Hi everyone. Here's my situation, I have a Wii (4.2E Firmware) set up to a monitor in my boys room & long story short I want to play DVD's on it for him. Looking around on the forums/net seems my only option is a mod, but I'm just looking for some more experienced opinions/advice on whether to softmod or go with a chip. Any advice/opinions welcome, cheers.
First of all, you do not need a chip, this is just a rumor. You can softmod your wii but you don't have to (unless you want to use a sd card).
You could either run the movies off a sd card, for this you would need to softmod your wii & have the movie file on a computer. This means either downloading them (having paid for the original copy first), or ripping directly to your computer. This is a good method because it reduces stress of the wii DVD Drive Lens. More info on this method here: http://www.ehow.com/how_2049961_watch-movies-nintendo-wii.html
Or You could install the necessary software to run DVDs. All you really need is DVDx & MPlayer. I'm guessing your wii is not modified in anyway. If your wii is not softmodded, this is okay, although you must have a way of running WAD Manager & DVDx installed.
Once you've installed DVDx, you can run install a MPlayer Channel allowing you to run DVDs from the wii menu without needing the Homebrew Channel.
If you want a more detailed tutorial, please PM me so we can discuss in more detail.
