Hi, I'm new here, this will be obvious once you read through this. I have received a plethora of information on all of these topics and can't seem to find a beginning to end guide. I have found the most valuable information on this forum though, so I have joined in hopes that some of you will have mercy on me and help me out. I'm new to the whole gaming thing. I've had my Wii for a couple years now, but have recently decided to explore it's capability. I am somewhat tech savvy, I've worked in the field for 10 years and have my degree in IT, but I'm a little lost when it comes to these gaming consoles. Here goes:
1. I have managed to get the home brew channel installed, I'm not sure what to do with it now. My system is 4.0u (not sure this is a question, but maybe you have some pointers?)
2. I was reading here about some pretty cool features of the internet channel, which I want to purchase, however when I went to wii shop channel, it told me I had to do a system update and warned me, I wasn't sure about updating and can't find much about if I'll be able to do this system update with the home brew channel installed.
3. Are there more apps that need to be installed along with the home brew channel in order to play my back up game discs? I burned a DVD-R disc with an ISO image I had created from a game I own, but when I try to get to the game using the home brew channel I get an invalid disc error. I'm lost here, I was sure I wasn't doing it right but had no direction of where to go from there.
4. I would also like to play dvd movies on my wii, I understand this is possible but haven't even begun to explore as I'd like to figure out 1-3 first.
1) The homebrew channel is a method of booting homebrew programs without having to run some kind of hack (Such as twilight hack, bannerbomb, exc) every time you want to boot them. Theoretically you could softmod the wii without the homebrew channel by running a hack every time you needed to run a homebrew program, but using the homebrew channel is FAR easier.
Once you get the softmod set up, you can use the homebrew channel to install other custom channels or to run homebrew programs like emulators and play classic games.
2) If you update online it will take you to firmware level 4.2. It won't harm your wii in any way but it will remove your homebrew channel and any custom IOS's (firmwares) that you've installed. They can be reinstalled afterwards, but you'll need to follow a 4.2-specific guide.
If you want to purchase the opera channel without updating you'll probably need to find a wad file for the most recent version of the shop and install it with the wad manager. I'm not really sure where to find that.
Alternatively, you could download a wad for the opera channel and install that. Opera is a free program and at one time the download for the wii version was free as well. So while it is technically still pirating the channel and I cant provide you with a link, its pirating a program that is normally free anyway. The moral implications are up to you to decide.
I didn't think that the wii internet channel was really worth having anyway.
4) This is possible but not really a good idea. Though the wii can be made to play DVD movies the disk drive was not designed for that purpose in mind. Playing movies on the wii will wear out the drive far faster than playing games would. And additionally, the wii won't upscale the movies. So they would actually look better on a simple $30 DVD player than they would on the wii.
Thank you so much for clearing things up! It sounds like I am on the right path then. I was reading about twilight, bannerbomb, etc, and was wondering what they had to do with anything, but sounds like as long as I have the home brew channel installed I'm good to go as far as that's concerned. I did use this wonderful guide ( http://forums.afterdawn.com/t.cfm/f-154/...2_guide-797772/ ) to get homebrew installed. When I go to that channel, I can click start, which brings me into something unfamiliar that has different references to cIOS's... I take it this is where I'm supposed to go to install these things? I was unclear of this (surprise, surprise) when I was working on it.
Thanks for the advice on the Internet channel... because of that, I think I'll skip it for now and if I have a need for it later, I'll revisit the idea, this way, I don't have to worry about the system update, and why worry about it when you say the channel is not really worth it anyway. From what I read, it is better for me to keep the current 4.0.
Again, thanks for the advice on the DVD issue, it makes sense and why put my wii's health at risk when I can continue to watch DVD's the way I always have been? So, it sounds like I'm on the right track, I just need to figure out this cIOS thing, right?
One (hopefully last) question. I have updated to 4.1, but when I insert some of my backups (Sports Resort, Super Mario Bros) it tells me I have to update. I'm not sure what to do about this... some things I've read say that you're OK to go ahead and say yes, it sees that you have acceptable firmware and starts the game but others say I could get bricked. Is there a work around for this?
If the game is from the same region as your wii then you won't brick from updating from the disk. If the game is from a different region then bricking or semi-bricking are possibilities.
You can skip the updates by using wiiscrubber to remove them from the game ISO files before burning. You should also have the option to skip updates in neogamma if you're using that to load your games.
Two warnings though:
1) Some games require an update to work. Any games that use an extra peripheral device, such as wii sports resort with the motion plus, will need an update to work. If you can find out what IOS's are needed then you can find them online and install them with the wad manager.
2) As I already mentioned, if you update to 4.2 it will remove your homebrew channel and any custom IOS's you've installed. They can be reinstalled but it is always a pain to have to redo something.
Thanks again for your solid advice. I am going to try the wiiscrubber, and as I expect, it will work great, given the great results I've had from your advice here.
I agree, that I'm pretty much going to try everything before I have to go through with the update and have to redo everything I've already done. Thanks for the advice on the individual ISO's.
I have read about preloader, but not sure that I got it installed following larry's guide, as I tried to boot to it, but without success. I am loading the games through neogamma but I don't see that I have an option to not accept the update. What do you think I'm doing wrong, or is there another way to turn off the auto update thingy? Thanks again!
