BENQ 24 inch widescreen LCD + Nintendo Wii
I recently purchased a 24″ BENQ widescreen monitor and a Nintendo Wii. There has already been plenty of reviews of these items individually. What I intend to do is review them as a pair to give my reader an idea of how they work together.
BENQ FP241W 24 inch widescreen LCD
There are three main competitors in the 24 inch widescreen consumer LCD market.
- Dell 2407WFP (around AU$1100)
- BENQ FP241W (around AU$1300)
- Samsung 244T (around AU$1500)
Of these I went with the BENQ FP241W due to the generally favourable reviews and the many mixed views on the Dell. The negative views centred mainly around colour banding and suspect build quality issues. That said, I am sure most people would be happy with any of these monitors.
The BENQ FP241W has a native resolution of 1920×1200 pixels. It has DVI-D, VGA, HDMI, component, s-video and composite inputs and is capable of displaying 1080p signals. The component inputs are what makes this monitor particularly interesting to prospective Nintendo Wii players.
Nintendo Wii
The interestingly named Nintendo Wii is the latest generation games console from Japan’s famous video games company. It features motion sensitive controllers and a unique pointer system which allows for innovative game play. What it does not feature is cutting edge graphics. The Wii can only output at a maximum of 480p. To view this signal you will need to get a component cable (not standard with the console) and a TV or monitor with component inputs.
Wii + BENQ FP241W in action
Getting the Wii visuals working with the BENQ FP241W is as simple as attaching the three component cables and selecting component as the input source on the monitor. What may be more of a problem is the audio. The official Nintendo component cable also includes two male RCA plugs for stereo audio. If your audio input jacks are more than about 30cm away from the monitor’s component input jacks then you will have to provide your own extender cable. In my case a 2 x Male to Female RCA extender cable did the trick for connecting the Wii audio to my sound card input (I am using my computer to mix all audio).
One problem with the BENQ FP241W and other current 24″ monitors is that none of them can do 1:1 pixel mapping. What does this mean you ask? 24″ computer monitors are actually 16:10, not 16:9. All of these monitors will stretch a 16:9 input signal to be full screen (16:10), distorting the image a little in the process. This is the case for the Wii signal, although I do not find the stretching to be a problem.
I am currently experiencing one problem with the Wii when using the component cable and playing older games (SEGA Megadrive/Genesis) on the virtual console. The video will not display after you enter and then exit the home menu. It appears that many people are getting this same issue on many kinds of televisions and monitors. I do not think this problem is caused by the BENQ FP241W. I imagine that Nintendo will rectify this issue through a patch. In the meantime you can revert back to the composite cable for these games.
Final Comments
The BENQ FP241W is a great monitor that works well with the Nintendo Wii. If you are in the market for a monitor for general PC use with the added ability to play console games then it is a fine choice. However, if you are after a screen solely for console gaming, I would choose one of the many high definition televisions that are on the market. Many of these televisions are available for less than the cost of a 24″ monitor.
21 Comments so far
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Hi,
thanks for putting up the review (i came across this from WP)
I am planning on purchasing a Wii too, and was wondering if you found the screen size sufficient?
I have’nt yet used a Wii, but would image that it would favor much larger screen sizes?
ibk
ibk - I have had no problems with the screen size. It is certainly fine for Nintendo’s recommended play distance of about 3-8 feet from the screen. That said, it would be nice to play on a massive plasma
Wp for the WIN
Any particular reason you’re not using the Aspect option or are those photos of the BenQ using Aspect?
If you aren’t using Aspect, can you tell me how it looks in Aspect? I assume there are black bars on the side as expected? I am thinking about getting the BenQ, but I’d rather have black bars on the sides than stretching my image on the sides a little much.
If you are using Aspect, should I assume this is one of the many issues BenQ is still addressing with future firmware updates?
Awesome setup, by the way!
hi,
please can you tell me how you are using your sound card to output the audio from the wii, i know how to get the signal with the cable adapter etc, but i cant work out how to get it to my pc speakers after that. I have a sound blaster live card. Cheers
chaz -
Take the stereo audio signal from the Wii and direct it into your soundcard’s line-in socket. Then go to your soundcard control panel and make sure that the line-in is unmuted/non-zero for playback/output.
cheers for that, i thought that was what you were doing, i will give it a go when i get the right cable. Btw just out of interest i am keen on the benq but i understand it has overscan issues and cant do 1:1 mapping correctly. The said they were going to update the firmware in the uk and other countries but i dont think current stock has it applied. What is the actual issue with the 1:1 is it the case that when i plug in a wii it will stretch the pic to 16:10 and it will look strange? If it did work would the wii picture be displayed in a box if it could do 1:1? thanks for the help there is so much crap on forums its hard to get clear answers.
chaz -
Yep. My Benq cannot do 1:1 mapping correctly. The Wii video signal is stretched to be 16:10 which I do not find annoying.
On a monitor which did have 1:1 mapping you would get black bars on the top and/or bottom of the screen in place of the stretched signal.
The absense of 1:1 pixel mapping is only a problem for devices other than your computer (Wii). When a video is played through your operating system (Windows) the video card will show the video in the original (non-stretched) 16:9 format.
nintendo wii only 480p?
Not 720p?
dany -
Yes, the Nintendo Wii is only 480p. You really notice it if you sit close. It’s not so bad at a distance.
I have see a cable for nintendo wii up to 720p
(nintendo wii pro component cable.
Is possible?
Dany -
480p is the maximum resolution which the Wii can output. If you see a cable that provides 720p then it can only do so through upscaling which will generally not improve your picture by any great margin.
ok, thank’s
I have buy the mad catz component cable for wii (non original), the quality is equal to original wii component cable?
please….
Dany -
That cable will give you better quality than the composite cable that comes with the Wii. However the quality will be the same as the official Nintendo component cable. It is still 480p with either of those two cables.
ok, a lot of thank’s
Nice. I’m getting myself of of they BenQ 24″s for christmas
(with use for my PC and PS3)
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