High definition TVs are all the rage these days.  LCD and plasma TVs are more affordable than ever, and you can read my personal experience with entering the realm of HDTV over in the Features section.  A few cynical folks (probably gloating XBox 360 or PS3 owners) will tell you it's not worth it: the Wii doesn't do HD so don't bother trying.  That's silly, of course you should try!  But if you just slap some cables together, you're likely to be disappointed.

While the Wii doesn't do hi-def, it does do EDTV (enhanced definition TV), which includes two useful modes: widescreen presentation and progressive-scan video.  The former is self-explanatory.  The latter is described as 480p (480 vertical lines, progressive).  A standard TV is 480i, and the "i" stands for "interlaced": Each second, an analog TV displays all the odd scanlines, then all the even scan lines, alternating in rapid succession.  In 480i, an analog TV can display a maximum of 30 frames per second -- at 60Hz, you get one odd scan and one even scan for every frame.  With progressive scan, every line is drawn every time the TV is scanned, so that means up to 60 frames per second is possible -- provided, of course, the game developer has done their job.

So, here's the routine:

• Get the right video cables
• Hook them up
• Configure your Wii
• Fine-tune your television

1. Get the right video cables.  You need component cables.  These have five plugs on the end: red, green, and blue video; and right and left audio.  These are typically available at most electronic stores and the electronics departments of other stores.  Nintendo sells their own for $30, but you can typically do better than that price-wise.  Just make sure the component cable you get is specifically for Wii. 

If you're wondering about HDMI, don't.  HDMI is a digital format, and the Wii doesn't do digital video.  While converting from component video to HDMIis possible, it's expensive and you'll get no benefit from it.

2. Hook them up.  Most HDTVs have component video ports.  If it doesn't, then you have a weird TV.  On the other hand, your TV probably doesn't have more than one set, so if you already have something plugged into it, then you'll need to get a component video switchbox, or else put up with swapping cables back and forth.

3. Configure your Wii.  Games that support progressive scanning will automatically be displayed as such, but you'll have to set your Wii to display widescreen format. Follow the instructions below, or use Nintendo's support page for screen settings.

• From the Channels, click the bottom-right Wii button and click the Wii Settings button.  
• On the Wii System Settings 1 screen, click Screen.
• On the Screen menu, click the Widescreen Settings button.
• Click the Widescreen (16:9) button and click Confirm.
• Upon returning to the Screen menu, click the TV Resolution button.
• Click the EDTV or HDTV (480p) button and click Confirm.
• If you have a plasma TV, you will want to turn on the Screen Burn-In Reduction feature as well (DON'T PANIC!  See below!).  Click the button for it, and then click the On button and click Confirm.

4. Fine-Tune your television.  Most HDTVs have horrible settings out of the box, because they are meant to look good in an electronics store display.  So if you haven't yet tweaked your HDTV, you'll need to.  The best way to do this is to go to the AV Science Forums (http://www.avsforums.com) and search for your model of HDTV.  It may or may not be a straight-forward search to find suggested settings.  For example, settings for my TV, the Vizio VP322 plasma television, was buried in a 43-page discussion thread.

In the mean time, here are some broad guidelines for tweaking your HDTV:

• Start with any presets labeled "standard", "movie", or "film".  Typically they have the least amount of artificial processing.
• Reduce the contrast and brightness settings to halfway or less, especially on plasma televisions, where having them turned up too high can actually shorten the life of your TV.
• Always turn the sharpness setting to zero.  While on analog TVs, sharpness tweaked the TV's focus, on digital TVs it's an artificial process that exaggerates edges and borders and looks absolutely horrible on Wii graphics.
• Turn off any video processing the TV does.  On my TV, there are selections such as "CTI", "Adaptive Luma", and "Flesh Tone".  You don't need them.
• After that, experiment with what you like or dislike.  But at least now, you've reached a baseline of a picture that is as close to the original image the producer intended as possible.

Things to Watch Out For

Both main types of HDTVs have their weaknesses.  For LCD TVs, their Achilles' Heel is motion blur.  LCD panels update their pixels relatively slowly -- most TVs claim a 5-6ms response time, and many people can see that.  Motion blur can cause headaches in some people, and on fast action it can be detected as distortion or pixelation in the picture.  The newest 120Hz televisions minimize this problem, but they're still quite expensive.

For plasma TVs, their problems are power consumption, heat, and image retention.  Plasma TVs use about as much electricity as a standard analog tube TV, while LCDs use only a fraction of the power.  They produce heat because plasma technology is based on tube technology (each pixel is a mini-picture tube).  Be sure that your plasma TV is in an area that is well-ventilated, and not in an enclosed entertainment center, for example.  But image retention is the problem that plasma TVs have been most criticized for, to the point where some people have the mistaken impression that plasma TVs are bad for gaming.

Image retention is caused by residual energy in the pixels of the plasma panel, which you see as ghostly after images, most notably on black screens just after viewing a static image.  For short periods of time, it's not harmful, and is a natural consequence of plasma technology.  However, a high-contrast static image left on a plasma TV for long periods of time can conceivably cause damage called burn-in.  It's similar to the problems gamers experienced in the late '70s with pong-type games etching their patterns into analog picture tubes.  But the fear of burn-in is vastly overstated these days.  Nearly all modern plasma TVs are resistant to burn-in.  While image retention may still be a problem, you usually don't have to worry about burn-in except under extraordinary conditions (such as if you are deaf and use an add-on closed captioning viewer that puts the text in the same location all the time).

Most plasma TVs now have a nifty feature called an "image cleaner".  After a few hours of gaming, where heads-up displays on-screen might start getting retained, simply activate that mode of your plasma television for 1 to 2 minutes, and it will eliminate most or all image retention.

Image retention becomes less of a problem the more a plasma television is viewed.  Typically, it occurs less and goes away faster after 100 or more hours of viewing.  You can help your HDTV by being nice to it those first hundred hours and run the image cleaner after your gaming sessions.

All gamers deserve a good view of their game.  Hopefully these suggestions will help you enjoy both your Wii and your HDTV even more for years to come.