It’s taken a while, but YouTube has finally released a Wii (and PS3, etc) optimized interface to their site, which they call “YouTube TV“.

The new YouTube TV interface plays a similar role to sites like moowee.tv, which has been providing a slick Internet Channel Wii-optimised frontend to YouTube (and other video sites) from essentially day one.

I really like this new offering from YouTube; it feels a bit simpler and more reliable than moowee.tv, and switching to fullscreen mode is seemless. It’s quite watchable for some of the higher quality videos. I can see YouTube TV becoming my preferred option for the odd occasion when I want to veg-out on the couch and watch some stupid viral videos.

If you want to check it out without firing up your Wii, you can install the Switch User Agent Add-on for Firefox, and add the User-Agent “Opera/9.00 (Nintendo Wii; U; ; 1038-58; Wii Shop Channel/1.0; en)”. Go to YouTube TV, and you will see the Wii optimized interface in all it’s glory. For the definitive experience, check it out on your Wii.

Here’s another reason to love your Wii – as far as game consoles go, it’s the most energy efficient of the current generation. As determined by the US Natural Resources Defense Council the Wii uses on average around six times less electricity than the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 when turned on. In fact, it even uses a little less power than the Gamecube !
photo credit: cursedthing

Nintendo’s engineers deserve credit for creating a more environmentally responsible console. Sure the PS3 and Xbox fanboys will never tire of highlighting that the graphics capabilities of their consoles is superior; but it all comes at a cost – a higher carbon footprint (around two refrigerators worth) and a higher electricity bill for every hour of play.

Keep in mind, however, just because the Wii is the best on energy efficiency, every console manufacturer has room to improve …Greenpeace rated the Wii least environmentally friendly compared with Sony and Microsofts offerings, due to the levels of toxic materials in the Wii and Nintendos lack of recycling policy.

Here’s my “environmentally friendly gaming tip” for the day (maybe for the year): help reduce waste and buy secondhand games. Don’t encourage production of more copies of Red Steel or Ninjabread Man “landfill”.

(see also: The power consumption breakdown at Nintendo Wii Fanboy)

The news is a couple of weeks old now, but I just got around to testing it out last night. Over at HackMii, Erant announced the release of a ‘hidden channel’ (DVDX) which allows homebrew software to access the DVD drive. It requires the famous Twilight hack or a modchip, like all Wii homebrew so far.

What this means, is that using DVDX installer with Mplayer, you can now watch regular DVDs using your Wii, in addition to regular video files (ie DivX, Xvid, AVI, MPEG-2, WMV etc) placed on the SD-card. It’s kind of dumb that Nintendo simply didn’t include this capability from the start …. anyhow, nice to see the homebrew community has come to the rescue.

Rather than re-iterate here how to set it all up, see the WiiBrew guide and Erants post for instructions.

It’s been pretty quiet here at the Frwee Wii Blog for the last few months. But I can’t resist quickly mentioning that Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People: Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner has been released on WiiWare. You can check out a demo on PC too. This is one of the strongest (pun slightly intended) additions the WiiWare offerings to date, especially for fans of the Homestar Runner and Strong Bad Flash cartoons, or those that enjoy point and click adventures like Sam and Max Hit the Road (the more recent incarnation of which has also been developed by Telltale Games).

Via The Tanooki, among others.

It’s two years old, and pretty stupid, but I wonder how many people in that line wish they’d bought a Wii (or a two ) now …