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.