Homebrew Wii DVD Support - from Disc Channel

[NewGBAXL]

Maybe a ‘hidden channel’ similar to DVDX? Just have the disc channel chain load the necessary software.

Also, is this a new Gigaleak? Surprised that isn’t a headline.

July 20 leak i think 12 or 14 different files
thats what might have happened!
One problem is I only have the 3rd revision of System Menu Development.doc, which leaves out the DVD API entirely.

Here are a few highlights:
"Please note that the system menu cannot access the banner file in the GC disc. This is because currently “raw” access is only allowed to a limited area of the disc."

"DMDiscType GetDiscType(void);
DMDISCTYPE_RVL
DMDISCTYPE_GC
DMDISCTYPE_DVD
DMDISCTYPE_UNKNOWN"

"On the other hand, the following use different titleIDs.
- DVD movie player"

"Update files
- Boot2/IOS
· System menu
· Other system app (dvdplayer, browser, etc)"

 

[_47iscool]

Interesting to know. Too bad for me though as I have one that cannot even read backups. It is the red 25th Anniversary edition.

 

[Dragon91Nippon]

Where do we go from here?
We take the WiiMC forwarder, change it to hidden, and rename it to an unknown Title ID.

Why not Compile a version of WiiMC as a Channel, that way you won't need to keep your SD card inserted to Play DVDs.

 

[NewGBAXL]

Why not Compile a version of WiiMC as a Channel, that way you won't need to keep your SD card inserted to Play DVDs.

that would be nice. What would be really nice is compile WiiMC as a hidden channel that only plays DVDs, that is launched from disc channel when dvd is inserted

 

[jeffyTheHomebrewer]

Here's the WiiMC source code.
https://github.com/dborth/wiimc
If I knew how to change it to only play DVDs, I'd do it, then somehow compile it into a channel wad.

 

[Dragon91Nippon]

that would be nice. What would be really nice is compile WiiMC as a hidden channel that only plays DVDs, that is launched from disc channel when dvd is inserted

Well Like the person above me Just said, Source code for WiiMC is available so All we'd need to do is edit and recompile it.

 

[jeffyTheHomebrewer]

Now, IDK how to compile something into awad instead of a .dol but we could just use customizemii or whatever it's called to just get a basic sample forwarder wad, change the title id, etc,. and inject our custom wiimc dol i guess

 

[Dragon91Nippon]

Now, IDK how to compile something into awad instead of a .dol but we could just use customizemii or whatever it's called to just get a basic sample forwarder wad, change the title id, etc,. and inject our custom wiimc dol i guess

Have to use Sharpii to change the Channel group (Needs to be in "Hidden Channels" most forwarders are "Channel Titles").

 

[NewGBAXL]

The big issue is a priiloader mod that boots this hidden channel when a dvd is inserted

 

[NewGBAXL]

I just learned that the position string "Watch DVD" from Sys Menu 1.0 is not removed, only the string is gone.

Theoretically, after enabling DVD support again (still working on this ) and inserting the DVD, the "Start" text on the Disc Channel will fade out, revealing an empty button. Strange.

Soon I will release a second iteration of the Wii + DVD theme, patching this string, so that this oddity doesn't occur in the future.

 

[W00fer]

It's so strange that the WiiU was never fitted with an option to play either DVD or Blu-Ray, or even through homebrew.
I really hope you will be able to achieve this!

 

[jeffyTheHomebrewer]

It's so strange that the WiiU was never fitted with an option to play either DVD or Blu-Ray, or even through homebrew.
I really hope you will be able to achieve this!

They didn't put that in because the drive was mostly just made to read things in every now and then for games, not constantly read and stream like what a DVD has to do. Plus they'd need to pay loyalties to Sony (for Blu-Ray) and Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba and Philips for DVD. And Sony is a Nintendo competitor.

 

[gamer1997]

great work on the theme NewGBAXL I really appreciate it how's it going with finding CinePlayer CE

 

[KleinesSinchen]

They didn't put that in because the drive was mostly just made to read things in every now and then for games, not constantly read and stream like what a DVD has to do. Plus they'd need to pay loyalties to Sony (for Blu-Ray) and Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba and Philips for DVD. And Sony is a Nintendo competitor.

Not really sure if sequentially reading movies would be more stress than loading the games, but it would be more stress to have people use their console as console and as movie player. Fully agree with the payment to DVD/BD associations. Understandable Nintendo didn't want to do this when virtually everybody already has a DVD player.

As for this:

It's so strange that the WiiU was never fitted with an option to play either DVD or Blu-Ray, or even through homebrew.

From the perspective of the homebrew developers, even with highest privileges in the operating system:
As far as I know, the optical drive in the Wii U will simply not read standard DVDs or BDs. The drive itself rejects anything but Wii and Wii U games which are a little different from standard discs.

 

[jeffyTheHomebrewer]

Not really sure if sequentially reading movies would be more stress than loading the games, but it would be more stress to have people use their console as console and as movie player. Fully agree with the payment to DVD/BD associations. Understandable Nintendo didn't want to do this when virtually everybody already has a DVD player.

As for this:

From the perspective of the homebrew developers, even with highest privileges in the operating system:
As far as I know, the optical drive in the Wii U will simply not read standard DVDs or BDs. The drive itself rejects anything but Wii and Wii U games which are a little different from standard discs.

Well.. Would it even be possible to burn a DVD in a way that the drive will think it's a wii disc so that homebrew could use it to play a movie from it or something?

 

[Jayro]

I'd just be happy to launch burned disc games from the Disc channel without a modchip.

 

[ChibiMofo]

I'd just be happy to launch burned disc games from the Disc channel without a modchip.

I sat out the mod-chip era and was very happy when I was able to softmod and use USB flash drives (yes, USB flash drives: I used three successfully since 2012 and all three work flawlessly in spite of the misinformation here about them) to load up all my games. Just curious: Why in 2021 would anyone want to load burned discs instead of using ISOs/WBFS files on USB media? Then again, as someone who moved from DVD to AVI/MP4/MKV 15 years ago, I don't understand the desire to play DVDs on a Wii either.

 

[Jayro]

I sat out the mod-chip era and was very happy when I was able to softmod and use USB flash drives (yes, USB flash drives: I used three successfully since 2012 and all three work flawlessly in spite of the misinformation here about them) to load up all my games. Just curious: Why in 2021 would anyone want to load burned discs instead of using ISOs/WBFS files on USB media? Then again, as someone who moved from DVD to AVI/MP4/MKV 15 years ago, I don't understand the desire to play DVDs on a Wii either.

I dunno, it's just cool to have the option. I too use USB sticks on my Wii and Wii U for game storage. It blows my mind how much misinformation there is out there. USB sticks don't suffer from the sleep problems that SATA to USB drives do, nor the power draw issues of HDD caddies and mechanical drives. Hell, I'm tempted to gut the laser assembly out of one of my Wii systems, and put a SATA SSD (Via USB) inside, stealthed by soldering directly to the internal usb headers. It'd be a complete sleeper system filled with only the best Wii games, and none of that NKIT bullshit that's circulating out there. (WBFS files on NTFS FTW!)

 

[Aheago]

Wasn't this a thing on the wii already? I remember modding my wii back in the day to play DVDs somehow via the homebrew channel.

 

[Jayro]

Wasn't this a thing on the wii already? I remember modding my wii back in the day to play DVDs somehow via the homebrew channel.

Movie player homebrew could read DVD discs from the drive, but the Wii Disc channel hasn't been modified as of yet... And I'm not entirely sure why not. Seems like it would be the easiest way to enable DVD movie playback and disable disc checks.