http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/ Engadget Comments for http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 9:44AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/
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.]]>Aug 13th 2008 10:18AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:23AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:53AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 14th 2008 8:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 14th 2008 8:54AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/
In any case - tip of the hat to these amazing coders.]]>Aug 13th 2008 9:44AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 11:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 9:55AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:28AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/
WTF? You had a DVD player in your entertainment center?]]>Aug 13th 2008 11:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 9:49AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:26AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 12:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 14th 2008 5:19AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/notag/unofficial-wii-dvd-playback-now-available-requires-modded-wii-291060.php


Title is incorrect Engadget.
]]>Aug 14th 2008 12:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/hats off to homebrew wii]]>Aug 13th 2008 9:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/
I just bought a Wii , where can I find all this "home brew" stuff you're talking about. I know nothing of it.....]]>Aug 13th 2008 12:44PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 9:56AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:22AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/
"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.]]>Aug 13th 2008 10:41AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/
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.]]>Aug 13th 2008 11:24AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 11:56AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/
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.]]>Aug 15th 2008 3:40AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:00AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 15th 2008 9:08AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/
Excellent job, coders, well done.]]>Aug 13th 2008 10:01AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:01AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:06AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:20AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:49AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:53AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 11:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/
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)]]>Aug 13th 2008 11:34AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 11:24AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/
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).]]>Aug 13th 2008 12:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/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..]]>Aug 13th 2008 2:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:06AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:15AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 11:17AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 7:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 1:36PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/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]]>Aug 13th 2008 6:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/
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. ]]>Aug 14th 2008 11:41PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 14th 2008 11:44PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:22AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:22AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/Aug 13th 2008 10:33AM