Braided Component HD Video Cable for Nintendo Wii and Wii U 1.8m

Product Overview

This is a heavy duty component lead for the Nintendo Wii, built to a much higher standard than the thin cable most replacements are. Component video is the best picture the console can send to a television, and it is a clear step up from the single yellow composite plug it was supplied with. If your set has a row of green, blue and red sockets on the back, this is the lead that uses them.

What component video actually does. A composite lead squeezes the whole picture – brightness and both colour signals – down one wire, and the television then has to pull them apart again. Component splits that job across three: green carries the brightness, blue and red carry the colour difference. Nothing has to be separated at the far end, so edges stay crisp, text in menus stays readable, and strong colours stop smearing into one another. It also lets the console run in 480p progressive scan, which a composite lead cannot carry at all.

The build is the difference you can see in the photographs. The cable is thick, heavily insulated PVC with a woven mesh sleeve over the top of it for the whole run. Where the lead enters the console connector there is a deep ribbed strain relief moulding, and the five tails leave a second moulded breakout with its own relief on each one. Every television plug has a moulded body with a rubber grip ring around it, colour matched to the socket it belongs in. That is what stops a cable failing where they nearly always fail, at the plug.

Gold at both ends, not just the ends you can see. All five television plugs are gold plated, and so are the pins inside the console connector. The console end is the one that gets plugged and unplugged the most, and it is the one almost every cheap lead leaves as bare tin.

Turning 480p on, because the cable alone does not do it. Plugging the lead in gets you a picture, but the console still has to be told to use progressive scan. Go to Settings, then Screen, then TV Resolution, and choose EDTV/HDTV (480p). If the option is greyed out the console has not detected the component connection, so check the green, blue and red plugs are seated properly.

Please check which console you have. This lead fits the Nintendo Wii and it also fits the Nintendo Wii U – both have the same wide AV Multi Out socket and both can drive component video. It is not suitable for the Wii mini, the small red and black model. Its socket is the same shape, so the plug will physically go in, but that console was built to output composite video only and it will not produce a component picture no matter what cable is fitted. That model needs a standard yellow, white and red AV lead instead.