Any experience using Wii as media player?

[GLE3]

Got a wii that is just collecting dust. I hear of software that will turn Wii into media player. Different products that I don't know much about that will help me: X-OOM, Homebrew, GeexBox... Anyone use these products?

Do all these products just convert different formats to AVI or FLV(using MJpeg codec) so the Wii can recognize them?

Is streaming playback laggy? Is using a SD card considerably better? Can you playback 480p, 720p, 1080p?

[Ai Haibara]

I've no experience with any of those packages (heck, I haven't even heard of them until now... ), but...

Playing from an SD card might be better than streaming, depending on certain factors. Think of the SD card like a small hard drive (speed/etc. would be somewhat dependent on the card, though). Sometimes, playing media by streaming just can't beat playing from a local hard drive. On the other hand, with streaming, you don't have to worry about the media being stored locally, or whether or not it fits the storage media... or even whether or not it's in a container the system recognizes/supports.

As for HD playback... that the Wii itself doesn't support higher than component connections (480p), is most likely going to limit what you can play.

[GLE3]

Thanks for the reply!

So has anyone tried streaming media from PC to Wii?

I also heard that the Wii may not be able to play files larger than the 512MB of flash memory it has. I guess it has to load the file from SD to it's internal memory before it can playback?

[stiltman]

I checked out Homebrew. Soon as the warranty for our Wii runs out, and nothing better has come along, I'll install it

[Bronx]

I softmodded my Wii and installed geexbox. I was able to play a divx/xvid video but I was not crazy about it.

[GLE3]

I softmodded my Wii and installed geexbox. I was able to play a divx/xvid video but I was not crazy about it.

You didn't like the quality of video? Using the application software was clunky?

[Bronx]

The application was definitely clunky, and it froze, couldn't ever reset it. Had to unplug the Wii and reboot it. I don't know if others had better luck than me. You may want to do a search on other forums.

Good luck and post your own experience.

[nidape]

I have used a classic Xbox this way for a few years and it worked really well. They can be found pretty cheap nowadays,

[Cornucopia]

AFA MediaPlayers go, I tried GeexBox for a short while and was only marginally interested, then got into XBMC, and that community it doing great things with development. They recently got started porting to PPC platforms, so I look forward to there being a PS3 version soon, and I wouldn't be surprised if a Wii version wasn't already in the works...

Scott