For Wii owners
not located in Japan, get ready to weep. Why? Because users in the aforementioned nation now have access to an incredibly fascinating new channel and you, well, don't. Details on the TV Guide Channel are still a bit fuzzy (read: lost in machine translation), but based on what we've pieced together, users can surf through shows on the EPG, share their favorites with friends, see how popular a program is (using demographic data, too) and even receive an e-mail / SMS alert 30 minutes prior to a flagged show's start time. Best of all, however, is the ability to use your Wiimote as a television remote. You heard right -- owners can use their Wii controller (via the sensor bar) to dictate volume, switch channels and flip back and forth between their shows and the TV Guide Channel. Now, how long must the rest of the free world wait? Check out the gallery for a few more looks at what you're (probably) missing out on.
[Via
NintendoWiiFanboy]
posted Mar 4th 2008 11:05AM
I'm not sure how much I'd use it but that doesn't mean I don't want it.
Any details on how this works? Does the wii contain the necessary hardware to display TV? I thought the sensor bar was also only a set of infrared lamps, not an input device.
Will there need to be a usb tuner purchased? If so, will you be able to record tv shows to a storage card or to a usb hard disk, if one is supported in the future?
Sensor bar is output only. Interface to the wii is bluetooth
The Sensor Bar is not even output! The cable going to the sensor bar is just power. The bar itself has 2 IR LED's.
The WiiMote has an IR reciever, but no IR transmitter that I am aware of.. And the WiiMote communicates with the Wii via BlueTooth.... So unless some new USB adapter is available to send IR impulses to your TV from the Wii, I do not see the TV controll being a real opion...
However Nintendo could always make it available over here so we can see how it really works. :)
@tavis
alright, the sensor bar is just infrared led's
wtf do you think a remote is, all they have to do is pulse the power to the sensor bar to mimic the remotes pulsing infrared light.
dont put it down if you dont understand what you are putting down
I'm pretty sure the Wiimote is still controling the Wii, and I would guess the video you get is through the wireless connection to a Nintendo server. But what sort of programming (and video quality) are we getting here?
Whatever you have hooked to your TV, dummy. Think of the Wii and the Sensor Bar as a Universal Remote. You hit + on Wiimote, it sends signal to Wii over BT, Wii modulates the Sensor Bar output to work as an IR remote. I'd think you'd need to move your Sensor Bar to where the TV can see it, though.
That's bloody genius.
If that's actually what they do.
The way it was explained over at Joystiq is that the sensor bar sends out an IR signal strong enough that it bounces off the wall behind you (or even you yourself) and can be read by your TV's IR receiver.
This would just get in the way in most cases. Rather use something PlayTV.
My tivo wouldn't play nice with this from what I can tell.
That's pretty cool... but I don't suppose it can pump out my TV shows in HD. Its seems more like a novelty than something of significant value.
Come on Nintendo. Roll this out to work with Freeview. That would be awesome
Seems like a pretty worthless application. I'll stick with my DVR EPG and my harmony remote for controlling everything. Even if I didn't have a harmony remote, I would just use my DVR remote... why have anohter device turned on to just use power and introduce IR delay?
This is pretty cool, but I have seen what is regularly on Japanese television. It both fascinates and terrifies me.
Also, I would totally sign up for this if they would incorporate Mr. Sparkle into the TV Guide.
No HD output. Why would I want this? The Wii looks bad enough through Component on my TV.
So wait... There is no IR transmitter to my knowledge in the wiimote, which means that the wii must have the ability to control the power running to the sensor bar? and do so at a high enough pulse rate to control most tvs... that's pretty slick... It makes me wonder how long it will be until the wii developers beat Nintendo to this one for Americans.
The Wiimote IS an IR Transmitter.
The Wiimote IS an IR Transmitter.
um... no it's not. the sensor bar is an IR transmitter. the wiimote is an IR receiver.
Correct, the wiimote is an receiver for IR. It talks to the wii via bluetooth
Sounds like broadcast/internet tv to me. The Wiimote would be switching back and forth between "Cable" and "Component 1" on my tv basically. OOOOH WOW. TOTALLY makes my digital cable box obsolete...
TV SUCKS so much nowadays that sometimes I wanna throw my remote at my TV.
With the Wiimote - I CAN ...and it will look like an accident.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJpOF-2--I8
When you have TV this awesome, why wouldn't you want to share it with your friends over the Wii?
I already use a wiimote to control my mythtv frontend box. Works quite nice not having to point directly at the tv to get things done.
Unfortunately the rest of the world won't be getting this.
This would be cool if you could get a cable card or box and connect it to the wii, but at that point (with the cost and all) you're better off with a TIVO, or some media streamer box. Too bad TIVO doesn't have the remote interactivity that the Wii does.
Humm, how a'bout XBMC(XBox Media Center)? Not really a TV guide deal, but the XBMC sounds much better.
remember that the 480i limitation of the Wii is software based. Provided the proper firmware update, the Wii could probably handle 720p signals with minor difficulties if any...
As Justin Gehring says (and from what i can read of the translation) it uses the wii sensor bar as the IR output (on the site at the bottom it mentions the sensor bar and reflecting off a wall) the fact they can control and pulse the power to the sensor bar is a nice surprise i can see a few neat apps that could be made when homebrew takes off a little more.
nintendo better release it worldwide :-)
I guess this could be useful if your TV has PIP or something similar.
You'd have the Wii up on one display to show the channels, and regular TV up on the main display.
But without that, you'd have to be flipping inputs all the time to see the guide.
For people who already have an EPG (electronic program guide), I don't see how useful this would be.
I think I just read it is defiantly not coming to the US or Europe... which isn't THAT bad, doesn't look very practical.
I'm not interested so much in the tech behind how this works so much as to comment on if/how it works in Japan and this Wii channel being made available overseas. I left Japan before cable television was available so I'm not sure how their tv guide system works but it probably looks already like what Wii will provide and Wii's just spitting that out on the Wii interface. There's not that many cable channels anyway, not like USA, so it's probably easier to manage. This guide requires internet access and many still have it on their mobile not in the house or just dial up but if they have cable and use a guide currently, they're probably already good to go. Somehow this Wii channel seems too Japanese culture specific (very big on mobile use, etc) that I don't see it working overseas or not in USA. If the channel made it overseas, would Nintendo not allow certain channels or program details available on the guide because they're not family friendly? Just got a Wii and surprised the news channel is blunter than the games, good call.
It sounds like a lot of people are really missing the idea here. The channel guide is on the wii, but all it does is change the actual TV channel. The actual content, the television signal if you will, doesn't have anything to do with the wii.
I'm not going to claim that I know how it works. But I doubt the Wii Sensor Bar controls the TV. Or maybe this is why it is limited to only Japan. In Europe certainly all the TV manufacturers use different IR 'codes' to communicate commands to the TV. That is why a Sony TV remote won't correctly work with a Panasonic TV. Unless Nintendo have developed some futuristic way of determining your TV brand via a video connection (just kidding) don't see this working. Unless of course you use the Wiimote to learn the IR commands . . . . Hmmm.