In case you’re still using VHS, the Wii now plays DVDs
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 2:12pm by Blake
Engadget reports:
A team of Wii coders have given the console what Nintendo could not: DVD playback. By installing a small, hidden channel on a system, this package blesses the console with a libdi file (DVD access library), and allows you to watch your favorite videos with the MPlayer application, an open source media player. The install file will run on modded and unmodded systems, and the software is also capable of playing media from SD cards.
Are ye not entertained!!??
August 13th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
how the hellboy can i get this on my wii??????
August 13th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
where is the link??
August 13th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
So hows a noob like me gonna managa this?
Anyone whos talented enough to explain this the easy way?
August 13th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Could someone tell me how to do this?
August 13th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
lol, so that’s all the Wii needed to play DVDs?
WOW Nintendo, wow. Despite your amazing success, you’re still too stingy to code up a simple application.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
So now we just need a hack to play VC games off of SD cards.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
you could just use emulators for the games you bought.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Why stress you Wii drive with the playing of DVDs? It will last longer without. I’d rather just play some media from SD card or something.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
@Brian.. bs … the myth of “playing DVD’s will wear out your drive” comes from the old days of tweaking the pots on ps2 drives, but the wii drive was made to read dvd’s it will be fine.
@infendo… kinda irresponsible posting a homebrew hack like this on here without the proper warnings. The homebrew crowd knows how to do it and where to find the right info. The newbies are gonna brick their Wii if they don’t research it first. This comment log is no place to be asking how to do this.
@everyone … Homebrew rocks… I love the wii homebrew scene and there are a ton of apps for modded and unmodded (but twilight hacked) systems. I encourage anyone with the desire to get into how things work to do their homework and start by learning how to run the twightlight hack and then get the “Homebrew Channel” installed. (google is your friend). Once you’ve been to the good homebrew sites, then you’re on your way. Do your research and make sure your installs are safe.
August 13th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
LOL this is very very very slow to load LOL. It’s not optimized at all. It good to see it’s possible though. The SD game reading off the card has the same loading problem. SLOWWWWWWWWWWWW….
August 13th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
I tried posting a full explanation but it wouldn’t display
August 13th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
OK, ready?
For the mod-chip-less here’s what you do.
Get a copy of Twilight Princess if you don’t have it already. Download the Twilight Hack (it’s a specially constructed save file).
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Twilight_Hack
Put it on an SD card and replace the real save file on your Wii with the hacked one. Now load up twilight princess, load the first save and either talk to the first person you see or walk backwards. Either one activates a hack in the way the game handles character names. This will now load appropriately named homebrew software from the SD card. Homebrew applications generally take the file extension .dol. Twilight Princess will load up anything on the root directory of the SD card called “boot.dol”
You may now use this to load the DVD lib channel that these coders have created:
http://hackmii.com/2008/08/libdi-and-the-dvdx-installer/#more-113
This will install a small hidden channel on your system that allows homebrew apps using the library to access the DVD drive in a way that doesn’t break any laws. Running it presents a small menu that lets you install, and, uninstall the channel.
Now you may load the Mplayer port in the same way to play DVDs (it’s on the same webpage). However, you would have to do the whole twilight hack every time you want to run it and watch a DVD (or everytime you run any homebrew). What you need is a proper Homebrew Channel that loads straight off your Wii.
August 13th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Homebrew_Channel
Use the twilight hack to install the homebrew channel and you get a beautiful functional channel on the Wii that you can use at any time to run any homebrew apps from the SD card without going through the whole twilight hack. It has other capabilities too, but you can read that up yourself. To get rid of the channel all you do is delete it like any other channel.
For the extra details read those pages.
Be warned. While that software has been tested as safe under most circumstances, a future Wii update from Nintendo could potentially cause issues (or even brickings). Just make sure to check on the internetz that they’re safe with installed homebrew before accepting an update. Typically the homebrew coders have a fix up within a few days that can tolerate each new Nintendo update. Also don’t forget THIS PROBABLY VOIDS THE WARRANTY. Also, when removing installed apps like the homebrew channel, atm some records of its existance are left behind, and if you get your Wii serviced for whatever reason, Nintendo might see it. Of course, what they’d do about it is anyone’s guess. Almost none of the homebrew apps are illegal in any manor so they’d probably have to leave it alone.
Have fun. I tried it and “Return to OZ” works already. Bear in mind also that while relatively safe, it’s still a work in progress so the performance isn’t perfect yet, though the homebrew channel is pretty mature.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Considering how cheap DVD players are these days, this has always been a non issue for me. Now if it played blue-ray (or had hd ouput,) then you’d have something.
The homebrew scene needs to find twilight-hack like glitches for other games. I no longer have twilight princess, and I never intend to buy it again. It’s just a good enough Zelda game for me to play through it again. (I’m pretty sure I hold the minority opinion on this.) I am interested in the homebrew scene, but it’s non accessible to me now. I guess I could rent the game, but i’d rather not.
August 14th, 2008 at 2:22 am
Jess S and elmer
Thanks alot for clearing things up
August 14th, 2008 at 7:41 am
Woo.
I suppose this is great news if you’re one of the 3 people who doesn’t already own a DVD player.
August 14th, 2008 at 11:20 am
@Jeff
I bow to your powers of correction. I still will never watch movies on my Wii.
August 18th, 2008 at 6:09 am
In case anybody’s still reading this, my DVD player takes up a large ugly space under my satellite box. I currently have to swap out devices to watch a DVD because I don’t watch them very often anymore and I don’t have enough plug sockets, even with two multigang adapters. My DVD player can play various Divx/Xvid files in Avi containers, but mosst of my files are encoded in MKV containers. My coputer is too loud and too far away to attatch to my TV. Oh, and I can’t afford a PS3, nor wish to use a six axis as my choice of interface (and would never ever buy their bluetooth remote).
For these quite reasonable reasons, if they can get various file types running on the DVDs on the Wii, then it will most definitely become my player of choice.