Hacking Loading Movies from a Ustealth USB drive using Wiiflow

[ChrisEvans1212]

Hi All,

I look after a gentleman with learning difficulties, he loves his WiiU and especially loves the WiiFlow I've setup for him. He wants to be able to play anything and everything from wiiflow including movies.

However, we've encountered a major problem! We ran out of space on our 32GB SD card, the wiiU appreatly wont support a larger SD card so we've been trying to load movies from a USB drive.

I can load movies easily enough using MPlayerCE, however, we need to use Ustealth which hides the drive so we don't get the prompt to format the drive on startup (this is essential because we can assume that he'll format the drive by accident 5 minutes after leaving him alone with it). However, the MPlayerCE isn't compatible with Ustealth.

WiiMC is compatible with UStealth. However, I can't get wiiflow to load a movie in WiiMC, I can only get WiiMC to start on the menu (not playing the movie selected in WiiFlow).

So I'm wondering if anyone knows a solution to any of the following problems:

1) Can anyone get MPlayerCE to read from a USB drive that had Ustealth used on it?

2) Can anyone get WiiMC to load movie automaticaly from wiiflow?

3) Does anyone know another media player that works with wiiflow and Ustealth?

4) Does anyone know another way disabling the format USB prompt on startup?

 

[SCOTT0852]

I don't know much about ustealth, wiiflow, or mplayerce, but there is one thing I do know:

the wiiU appreatly wont support a larger SD card

It does, but you need to manually format them to FAT32 first as SDXC cards come with exFAT by default (which the Wii U doesn't support).

 

[fledge68]

Hi All,

I look after a gentleman with learning difficulties, he loves his WiiU and especially loves the WiiFlow I've setup for him. He wants to be able to play anything and everything from wiiflow including movies.

However, we've encountered a major problem! We ran out of space on our 32GB SD card, the wiiU appreatly wont support a larger SD card so we've been trying to load movies from a USB drive.

I can load movies easily enough using MPlayerCE, however, we need to use Ustealth which hides the drive so we don't get the prompt to format the drive on startup (this is essential because we can assume that he'll format the drive by accident 5 minutes after leaving him alone with it). However, the MPlayerCE isn't compatible with Ustealth.

WiiMC is compatible with UStealth. However, I can't get wiiflow to load a movie in WiiMC, I can only get WiiMC to start on the menu (not playing the movie selected in WiiFlow).

So I'm wondering if anyone knows a solution to any of the following problems:

1) Can anyone get MPlayerCE to read from a USB drive that had Ustealth used on it?

2) Can anyone get WiiMC to load movie automaticaly from wiiflow?

3) Does anyone know another media player that works with wiiflow and Ustealth?

4) Does anyone know another way disabling the format USB prompt on startup?

use wiimc-ss as the plugin dol.
find it here - https://gbatemp.net/threads/wiimc-ss-gamecube-controller-support-and-more.469452/

 

[ChrisEvans1212]

I don't know much about ustealth, wiiflow, or mplayerce, but there is one thing I do know:

It does, but you need to manually format them to FAT32 first as SDXC cards come with exFAT by default (which the Wii U doesn't support).

Not a bad idea, i don't think an extra 32gb will last forever, but it might be a good temporary fix.

use wiimc-ss as the plugin dol.
find it here - https://gbatemp.net/threads/wiimc-ss-gamecube-controller-support-and-more.469452/

I tried this dol file, it doesn't appear to be any better than the standard WiiMC for our purposes. Sure I can load WiiMC from wiiflow (I could anyway), but it puts us in menu, it doesn't autoload the video. I don't see the point in loading WiiMC to the menu since we can just do that from the homebrew channel anyway. The reason the wiiflow is so good for us is that the gentleman I care for can't read, so being able to flick through boxarts to select the video he wants is golden.

I'm wondering if WiiMC can be made to work by setting up the arguments correctly. Currently we use

arguments={device}:/{path}/{name}

specified in the .ini file. Prehaps WiiMC or WiiMC-SS wants a diffrent argument structure?

 

[fledge68]

Not a bad idea, i don't think an extra 32gb will last forever, but it might be a good temporary fix.



I tried this dol file, it doesn't appear to be any better than the standard WiiMC for our purposes. Sure I can load WiiMC from wiiflow (I could anyway), but it puts us in menu, it doesn't autoload the video. I don't see the point in loading WiiMC to the menu since we can just do that from the homebrew channel anyway. The reason the wiiflow is so good for us is that the gentleman I care for can't read, so being able to flick through boxarts to select the video he wants is golden.

I'm wondering if WiiMC can be made to work by setting up the arguments correctly. Currently we use

arguments={device}:/{path}/{name}

specified in the .ini file. Prehaps WiiMC or WiiMC-SS wants a diffrent argument structure?

just checked its supposed to be based on wiimpathy's patch he made and if you download wiimpathy's patch on pg 3 i believe. in the zip file is a readme and the new plugin ini to use.
here's the plugin ini -
[PLUGIN]
displayname=Wiimc
magic=57494d43
coverfolder=wiimc
dolfile=wiimc.dol
romdir=movies
filetypes=.mp4|.avi|.mkv
consolecoverid=
covercolor=ffffff
bannersound=THX.ogg
arguments={device}1:/{path}/{name}

as you can see the arguments line is changed. for SD you will need to remove the '1'.
romdir = movies which means the your movies go in usb:/movies or sd:/movies

 

[ChrisEvans1212]

just checked its supposed to be based on wiimpathy's patch he made and if you download wiimpathy's patch on pg 3 i believe. in the zip file is a readme and the new plugin ini to use.
here's the plugin ini -
[PLUGIN]
displayname=Wiimc
magic=57494d43
coverfolder=wiimc
dolfile=wiimc.dol
romdir=movies
filetypes=.mp4|.avi|.mkv
consolecoverid=
covercolor=ffffff
bannersound=THX.ogg
arguments={device}1:/{path}/{name}

as you can see the arguments line is changed. for SD you will need to remove the '1'.
romdir = movies which means the your movies go in usb:/movies or sd:/movies

Ok, so I tried this plugin & dol to load movies from SD (removing the '1' from the arguments line) and it didn't work. However, when I put the 1 back in it did! So make sure you leave the '1' in place when loading from SD.

Sadly, I couldn't get this to work when loading movies from USB. It works great without Ustealth applied (which hides the drive from WiiU), however, when Ustealth is applied the plugin stops working. I'm sure most people would abadon Ustealth at this point because its only a minor issue to click off the format prompt on startup. However, this is unacceptable for our purposes since the person I care for is always clicking on everything and he will format the drive if prompted.

I'm wondering if there is a way to force the device selection by replacing '{device}1:/' with a hard coded refrence to the hidden drive.

WiiMC has no problem playing videos from a Ustealthed USB drive when selecting videos from the WiiMC menu.

 

[fledge68]

Ok, so I tried this plugin & dol to load movies from SD (removing the '1' from the arguments line) and it didn't work. However, when I put the 1 back in it did! So make sure you leave the '1' in place when loading from SD.

Sadly, I couldn't get this to work when loading movies from USB. It works great without Ustealth applied (which hides the drive from WiiU), however, when Ustealth is applied the plugin stops working. I'm sure most people would abadon Ustealth at this point because its only a minor issue to click off the format prompt on startup. However, this is unacceptable for our purposes since the person I care for is always clicking on everything and he will format the drive if prompted.

I'm wondering if there is a way to force the device selection by replacing '{device}1:/' with a hard coded refrence to the hidden drive.

WiiMC has no problem playing videos from a Ustealthed USB drive when selecting videos from the WiiMC menu.

Edit: i found the source code and examined it. i see that ustealth detection was never added to wiimc and wiimc-ss. it shouldn't be hard to add it. not sure why when you run wiimc normal it can load the movies.
@Wiimpathy any idea why ustealth works when you run wiimc normal but as a plugin it doesn't?