The Wii finally gets DVD playback -- no thanks to Nintendo

Carrying on the rich hacker tradition of picking up the slack for companies that are unwilling or unable to provide the functionality users need, 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 (though it's experimental right now). Finally Wii owners can join the ranks of, well... pretty much everyone else.

[Via TehSkeen; Thanks, brakken]

[PuBeLeSs @ Aug 13th 2008 9:44AM]

sweeeettttt to bad my wii is useless..........

[High Ranks make you sterile @ Aug 13th 2008 10:18AM]

Thank god.... now I can finally play DVDs. Wait, just about everyone in the home entertainment market has probably owned a DVD player for quite some time.

It's doubtful that someone who has yet to take the plunge into the *budding* DVD player market has taken the plunge and bought a Wii.

[phoomp @ Aug 13th 2008 10:23AM]

Thank god. Now I can cut down on the number of DVD-playing devices in my entertainment cabinet.

[andyg8180 @ Aug 13th 2008 10:53AM]

hopefully they dont use Waggle for FF and Rewind, because if im watching a nice adult film i dont want the movie ... oh snap TMI... sorry about that!!

[Kurian @ Aug 14th 2008 8:12AM]

I don't have a DVD player. All I have is a PS2.

[neofolklore @ Aug 14th 2008 8:54AM]

FINALLY I can upscale my DVDs to High Def, oh wait

[Josh @ Aug 13th 2008 9:44AM]

That was such an idiotic move by nintendo - it really pissed me off when i put a DVD into my essentially DVD player sized Wii, with a dvd player.

In any case - tip of the hat to these amazing coders.

[TheSpleen @ Aug 13th 2008 11:11AM]

And a wag of the finger to Nintendo!

[Kevin @ Aug 13th 2008 9:49AM]

No Wait, I remember that you could install a modchip to add DVD playback to a Wii.

[phoomp @ Aug 13th 2008 10:26AM]

According to the article, this one doesn't require your Wii to be modded.

[Grey Acumen @ Aug 13th 2008 12:19PM]

and hence, you don't need to ruin your warranty in order to watch DVDs on the Wii now.

[Jitters333 @ Aug 14th 2008 5:19AM]

Oh How Wrong you are this is the FIRST Time ANYONE has ran a dvd on a wii ( Before i bought my modchip I did some research and there is not a cip or anything that will run dvds, With movies that is) Btw Im watching ALF Season 3 Off my wii Right NOW =D I now have a well working Dvd Player YAY!!

[Kevin @ Aug 14th 2008 12:19PM]

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/notag/unofficial-wii-dvd-playback-now-available-requires-modded-wii-291060.php


Title is incorrect Engadget.

[overthrow @ Aug 13th 2008 9:52AM]

I love the hombrew wii community. They've really turned my wii into a much more powerful machine. I can play emulated and homebrew games, mp3 and video files, and really just about anything else i want, i can do this all from my hombrew channel which downloads updates for the games and itself, automatically.
hats off to homebrew wii

[harper101 @ Aug 13th 2008 12:44PM]

Hey Overthrow-

I just bought a Wii , where can I find all this "home brew" stuff you're talking about. I know nothing of it.....

[George @ Aug 13th 2008 9:55AM]

lol - great - now I have yet ANOTHER thing that can play a DVD in my house :D

[Odo @ Aug 13th 2008 10:12AM]

This was my first thought.

[phoomp @ Aug 13th 2008 10:28AM]

Now I can eliminate ANOTHER thing from my entertainment cabinet.

[Dan Halen @ Aug 13th 2008 11:12AM]

@phoomp

WTF? You had a DVD player in your entertainment center?

[Matthew Alexander @ Aug 13th 2008 9:56AM]

DVD Playback has been possible on the Wii for a long time... This is merely the most accessible version thanks to the Homebrew Channel. A word of warning though: watching DVDs on a Wii requires constant laser usage -- the Wii is not designed to do this, thus you may cause long term damage to your drive and console.

[ArcticFox @ Aug 13th 2008 10:12AM]

Er of course it is designed for reading dvds, do you think a Wii Game dvd with up to 4.7Gb of game data spins till the game loads then stops spinning?

[blizz419 @ Aug 13th 2008 10:22AM]

yes thats actually exactly what it does it only spins and reads the disc when ever it needs to loa, like when game starts up loads from a save or when you enter a different area in a game that it needs to load it does not spin and read from disc constantly, neither do the 360 or ps3 except they are meant to be able to handle it since they were made to watch DVD's and such.

[sphrog @ Aug 13th 2008 10:41AM]

Regarding the rumors that this will damage your Wii's DVD drive, the software's designer responded in the comments section of the hackmii post...

"The myth of you being able to ‘burn out’ a DVD laser is pretty much what it says on the tin, a myth. This drive was designed specifically for two things. reading Wii games, and reading DVD-Videos. There are special commands in the drive for doing so. (We use these commands to read these discs without a modchip). So, these drives were designed with reading DVD-Videos in mind. (And even if they wern’t, you’re running the entire drive in spec. I’ve been told these myths came about when people were pot-tuning their PS2s, running them out of spec. Running any piece of hardware beyond the limits that were set for it will break it in the long run)"

So no, your Wii's drive is completely safe if you use it as a DVD player.

[mymaclife @ Aug 13th 2008 11:24AM]

They don't underspec a DVD player especially for the Wii, it makes no economic sense for manufacture. You can just imagine the R&D meeting - 'how about we create a special DVD drive that cost more for us and performs worse than one we can get off the shelf?' Yes I can just imagine that conversation.

Forget the conspiracy theories, it's a plain old drive just like the shit one in your Walmart DVD that's been happily spinning for years.

[Totalfixation @ Aug 13th 2008 11:56AM]

Some have forgotten to mention the DVD playback on these things is awfully bad. I''ve tried it before and it's not worth watching, get a Xbox or PS3 with upscaling playback.

[Guspaz @ Aug 15th 2008 3:40AM]

The Wii has what, 80MB of RAM? And the DVD holds up to 7.3GB or so? That's a lot of loading to do, and in many games (especially those involving mini games), I'd imagine you're pretty constantly streaming things.

Anyhow, I tried out the DVD playback. It's somewhat decent, except for three issues:

1) libdvdnav sucks just as much on the wii as it does on a PC. As in, it doesn't really work. I tried it out on a disk, got a big white square where the selection would be, and none of the buttons on the wiimote were bound to navigate. So it's useless. Part of this seems to just be a poor choice of key bindings, so that part at least could be resolved. But libdvdnav is pretty crap in general, so don't expect much.

2) The thing drops frames, and movement isn't smooth. It's pretty close to smooth, though, so I'd imagine that they'll eventually get it right with tweaking.

3) The player crashes if you try to change titles. For example, hitting "Play DVD" probably loads multiple titles as company logos are often in a title by themselves. And if you ever try to change titles (or restart playback), the app will time out trying to read the disk and crash. So it's horribly unstable. I'd expect this to improve over time, too.

So, in short, if they're going to rely on mplayer, we'll probably never get perfect DVD support (due to libdvdnav suckage), but we'll probably eventually get quite good DVD video playback.

[John @ Aug 13th 2008 10:00AM]

I know that no one who buys a Wii doesn't already have a DVD player, but really, why not include it. There are probably 10+ devices around my house that play back DVDs, but if my PS3 didn't have that ability I'd have been pretty pissed. Enabling a DVD drive to play back DVDs shouldn't be a decision, it should just be automatic.

[Elranzer @ Aug 15th 2008 9:08AM]

Not including the MPEG2 license shaves off about $30 per Wii. Nintendo was/is going for low price as a factor in selling the Wii.

[Mike10010100 @ Aug 13th 2008 10:01AM]

That's teriffic. So basically, the console already had a DVD reader in it, it just wasn't able to play DVD's without a little software?

Excellent job, coders, well done.

[Down @ Aug 13th 2008 10:01AM]

I think Nintendo could have very easily put in the ability to playback DVD's but didn't because it is completely unnecessary, it adds a bit of cost and everyone already has a dvd player, even poor people!

[Blayed @ Aug 13th 2008 10:06AM]

They prefer the term "Financially Challenged"

[Das Boot @ Aug 13th 2008 10:20AM]

i sold my wii for crack money. It does suck to be poh

[thatrotierkid @ Aug 13th 2008 10:49AM]

i am not a programmer but, seriously, how much more would it have cost? clearly the components are already there. its not like this is some new, breakthrough technology. most of the nintendo programmers could probably whip it up in their sleep.

[Ass @ Aug 13th 2008 10:53AM]

Im rich and I dont own any other DVD playing Device and I have a huge DVD collection. So you are actually wrong all of you, you are all so stupid!!! Some people hate stupid people, I am one of those people...

[z @ Aug 13th 2008 11:12AM]

The cost is in licensing fees, not the actual software.

[thatrotierkid @ Aug 13th 2008 11:34AM]

@z

ahh thanks for clarifying. i am surprised there are still expensive licensing fees involved with dvds, especially since you can get a cheapo for $25 at wally world. but if nintendo was trying to cut back costs, thats certainly one place to do it since its safe to say most people that own a wii own a dvd player of their own. still it would have been nice, one less player in the home theater system. maybe they could have put it as an additional feature and have a wii that costs $300. o well too late now.

@ass

(see alias)

[Jason @ Aug 13th 2008 11:24AM]

Added cost? MPlayer is free software, been around longer than the Wii, too.

[phil @ Aug 13th 2008 12:05PM]

Yes and with MPlayer you *still* have to install libdvdcss to decode commercial DVDs.

This is why the "legitimate" players in Linux usually cost around $25 for a fully licensed decoder (with MS and Apple that cost is bundled into your purchase price).

[SuperDre @ Aug 13th 2008 2:08PM]

@Down: Even though everybody has a dvdplayer already, doesn't mean they shouldn't add the function.. let's not forget, it's easier to have one device under your tv, than having a zillion which do the same..
Nintendo only didn't support dvdplayback because of the liceningfee's, even though they are only a couple of dollarcents per wii, nintendo choose to get the most profit out of the wii (hence no HD-output, or advanced hardware)..
and let's not forget, most tv's don't have that many connections, and switching connectors on your tv everytime isn't a good thing..

[wud_e @ Aug 13th 2008 10:06AM]

I challenge the Homebrew community to make it play Blu-Ray Disc. Get brewing!! :p Nah DVD Playback for the Wii could be cool for some people. I could see this coming in hand for my 10 year old sister in-law who just got a Wii and doesn't have a DVD player in her room.

[maveric101 @ Aug 13th 2008 10:15AM]

brewing a blue laser would be rather difficult...

[wud_e @ Aug 13th 2008 11:17AM]

Exactly! ;)

[Neo @ Aug 13th 2008 7:21PM]

Dumb-ass

[meinnit @ Aug 13th 2008 1:36PM]

@wud_e: Your brother's wife is 10 years old??? Crazy.

[ED @ Aug 13th 2008 6:55PM]

meinnit:
sister-in-law = the sister of one's husband or wife or the wife of one's brother or brother-in-law

funny though :D

[wud_e @ Aug 14th 2008 11:41PM]

HMMM. No one can take sarcasm around here. Thanks for the low rank and calling me DUMBASS you DUMBASS. I was being sarcastic. (Hence the Smily Face).

To the guy that said my brothers wife was 10. Just WOW!

On Topic:

Tried this hack on my Wii and my Sister-in-laws Wii. On my Wii it runs smooth but on hers it runs a little flakey. Not sure why. Might have something to do with the loud sound her used Rent-A-Center Wii makes. :D I told her that was not normal. I tried Van Helsing(FullScreen), Underworld(Widescreen) and Blade 2(WideScreen). Underworld Did not Work. Blade 2 is the Best I've ever seen the DVD played outside of my PC(The Wii is the only DVD device I have hooked to my TV with Component). It looked really good on my Toshiba 1080p/65".

I was a little dissapointed that my HD-DVD version of Harry Potter Didn't work.

[wud_e @ Aug 14th 2008 11:44PM]

LOL!

[fastharry @ Aug 13th 2008 10:22AM]

Great...so now the ratio of my 360/wii use will be 90/10 in favor of the 360.....Wait, I forgot, the 360 already does that, and it upscales also!!........Oh well, guess the Wii still sits.....

[Almadi @ Aug 13th 2008 10:22AM]

Wait for a looming firmware upgrade to disable this, then glitch and disable game dvd playback as well.

[Jamar @ Aug 13th 2008 10:33AM]

Now I will finally have a DVD player capable of 480p! (my other DVD player doesn't even do any HD)