Connecting nVi (or wii?) to TV

Posted by: living in lancs yearning for yorks on 09 February 2011

Have had nVi for 3.5 years now - recently got back after post-fire fettling (now had two trips back to Salisbury) but I am running out of the right connections on the TV to plug the nVi in at the same time as wii, Humax TV recorder and another dvd player (my wife refuses to use the nVi cos it's such hard work... but the other dvd also does region 1 discs).  Bought the wii since the fire so only recently identified the connection problem

My TV only has two scart inputs, currently being used by (other) dvd and Humax.  The wii is connected with the red/yellow/white connection

from peering at the back of the TV and the nVi I think I have two options but don;t know how easy / pricy / practical either is:

1.  connect the wii in a different way (is hdmi possible?  I just bought an hdmi cable but the humax, the nVi and other dvd don't have hdmi) so that can use the red/yellow/white for the other dvd and connect the nVi with a scart

or

2. connect the nVi with s-video lead.  Is this OK / practical / expensive / give good results?

Sorry for numpty questions - am a bit of a techno phobe and have been wishing I had never bought the nVi - sounds fantastic when it is working (have nsats/nsub/ncent) but it is far from user-friendly and am worried thaqt I will keep having to send back to Salisbury at great expense to be fixed every year or two

Is there anything else I should be thinking of?

Thanks, Tim
Posted on: 09 February 2011 by David Scott
Hi There,

The wii cant output hdmi and the nVi won't give as good a picture with an s-video lead. You'll need to get hold of a decent scart switcher or buy another dvd player which has hdmi. Or if your TV is HD you could get a bluray player. Neither would cost very much. The hierarchy of video connections is(from best to worst)
HDMI, component/RGB (Three cables for video (red green and blue) and two for sound) s-video, composite (red yellow white). Just to confuse things any of the last three can be carried by a scart cable instead. Have a look at your manuals.
Posted on: 09 February 2011 by living in lancs yearning for yorks
Thank you - didn't know there was such a thing as a scart switcher!  Will search for one of these.  Am not going to buy a new dvd player just for this
Posted on: 09 February 2011 by Richard Dane
If you have HDMI input on the TV, you could use a DVI-HDMI lead (or HDMI lead with HDMI-DVI adaptor/DVI lead with DVI-HDMI adaptor) to connect the n-Vi.  Although DVI doesn't carry sound, most current HDMI-equipped TVs have at least one HDMI input which is labelled HDMI/DVI and has an accompanying analog or s/pdif input - assuming you wish to channel sound to the TV as well as through the n-Vi.  If you've been using SCART up until now, you may be rather pleased with the jump in picture quality.
Posted on: 09 February 2011 by David Scott
Ignore me and do what Richard says. Didn't know the nVi had DVI. Adapters are cheap and plentiful and the result should be really good as Richard says.
Posted on: 10 February 2011 by living in lancs yearning for yorks
Richard, that's very helpful, thank you very much indeed!  

I am not bothered about sound to the TV (if using the nVi I rely on the proper speakers for that) so can just use an HDMI lead with HDMI/DVI adaptor
Posted on: 10 February 2011 by Richard Dane
No problem.  Another alternative would be the component output on the n-Vi.  Some screens, like my own Fujitsu plasma, give an amazing picture via the component input.  The DVD5 and n-Vi were developed with component outputs of the highest quality.  Of course, good component cables are expensive and if your component input on the TV isn't on DINs then that may indicate it's more an afterthought than a serious input.  FWIW, on my Fujitsu, component beats DVI hands down.  However, on a recent Samsung LCD, the digital input is way better than the (shockingly poor) component input.
Posted on: 25 March 2011 by living in lancs yearning for yorks
Well I am getting really hacked off with naim for selling the nvi - I now have an hdmi to dvi connector that doesn't work (no such thing as dvi to hdmi as far as I can make out) and some component rgb cables that don't fit either. The nvi has had two lots of refit by the factory and main have dropped it. I regret massively buying this crap and wasting several grand on something that sound great when it is working but is getting me dramatically hissed off More sensible comment/question - why don't standard component cables fit into the back of the nvi?