WiiMC problems

[JCT400THz]

I have two things that i want to say about WiiMC...

1. It can't play 720P videos without extreme lag, so I dowgraded to either 360P MP4s or 240P FLVs and it works fine.

2. It won't display PNGs that have a really high resolution, somewhere around 1200X1600...

[badsector]

Sounds like problems with the rather weak Wii hardware, not like software problems.

[JCT400THz]

whaddya mean, weak hardware? I haven't modified it's hardware, only it's software! what the heck would hardware have to do with anything if i haven't modified or anything?

[JCT400THz]

Oh... I get it.. but still, why can't WiiMC handle it, but YouTube can?

[emu_kidid]

Because the Wii doesn't have the CPU/GPU power to decode 720p video.

[JCT400THz]

makes enough sense...

[BenoitRen]

I doubt YouTube is sending 720p video for the Wii to decode. It's pretty much always 360p (rarely 480p when the original video isn't widescreen).

[XICO2KX]

I have two things that i want to say about WiiMC...
1. It can't play 720P videos without extreme lag, so I dowgraded to either 360P MP4s or 240P FLVs and it works fine.

Because the Wii doesn't have the CPU/GPU power to decode 720p video.

At the exception of a small "static" slice at the rightmost part of the screen,
MPlayerCE can play 720p videos just fine!

If one of the developers (*coff coff* Extrems *coff coff*) stepped in
and fixed that static right video slice problem, even with a hit in the frame rate, I wouldn't mind at all!

P.S.:
According to this bug report, it is possible, and I quote:

Before r574, .avi videos with 720p worked perfectly.

[tueidj]

.AVI files most likely aren't H264. There's no way a wii can handle 1280x720@24Hz H264, which is the common format for movies and TV shows.

[XICO2KX]

.AVI files most likely aren't H264. There's no way a wii can handle 1280x720@24Hz H264, which is the common format for movies and TV shows.

tueidj, I can assure you that MPlayerCE can play 720p H.264 encoded files.

Check this screenshot from an Anime movie:


and a screenshot from a well know TV Series:


The anime movie, except for the bar on the right of the screen, plays perfectly fine!!!
The tv show, besides that right bar, has some problems including low frame rate and audio/video not synchronized, so it is somewhat not very watchable.

But I think this is because of the Video+Audio Bitrate: 579 Kbps vs 2896 Kbps
Both video files have the same 1280x720 resolution and the same 23.976 FPS.
So, I don't think it's a matter of codec, but a matter of bitrate!

I suppose the problem with the bar on the right can be fixed, if not for free, at the cost of a little frame rate drop...
So, at least 720p anime videos, should be perfectly watchable on our Wii!

P.S.:
I don't know the internals of H.264, but since the maximum resolution the Wii supports is 854x480, instead of decoding the video at 1280x720 and then rescaling it, maybe MPlayerCE decodes only 854 of those 1280 vertical video columns and only 480 of those 720 horizontal video rows.
I mean, saving CPU time by only processing/decoding some interleaved pixels of a 1280 by 720 grid...

[tueidj]

I never said it couldn't play it, I said it wouldn't be able to handle playing any regular TV or movie clip satisfactorily. Meaning 95% of the content downloaded by most people won't play back without lagging/stuttering.
Sure, if you reduce the bitrate enough it will probably scrape by at about 20fps. But the output will be garbage and pretty much nothing is encoded like that, especially anime; most releases use hi10 now because it reduces banding, which increases required decoding power by another 12% or so.

H264 does not allow you to pick and choose which parts of the picture to decode, since any part of a frame may be used as reference by a later frame. It also stores data as blocks of pixels, so even if it were possible to skip some the resulting picture would look ridiculously distorted.

[JCT400THz]

Like i've said other times, I just deal with what I have. I think 360P video and audio of 44100 KHz with a bitrate of 320 KB/s would suffice for a perfectly running video, with no video being cut out, and no audio desync or anything wrong. What's the purpose of 720P if

1) The NTSC signal is 480i and
2) Isn't HDMI Input Only 480p progressive?
3) Most HDTVs have good deinterlacing, but not good enough to look that good.

[megalomaniac]

Have you ever considered getting an xbox and installing dolphin??

This would address your storage issues with built in HDD and USB.
You can play back 720p with ease
And with dolphin, you can still play GC Nd Wii titles.
Xbox also has your favorite homebrew emulators..

Check out the dolphin forums and a few Xbox forums...I'm sure you will find xbox to be the console which best suits your needs...

[JCT400THz]

Oh, wow, that sounds interesting.

[tueidj]

To be clear, Dolphin doesn't run on an Xbox.

[megalomaniac]

i thought for sure i saw threads about dolphin and xbox compatibility....
i hope it wasnt the 360 controllers on dolphin that led to my confusion...


oh well...JCT400THz seems like you are stuck on a wii for now

[BenoitRen]

Xbox or Xbox 360? The original Xbox is nowhere near powerful enough. The Xbox 360 isn't easily hackable.

[XICO2KX]

Meaning 95% of the content downloaded by most people won't play back without lagging/stuttering.
(...) especially anime; most releases use hi10 now (...)
H264 does not allow you to pick and choose which parts of the picture to decode (...)

tueidj, thanks for the technical explanation about H264!
Yes, I agree the majority of 720p H.264 content is released nowadays at bitrates so high that make it un-playable on the Wii no matter what...

But still, for the existing ones with a playable bitrate, it would be really nice the get rid of that right-static-border-screen-bug on MPlayerCE!

P.S.:
Just for curiosity, I did some tests on a couple of H.264 Hi10P sample videos!
( It's worth mentioning that none of these files even opens in WiiMC... So, MPlayerCE rules! )

Code: Select all

http://www.cccp-project.net/beta/test_files/H.264-10bit-sample-railgun.mkv
AVC High 10@L3.1
960 x 540 pixels
1 369 Kbps

-> Plays perfectly!!!

Code: Select all

http://www.koi-sama.net/files/hi10/%5B720p%5D%5B07_REF_L4.0%5DSword%20Art%20Online%20BD%20Opening.mkv
AVC High 10@L4.0
1 280 x 720 pixels
5 979 Kbps

-> Doesn't play at all...

Code: Select all

http://www.mediafire.com/download/w429656vqm89ez7/fourzepromo_10bit.muxed.mkv
AVC High 10@L4.1
1 280 x 720 pixels
2 692 Kbps

-> Plays fine, except for that right-bar-bug!

[andre104623]

Xbox or Xbox 360? The original Xbox is nowhere near powerful enough. The Xbox 360 isn't easily hackable.

With RGH the 360 isn't that hard to hack. The soldering isn't that bad I haven't done a slim yet though

[Duhasst0]

Xbox or Xbox 360? The original Xbox is nowhere near powerful enough. The Xbox 360 isn't easily hackable.

With RGH the 360 isn't that hard to hack. The soldering isn't that bad I haven't done a slim yet though

I've got a CR3 pro in my slim. It's about as easy as the phat. Tuning can be a bitch but I heard the CR4 is supposed to be better.

[BenoitRen]

If I need to order a piece of hardware and solder it in my console, it's not easily hackable in my book.

[JCT400THz]

Yeah, I don't like modifying console hardware to use homebrew. only firmware and software. soldering??? that's crazy.

[megalomaniac]

just thought i would mention, WASP fusion is solderless for wii and takes 1 minute to connect + 10 minutes for the wii housing screws

[andre104623]

Get Netflix its 7.00usd a month

[JCT400THz]

That's a quite useless statement in this topic, but I wish I could have that.