Extend Your Own Sensor Bar - Page 2

While I agree that I wish Nintendo had supported more of high def.
That said, Nintendo isn't being shortsighted they are being different. This system isn't intended for high definition show off type graphics or giant 100 inch screen projectors.
Despite the fact that we are here on AVS forum I would say that most people aren't looking to play game systems on giant front projector screens.
The Wii will probably fit in very nicely with most set-ups. In fact, going by statistics more people probably have regular old Tv's than anything else.
Ultimately though why they chose to sell their digital cable online like the gamecube and not promote it in stores is beyond me.

I vote EXTREME shortsightedness.

Reggie said the other day that they expect 5 or 6 years from the Wii. HDTV penetration is just under 20% in the U.S. in Holiday 2006. By half of the Wii's lifespan 50% of U.S. homes will have HD. Japan has over 50% TODAY. By half the Wii's lifespan they will probably be near 100%.

The fact that Nintendo sold out of their Component cables os fast is certainly an indication that they were less than on the ball with their estimate of how many people who game have HDTVs.

Wireless Sensor Bar Mod:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/24/d...ii-sensor-bar/

I checked amazon and I seen something called, "sensor bar extender" it cost like 13 dollars coming soon though.

1. I only have an AC adapter of 6V and 800mA.
Will it work with the sensor?

2. Do you need to cut the plug and leave it within the Wii?

Thanks.

Here's another sensor bar mod using candles...

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/11/26/to...le-in-the-wii/

wow, dr. k and frank are totally way wrong. res isn't everything. this is the perfect example. and imo, anybody putting a time on the wii is dumb. this is not your little brother's console. i'm playing it on a 92" screen off of an in72. no component cables. upscaled from 480i to 1080i through my pioneer elite 84 and it's incredible. aside from the nintendo servers being hammered, i've had zero issues. this is innovation. and it's pretty frickin' cool.

this is simply not true. EVERYBODY IS LOOKING to play game systems on giant front projection screens. and if they're not, someone ask them why not please.

I love talking to myself...


1. Yes, it works just fine.

2. It works without anything plugged to the Wii.


... and of course, thumbs up to JaremyP! He saved the Wii for all of us!

Great stuff.
So is there absolutely no difference during operation using external power?

I thought the US HD market was just under 6%?

Most people i know dotn have HD..i thought it was smart on their part to deliver a lower cost product to the masses..HD has not hit critical mass yet.

As a shareholder, that sounds like good business to me.

Hey guys,

I just became interested in the Wii the other day actually.... I was just looking forward to the ps3 before. Now I just want a Wii.... could care less about a ps3 right now.

Anyways, just thought I'd chime in and say I have a 120 inch screen with a Hi-def projector & why the hell would the average user not want to play on this??

Wow I really want a Wii..... Can Someone please pm me or let me know what's my best bet of getting hold of a wii this week??

6% penetration number is a few years old. Last year, or this year is the first year that there are more HDTVs sold than non-HDTVs in the US. Penetration is just about 20% now.

Of course a substantial percentage of those HDTV owners have no source for HD programming (and a substantial percentage of those think they are watching HD anyway)

I did this mod yesterday and it works great. Only thing I noticed was that the option screen for sensor bar sensitivity works differently. I cannot get the 2 dots to blink like I did before. They are solid and only begin to flash at a sensitivity level of 1. But at this setting using the controller is a mess. I put it back to my "pre-mod" level of 5 and it works fine. So...I suggest calibrating sensitivity prior to doing this.

So do we know for sure that the Wii pulses the LEDs? Do we know what rate?

So wait..are you saying 20% of Americans buying a TV are getting HD? or that 20% of Americans have an HD tv?

60 million HD owners in the US? Can you give a source (not picking a fight, just curious)?

EDIT: I did find this at tvpredictions.com

" Washington, D.C. (November 22, 2006) -- High-Definition TVs are now in roughly 25 million U.S. homes, but they are often a source of confusion rather than contentment."

not quite twenty %, but thats surely a hell of a lot more than what I thought . I still think it was the right move to stay from HD right now, however in five years it would be stupid not to support it.

That said, Im glad I got my component cables the day after the Wii launched.

25 million homes may be twentyish percent...remember they are looking at households not population...following numbers are made up....400 million people...3 people per household = 133 million households....20% would be 26.7 million households. My numbers don't come from any data, but I'm sure an entrepid young poster will be happy to track down real data

since i grajumacated from college, i figured you could put some resistors and a capacitor on the circuit to make it blink. would this work?

Okay, here is my situation and idea. I have a 92" rear projection in-wall system, and a 29" monitor in a cubby in the wall to the right of it. To preserve lamp life my 5 year old mostly plays games and watches TV on the small one. I have a matrix switcher so I can send any source to either display. With the Wii, this is troublesome as to where to put the sensor bar. Also, with the 3rd output on my switcher and my XBox 360, I can also send the signal upstairs to my bedroom. Great on the 360 since the bluetooth controller allows me to keep the console down in the main room and still works upstairs. For now, the Wii is going to both displays downstairs, with the sensor bar mounted under the 29" since it's the main use one for my son. It will work there for the projector too, but you are aiming the remote off to the side slighly for the menus, etc..

My idea is to get one extra senor bar (or two, if the Wii remote has stong enough wireless range for upstairs like the 360.) Mount one under each display. Power all from wall-wart (or multiple) outputting the proper voltage, then somehow get an IR relay switch (like an A/B speaker switch) that can shut one on and one off via remote. Build that into the Harmony remote macro for "Wii on 29" and "Wii on PJ", so only the right one is powered at that time. Anyone have any ideas for the proper cheap IR switch to turn these on and off, let me know. also, does anyone have a link for the URL to order extra sensor bars? Finally, anyone know anyplace to score extra controllers as of now?

Thanks

Extra sensor bars can be ordered from nintendo directly. I bought my extra controller on release day, and haven't been able to find any since.

I need this thing but I see one that says it's not available till march 07. That cant be right

Mike,

I hopefully will have a similar situation soon (don't currently have Wii, but planning on getting it). My big worry though was how a duel monitor (projector and 29"tv in the same room) setup would work. I assumed that the way the Wii tracked where the wiimote was pointing was using the signal from the sensor bar as a point of reference, after calibrating for a particular screen size and location relevant to the sensor bar. I guess I assumed you had to calibrate it right after you set up, and where locked into that, so that it would get confused if you switched between the projector screen and the tv. From your note it sounds like my assumptions were wrong. If all you need is a second sensor bar and a switch, this would be much easier.

I'm interested in what you find out. Out of curiosity if you just picked up the sensor and put it in front of the projection screen instead of the TV while the Wii is running would you no longer need to point the controller off to the side? I know this would not be a permanent solution, but it would verify that just having a switched sensor would work.

Have fun!!

John

The Wii only pulses the LEDs during the sensitivity test. During normal operation, the Wii does NOT pulse the LEDs.

If you don't believe me, get a digital camera and turn on the Wii at night. Turn off all the lights in the room and hold the camera close to the sensor bar, watching the LCD display on your camera. You will see five lights on each side that do not blink.

This is why the Wii works fine if you completely remove the sensor bar and use candles instead.

This is what the LED arrangement looks like on each side of the sensor bar. (this is just one side)



One thing to realise is that the LEDs on either side of the middle three actually aren't any dimmer than the middle three. It just appears that way because I was holding the camera close to the sensor bar to take that picture, and LEDs have a tendancy to focus their light a little. So they do appear dimmer if you don't look straight at them.

Thanks Dan
So as long as we use the sensitivity test with the normal sensor bar, and then start hacking - we're fine?

I don't think the normal sensor bar would be required for the sensitivity test. The blinking is probably just to differentiate hilight where the sensor bar is. It seems that all the sensitivity adjusts is the sensitivity of the Wiimote's camera, so it should work fine with a sensor bar hack.

I'll have to buy some candles tonight and do some preliminary tests.

My parts list, all from Radio Shack:
2 project boxes
2 small bread boards
2 10k Ohm potentiometers (Waaay overkill. Do your math first)
4 IR LED's (#276-079)
Dual strand wire.
1 Power Adapter, 6V, 300mA (#273-1758)
1 Power lead

I put two LEDs and a pot in series in each project box and connected the project boxes to the power supply via the wire. The circuit simply looks like this:

6V
| 60 Ohm
+---/\\/\\/\\----|>|----|>|---+
+---/\\/\\/\\----|>|----|>|---+-GND

Now I can plug my home made sensor bar into the wall that I'm projecting on, but keep my Wii at the back of the room. There's nothing very special about the spacing between the LEDs, so one can vary the distance between the left and right IR clusters (one cluster in each project box) in order to more accurately map what I'm pointing at to the actual screen. Seperating the boxes until they are almost at the edge of screen seems to work fairly well.

I have pictures on flickr of the final product if anyone cares to see them.

And the link to your pictures in flickr would be... ?

Replace the with an 'o' in the following URL:
flickr.cm/photos/94996066@N00/

I apologize for the obfuscation (and the shoddy camera work). The forum rules here prevent someone from using a link until they've made 5 posts.

Since the sensor bars are only $10 on nintendo's store (store.nintendo.c m/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&langId=-1&currency=USD&ignoreCrumbs=N&crumb1=&crumb1Ignore=&crumb2=%253CA%2BHREF%253D%2522javascript%253APassOn%2528%252 7X%2527%252C%2B%2527ChooseView%2527%252C%2527%2527%252C%2B%2 527%2527%2529%253B%2522%253EWii%253C%252FA%253E&crumb2Ignore=&crumb3=%253CA%2BHREF%253D%2522javascript%253APassOn%2528%252 7C%2527%252C%2B%2527CategoryDisplay%2527%252C%252762707%2527 %252C%2B%2527N%2527%2529%253B%2522%253EParts%2B%2526%2BAcces sories%253C%252FA%253E&crumb3Ignore=&translateFrom=%C8%C9%C7&translateTo=EEC&usrSearchText=&searchText=&selSrchType=&page=&view=&productId=117713&categoryId=62707&lastAction=ProductDisplay&orderTotal=null), would it be possible to just buy 2 of those, then cut the cable and power them via AC adapter?