Nintendo Wii 480i and 480p component cable how-to

   The Nintendo Wii ships with a composite video cable that is capable of 480i resolution. Currently first party component cables, which allow for 480p resolution, are available through retailers and directly from Nintendo. However, when attaching the component cables, one loses the ability to output composite video. Why is this an issue?

Well, it may be that you take your Wii over to friends houses frequently and would like to only have to take a single cable. Or, you may be like me, and use a monitor for your Wii's display. My monitor has composite but no component in. Using a small transcoder box, such as the Mayflash YPbPr to RGB transcoder, that only supports 480p. In which case, when a game only supports 480i, as is the case with many GameCube games, you're forced to switch cables.

Luckily, this cable does them both. We'll take a standard first party component cable, and a few buck worth of parts from Radio Shack and put together a cable that is selectable between composite and component output.