Homebrew WiiMC-SS - GameCube controller support and more

[Disorarara]

USB is likely to be faster, so higher bit rates are likely to work.

That's interesting about MPlayer CE. The performance problem in WiiMC is likely to I/O file handling code.

Based on tests I did there isn't a fundamental problem with the Wii CPU handling 567p video at low CRF. It can do it.

Honestly besides maybe anime which already has a low framerate to begin with and could benefit somewhere from a higher vertical resolution I didn't see much benefit to using 576p over 360p for videos, the amount of configurations and things that have to go right to get a 576p video to play smoothly and simultaneously look good on a stock Wii is a bit of a headache over a "one-size-fits-all" encoding solution.

Really, the fact that WiiMC-SS is one of the few homebrew apps that supports 576p is actually a good reason to bring back the image viewer too, as that's one of the few cases where the increased vertical resolution can actually be utilized to good effect without worrying about performance.

 

[Extrems]

That's interesting about MPlayer CE. The performance problem in WiiMC is likely to I/O file handling code.

You'd be wrong. The problem is MEM2's latency. You want to dedicate all of MEM1 to decoding for best performance.

 

[Disorarara]

MPlayer CE wins on video playback! Although I still contend the Wii is just barely capable of playing DVD quality video, the lack of dedicated video decoding hardware and being stuck at 480p (or 576p) really limits the potential of the Wii as a multimedia device except for maybe CRTs and custom built handhelds. At least there's still a wealth of xvid encoded content out there that works flawlessly.

 

[Extrems]

MPlayer CE got about 10-20% faster in the following years since the last public release, and I think 720p is just barely achievable.

 

[Disorarara]

MPlayer CE got about 10-20% faster in the following years since the last public release, and I think 720p is just barely achievable.

In theory though only the Gamecube would be able to actually display a 720p image right? Also is there a github for the updated mplayer-ce? The only thing I can find is the archived google code repo, I'd love to try out a slightly faster Mplayer CE since it's already doing pretty decently well with the high bitrate stuff I'm throwing at it.

 

[Extrems]

I'm hoping to return to it within the next year as a ton of stuff changed on the GameCube, but right now it's not in a compilable state as it hasn't been touched since 2013.

 

[Disorarara]

I've been experimenting with 60fps video encodings, and I think I found a good encoding setting for both Mplayer CE and WiiMC-SS without disabling the deblock filter, although if anyone has any suggestions on improving it I would love to hear it.

c:\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg.exe -i input.mp4 -acodec libmp3lame -qscale:a 4 -vcodec libx264 -profile:v main -crf 20 -filter:v scale=426:240 -pix_fmt yuv420p output.mp4

While it is half resolution at 240p and fine details and small text is basically illegible, it does run smoothly with zero frame dropping, it actually looks quite nice, I tested it on some NBA recordings. I can see this being useful too if someone wanted to broadcast a 60fps stream direct to the Wii without any hiccups,

EDIT: You can increase that resolution to 480x270, and that's the absolute limit I've found that MPlayer CE and WiiMC-SS can currently handle 60fps video, although frame dropping and vsync must be enabled on MPlayer CE for the best possible image, otherwise you get either screen tearing or audio desync.

 

[TheThief]

First thanks for the continued support SuperSonic. Is there a particular folder on the SD card where the banner pictures should be saved? Not the movie artwork but the screensaver ones that are to be labeled 0001.jpg.

Also when I click "subtitles" in the settings it always notifies that no subtitle font is found and will just use internal font file. The fonts work fine I just go to to settings to change the size sometimes and the notification always pops up. Is there a font file I could put in this apps folder that would remedy the "no font file found" popup?

*Edit: WiiMC uses the subtitle font file from the original WiiMC and it needs to be in apps/WiiMC.

And not in the Wiimc-ss folder

I was wondering why the themeI was selecting in the meta.xml file wasn't working. It will read from the "WiiMC" folder and not from Wiimc-ss. The meta file in the OG program doesn't use the theme arguments.

Still can't figure out where to put the movie banners though. I'm trying to go for the Netflix style screensaver.

 

[TheThief]

how to set the purple background?
View attachment 427613

Looks like purple and orange were removed from this version. The Purple theme is my favorite and blue is my second favorite so I chose that. I do wish purple would get added.

 

[TheThief]

Ok so the app runs great as long as I boot it from The Homebrew Channel.

But when I use the original forwarder for WiiMC, by just moving the wiimc-ss dol file (boot.dol) to apps/wiimc, the meta.xml file is ignored no matter if I leave it in WiiMC-SS folder or move it to the wiimc folder. I notice right away because the default theme is used instead of the "blue" entry/argument entered in the meta.xml file. If I start from HBC then the theme is blue and the app works pretty flawlessly.

Starting from the original WiiMC forwarder presents a whole hosts of bugs that don't happen if the app is opened in the HBC.

Some bugs that never happen when using the original wiimc or in WiiMC-SS (as long as i opened from HBC):

Movies won't play and a "can't open file" error is displayed (I've never encountered this error before), the hard drive randomly disconnects and the USB directory isn't displayed until restarted. App crashes with no error codes.

*Edit (08.19.2025)
I deleted the wiimc-ss file I had and reinstalled from the March 2024 release. I noticed SuperSonic indicated the following:
"Renamed the 7z dir structure to apps/wiimc/ some users kept it as apps/wiimc-ss/ causing problems with hardcoded paths."

Now I just have files in apps/wiimc. This has fixed every bug and crash that was happening. It boots from the forwarder and everything seems to work fine now.

Though the app theme continues to be ignored when starting from the forwarder. Not really the biggest deal but I can't seem to figure out why that is.

I noticed in the source folder there are files to a forwarder so perhaps compiling these will remedy that. But other than the theme not working thru the forwarder, I'm happy with the performance. I'll update this comment with other details if I find them.

 

[wei134102]

hi @SuperrSonic,i need help ,i want compile wiimc-sslc but my dev files are missing,can you send me the full files to me ?the devkipro !thanks a lot!

 

[cubes]

MPlayer CE wins on video playback! Although I still contend the Wii is just barely capable of playing DVD quality video, the lack of dedicated video decoding hardware and being stuck at 480p (or 576p) really limits the potential of the Wii as a multimedia device except for maybe CRTs and custom built handhelds. At least there's still a wealth of xvid encoded content out there that works flawlessly.

This is true. But I like the UI of WiiMC more & I need a GC controller for MPlayer which is too inconvenient for me. I actually enjoy watching low res movies on my Wii, especially at this time (Christmas movies) lol

 

[Disorarara]

This is true. But I like the UI of WiiMC more & I need a GC controller for MPlayer which is too inconvenient for me. I actually enjoy watching low res movies on my Wii, especially at this time (Christmas movies) lol

Another thing I noticed that is that the Wii seemingly can't display full color depth? Particularly dark scenes will have heavy color banding when the source material doesn't have such an issue. Another reason to stick solely to low resolution, xvid encoded content. Anything higher becomes lost in playback.

 

[marchrius]

So what are the recommended ffmpeg/handbrake settings for 60 fps videos in 480p? At the moment I'm using xvid codec, 1600k maxrate, mp3 audio codec and it drops frames. 30 or 24 fps content is fine

 

[Disorarara]

So what are the recommended ffmpeg/handbrake settings for 60 fps videos in 480p? At the moment I'm using xvid codec, 1600k maxrate, mp3 audio codec and it drops frames. 30 or 24 fps content is fine

Not possible, 60fps works if you drop the resolution to 480x270

 

[Disorarara]

So what are the recommended ffmpeg/handbrake settings for 60 fps videos in 480p? At the moment I'm using xvid codec, 1600k maxrate, mp3 audio codec and it drops frames. 30 or 24 fps content is fine

Here's an example of a 60fps video I encoded that will play and run fine in both WiiMC-SS and Mplayer CE. I specifically chose this video because it's extremely colorful with a lot of motion and color contrasts. A good test for the absolute worst case scenario video, as you can see I had to drop it down to 448x252 with an average bitrate of about 1000kbps, but if your video isn't as crazy you can raise that up to about 480x270 and still have mostly fine playback.