Hi folks, I have a question that I'd be grateful for an answer to. Having only a 66cm SD tv and access to partner's wii means I'm pretty unfamiliar - at least in terms of recent practical experience - with modern audio visual technology, tho quite familiar with computers and the concept of resolution, etc. I'm considering getting an xbox to play Skyrim and a couple other games and Im wondering if a 360 thru rca's on a SD telly is really as bad as some would make out. So : having downloaded the 'World of Skyrim' series of shorts from Youtube in 'HD' ( Which I assume would be 720p? ) ... Is that what the game would look like on my television ? In other words : Are those clips representative of the kind of quality I could expect using a 360+SD Tv ? Or does something change when dealing with real-time signal passage via the RCA's ? I'm not overly concerned with absolutely pristine image quality ( I mean, I'm generally happy playing the wii ... ) and Skyrim looks absolutely gorgeous anyhow, but given the complexities of upscaling, downscaling, and the use of old hardware with new/vice versa ( like how some people report their ps2 looking terrible on a 40" widescreen LCD ... ) I'd just like to know this thing'll look more good than bad.


Anyway,thanks in advance !! : ) and I meant n o o b in title

It will look worse on your tv...
You can find game comparisons of SD vs HD resolutions on Youtube.
But Skyrim was never about graphics (ok for some ppl it is), so dont let that stop u from playing it or u will miss on so much.

Thanks for speedy response mate .... Yeah, I mean I'm interested in this because i devoured Morrowind - pre and post beauty mods - back in the day. I never got into D&D or anything like that bar Tolkien but I know an Ordinator when i see one. ; ) So graphics aren't of paramount importance. I mean I'm happy playing Red Steel 2 or Res Evil 4 - crisper looking wii games, relatively speaking - on this thing. I just want to know it somehow won't look worse than those.

It wont look worse
I loveeeeeed Morrowind, i remember killing Ordinator to get his cool looking armor

Fantastic. Thanks mate. 480i on an SD tv. Who needs anti-aliasing ? : D

Actually the difference is night and day.
I suggest you buy an hdtv at least 32 inches and an hdmi cable to connect your console with!

I shall indeed one of these days mate. I've been drooling over department store catalogs of late - and 32" would be ideal size for my circumstances - but right now it's impractical. ; )

Don't get it if you have an SDTV. I have a 20 inch SD tube with 480i and the game is cut off on all sides. Can't see my compass at all, among other things. Basically unplayable.

Thanks for tip mate. I have indeed seen the multitude of posts relating to this very problem. I don't own a console or a gaming pc and it's kind of a dealbreaker for me given that this game's release has been the catalyst for me to consider purchasing a 360. This is of course a problem with the aspect ratio, right ? In other words a widescreen SD tv would be fine ?

My main issue has been text size. I have a 14 year old 27"d Sony Trinitron. It has worked well for the vast majority of 360 games out there till now. Even HD TV owners are complaining about the small text size. Also the arrangement of the HUD elements don't show up well on a SDTV; this is somewhat resolved by changing settings to widescreen, but I still have a hard time reading the lower section of Data: health weight etc.

I'm using a portable SDTV, so making the image widescreen is really a no-go for me. I'm having to get up and squat in front of the TV if I want to read the menu text. Lots gets cut off around the edges of the screen too, which is especially annoying when I get an in-game notification in the top-left of the screen (gold, crafting, etc).

Unless Bethesda fixes the problem in the very near future, I see no reason why you should get Skyrim now.

I'm playing it on a 35" SDTV and it plays just fine. I was missing about 1/8th of an inch off of each side of the screen, but all that meant was that I couldn't see first half of the B in Bethesda in the bottom left corner. Game is completely playable on SD and looks just gorgeous to boot.

It's not so much the graphics you have to worry about, it's more just the fact that you can hardly ready any text, and the HUD (health/mana/stamina bars, compass, etc) gets cut off the screen to the point where you can see that it's there but you can't actually see enough of it to tell what's going on. I've found that the clairvoyance spell can help immensely in place of the compass, but it makes it more difficult to discover new locations. Also, I have no idea how much health/mana/stamina I have until I run out. The health bar is sometimes in the screen enough for you to see it, but I really can only see the outline of the the mana and stamina bars.

The game is playable once you learn to deal with some of it, but it really is a hassle. I'd say that if this sounds like too much of a nuisance for you to deal with, wait until Bethesda makes up their mind on whether or not they plan on patching this.

Please note this.

True, it's not just us SD owners.

According to one poster beth have a fix on the way for this ... But it's strictly a 4/3 issue, right? None of u SD users have a widescreen tv? I'm not sure where everyone is but in Australia we have stores run by the St.Vincent de Paul charity - kinda like a large second hand K Mart. I've checked my local out and large, widescreen SD tv's in great condition are not uncommon and under $50. Am currently considering an 'upgrade' ; p

and zeroboy, good to know it's gorgeous. I have a pc monitor but would take size over sharpness any day. Anyone feel - aside from cutoff issues - that ( bear with me ) the game actually looks comparable to hi def in sd? Ie pseudo anti aliasing due to lower resolution ?