cables and letting the TINK bring you to 1080p (or higher!) would result in a better picture…but at a higher cost, of course.
…and lastly, this ADC doesn’t support 240p. I honestly can’t think of a scenario involving the Wii that you’d want 240p out of the HDMI port instead of 480p, other than if you were going into a scaler. But, if there’s some crazy reason you need 240p out of the HDMI port, you might want to look into using component cables and other compatible ADC solutions. As a note, it DOES support 480i, so those few WiiWare games that are 480i-only will work.
