In addition to being glossy white, the Nintendo Wii is quite Macintosh friendly from a network perspective. Wii will play nicely with your Mac even at this early juncture in the it’s lifespan, with more (wired and wireless) innovations coming shortly.
Today, there are a few notable applications to get you started playing your iTunes music , watching videos, and showing photos using your Wii and all can be ready in a matter of minutes using your home network.
Get your iTV now, by using your Wii
Here’s a nice and easy way to stream media content off your Mac and onto your Wii. Red Kawa has released the Wii Media Center X server. Red Kawa had this to say…
“Wii Media Center X is a free multimedia server developed by Red Kawa. It allows you to stream certain types of pictures, music, videos and files from your computer (where the server running) to your Nintendo Wii. It runs on most major operating systems including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
Videos – Wii Media Center X lets you stream and watch videos in the Flash video format (FLV) on your Wii.
Music – Wii Media Center X lets you playback MP3s on your Wii without the need of an SD card.
Pictures – Red Kawa Media Center lets you view pictures on your Wii without the need of an SD card.
Files – Wii Media Center X lets you browse your files located on your server.”
Red Kawa goes on to offer tutorials on how to create the various types of media that the software uses as well as setting everything up correctly. There are caveats, however, as this software is in Alpha, and there are known issues.
Now that the Wii Opera Browser has finally been released, we were finally able to test Wii Media Center X on the Wii and like a lot of you have mentioned, we’ve also noticed that there are major issues.
Since the Wii browser only supports Flash 7 and does not support LiveConnect, you will most likely encounter problems using the slideshow or my music features. Also there are reports of choppy video in the My Video’s section.
We wanted to let you know that we are aware of these issues and are working on fixing them. Our plan of attack is to first get the Video section working well and then move onto the other sections.
A WiiPort Express with DOT.TUNES
DOT.TUNES, a flash-based web application that allows you to Stream music across the internet securely with friends, family and clients, now has a web-tutorial showing how using the Wii’s custom Opera Browser can be turned into an iTunes streaming music destination, in a few clicks.
Step 1 – Visit DOT.TUNES and download the Mac or Windows application. It comes with a 15 day full featured version so you can get it up and running before the need to register.
Step 2 – Launch DOT.TUNES, open the preferences and create an admin user/pass to secure your music and access advanced features.
Step 3 – Login to your new music server with the user/pass you created.
Step 4 – Click Admin Controls to view the Advanced functions including the Flash Control Center.
Step 5 – Finally, use the Flash Controls to select which artist, album or playlist you would like to stream, how many tracks to display etc.
That’s it.
The Flash Player will then appear on your Wii Opera browser and you can play all your mp3 files through your telvision audio system.
I’m sure more innovations with media integration and personal computing will follow with the Wii, as the 2 UB 2.0 ports on the back of the player prompt possibility and potential for plugging in an external drive with media on it and using it to play movies, music, or even act as a NAS (network Attached Storage) solution.
If you’ve got yourself a Wii already, be sure to try the above apps and post a comment on the ease/quality of use. I’m still on my own personal Wii hunt, which, with any luck might end this afternoon.
I have a Wii and would love to access the media on my iMac through it. But I must confess to being a bit chicken to try these apps. If I get brave and do it, I’ll post my experiences.
Thanks for the heads up!
Excellent! I was thinking about getting a Wii and wondered how it played with Macs. I am glad to hear that it does and this definitely puts me a step closer to getting one. Thanks for the article.
-Chandler Kent
Glad to see you posting on this. One of the first things I tried setting up on my Wii is Dot.Tunes but the opera browser would never load the page where the tunes were being served too. It worked fine on my iMac and Powerbook in opera but every time I entered the URL it just sat there. Will have to give it another try soon though as the Wii has huge potential for this type of stuff, and for only $250!
is there anything they’re getting wrong with the wii??
even seemingly unrelated magazines like the economist have been giving it great write-ups. and then, plenty of people I know who are the _last_ people I’d expect to ever hear talking about video games have been talking about it and saying how much fun it was to play on one..
for me, I just wish the graphics were just that one bit better. I know that’s not entirely the point of it, but it would have been so nice to have more impressive graphics along with the whole redefined gaming experience thing they are going for.
glad to hear about the promising mac-friendliness of it. also, I’m enjoying the variety of the articles coming on on maccast.com… keep it comin..
DOT TUNES is trying to sell out with what I would like to call a half a** flash solution. I did a search on google with string “wii iTunes” and most hits led to DOT TUNES. Right now, the DOT TUNES’ flash player is hard to figure out, the interface is too tiny for use via Wii, and worst of all, my Opera is keep crashing when I try to play my iTunes content via DOT TUNES flash interface.
This is a great business opportunity for someone who can write a flash player dedicated to Wii that replicates Front Row interface or something along the line, then have the option on the server side to automatically encode iTunes/iPhoto/Moves folder contents into Wii compliant format, I’d gladly pay my $$$ instead of buying an iTV.
Please, someone says it’s callled iWii
iWii : ) LOL Ryos- It appears that Nintendo was inspired by Apple’s design ethos, whic, to be honest, many others have as well.
The Wii, from first hand experience is an awesome gaming console for the every person, and I’m sure in time there will be software that integrates the Wii with PC’s/Macs more seamlessly, but for now, it’s nice to see that there is a community of folks interested in turning the gaming box into a media centre.
I’m interested to see what the two USB 2.0 ports at the back could be turned into. It’s early, so we’ll have to wait and see. Expect further posts should there be developments in the Wii/Mac integration category.
I’ve never heard a rumor about Apple and Nintendo getting together and making some video game / Media player hybrid, but I think it would be sweet to have an Apple Wii
iWii
WiiTv
whatever
All I gotta say is that streaming anything to the wii through the media centre is rather slow.
As I am typing this, the welcome page is still loading after fifteen minutes…. although it loads rather quickly on my psp, if that means anything.
There’s my two cents, hope it helps.
I am trying to play podcasts on my Wii Via DOT Tunes. When I try just using the regular version it says .mp4 file format not supported. I was reading that the Wii plug in only supports playing mp3. Can anyone confirm there is no way to play podcast on Wii via DOT Tunes?
The wii i think has totally changed the way gamong is or can be done, makes it much more active and I think that is an awesome addition the video game line up. I think streaming meadia through the wii or adding computer compatibility would be sweet.
The wii is one of the most consoles ever :-) Great article
Awesome post but man even though no doubt that Wii is an awesome console I swear most of the games are like for little kids the selection is just not there.
I like that Wii is keeping it clean for kids. I have no trouble allowing my kids to play video games on their Wii because their constantly moving around with it…no couch potato action there. I haven’t tried Dot.Tunes but I think my kids to have it.
Redkawa (www.redkawa.com) is one of the best Free Wii Converters. Xilisoft is next to that if you don’t mind paying for it…
If you have the pro version of Quicktime, that will work too for converting video’s…
…
The files arn’t tremendously big, but you might wanna make sure your SD card is at least 1GB.
I had no idea this was out..really cool. Wii is great for the kids and keeps them busy, while i play COD4 on the Xbox :)
I find that the wii is great for group fun and for kids, but there aren’t enough good games to choose from. Hopefully Nintendo will release a great lineup and soon.
Large problem with Wii over here in my city. We basically hit a shortage so their prices are extremly high. You can buy a wii for 320$ which is really expensive! I looked through the local ad papers and they sell them for 400 at times. One crazyness wii mania here. Everyone is goig wiii over prices XD
Awesome system. Always play with it at my friends house
I simply love the Wii and I’m 31 years old. Is that bad? Well, my wife uses to Wii fitness one, and trust me… it is funny but it words! Thanks for the post
It’s not it being about apple. I mean it depends if you support buying your music or getting it for free.. Presonally Itunes is probably the best option out there that gets you your song while at the same time supporting the artist at a decent price. It’s like going to wal mart to buy this mountain rx bike or driving 10 min to sport tex to buy the same bike. WHo cares if you don’t like wal mart. YOu get the same thing.
/end rant
When I was younger I would have thought the wii was for kids. Now I’m 30 and I was right. I’d rather play wii with my kids and nephews than spend eight hours glued to an xbox.
Great post, for sure, the Wii has so much potential,I mean , it is such a wicked product, just like Itunes, it make sense both of them working together.
Let this be a lesson though. All this talk about the Wii being for little kids… guess what? Being family oriented, affordable and exercising wins out over the other overpriced consoles.
Anyone tried Wii Transfer from River Fold software? – just had a quick play with the demo and it looks promising – check it out! I originally found it on the Apple Site.
I know this is an old post, but I had no idea you could stream iTunes to a Wii! It never even crossed my mind it’d be possible to be honest.
The Wii is rapidly proving to be a hit in our house – with Wii Sports, Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Mario Kart and Super Mario Galaxy getting a lot of play time. I have a 360 too, but there is definitely room for both in a household.
Because I’m so into music I love that they now have all kinds of instruments to play on the WII.
Wii is by far the best console beside Microsoft Xbox. Its the one and only game console that is so interactive in terms of user movements instead of just using a controller to play games. It have different kind of gadgets for different kinds of games that requires different movements.
My family and I had a great time playing with it during the weekends!
Peter
i like the Wii..but i think the xbox is much better. The popularity is is a good thing as more games will be available and i also hope they improve the controllers.
What will be amazing if is Wii allowed you to use the itunes systems while playing….
Man I love the Wii console, I remember last year every store that was around had been sold out of them and I had to get one through craigs list. Wii with Itunes is great itunes is sompatible with everything these days :)
I didn’t even know what the hell wii was until my kids wanted one for christmas. Nintendo is always coming up with something to stay competitive along with microsoft. The digital world and all of the related technology just keeps improving noticeably each year. My kids love the nintendo wii!
I love my wii… its so cool… it also brings out the competitive nature in people.
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what does it mean the nintendo wii is connected to itunes? what is the benefits