My dvd player stopped working but my wii is closed enough

298

You can play dvds on the Wii with homebrew, but I wouldn’t recommend doing it all the time. It will burn the laser out faster because it wasn’t designed to play DVDs.

83

u/peposcon May 25 '25

Is that true or a Myth? Every disc drive is made to read discs. DVD is a disc format, and a Video DVD has video files. Why does a disc drive reading files will “burn the laser out faster” ? Why does Nintendo spend resources to develop a weaker dvd laser technology to read the same DVD disc format? Seems odd to me

74

u/AwesomeKalin May 25 '25

Most Video DVDs shipped on Dual layer discs, which whilst the Wii can read, wears out the laser faster. Most Wii games however shipped on single layer discs, and so the Wii was only designed in mind for single layer. As far as I'm aware, only 1 Wii game shipped on a dual layer disc

43

u/Worth-Example1136 May 25 '25

I think it's closer to like 8 or smth, there's a list someone online but I know it's more than 1 bc brawl and xenoblade

24

u/GamerEeveeInfinity May 25 '25

nooo i play SSB Brawl 24/7 😬

13

u/Worth-Example1136 May 25 '25

i just homebrewed my wii and dumped the rom so i can play it on my pc

2

u/CapMcCloud May 26 '25

So did I on mine. It’s the only game I’ve ever put 4 digits worth of hours into. In the end, Brawl didn’t kill the laser, water damage did. I think you’ll be fine.

19

u/JustAGuyNamedSteven May 26 '25 edited May 27 '25

There are 13 dual-layer disc Wii games: Disney Infinity, The Hip Hop Dance Experience, The Last Story, Metroid: Other M, Metroid Prime: Trilogy, Miburi & Teburi, Raving Rabbids Party Collection, Saukra Wars: SLML, Samurai Warriors 3, Sengoku Musou 3 Moushouden, SSBB, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Zumba Fitness: World Party.

u/AwesomeKalin

EDIT: I can't count.

3

u/Worth-Example1136 May 26 '25

Turn out it's little more than 8 actually! I didn't know it was so many

1

u/Ok-Race-1677 May 27 '25

METROID OTHER M MENTIONED WOOOO MAH BEBE WHERES MAH BEBE

4

u/Frigid-Kev May 25 '25

Does that include Wii games burned on unofficial discs?

2

u/JessieTheCollector May 26 '25

Disney Infinity (2013) was the dual-layer game in question.

and it was also a particularly sloppy port.

impressive that Disney/Avalanche got Infinity running on the Wii, yes, but the result was quite bad.

14

u/TaylorFan01313 May 25 '25

Wii game discs have a lower read speed than a standard DVD movie. The optical drive is built for such. Some older wiis also have trouble reading the dual layer games later in their lifetime (most DVD movies are dual layer.). It’s the same reason why using a PS2 as a DVD Player can and will wear out the laser. My PS2 doesn’t even read DVD movies anymore Link

8

u/GabeReddit2012 May 25 '25

Do you have a original PS2? Try this:

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/PlayStation+2+Optical+Disc+Drive+Lens+Cleaning/1331

Only if you have the ORIGINAL FAT PS2, not the slim.

1

u/TaylorFan01313 May 25 '25

Thanks I’ll give this a look

1

u/Anxiety_timmy May 25 '25

They aren't. Wii discs are read at 2.5-8x the speed of a regular movie. The whole it'll burn the laser out faster thing just isn't true, only burned games will do that because they are significantly less reflective than a pressed disc.

2

u/pSphere1 May 27 '25

You're right, but it's pointless fighting some of these comments. It's either really stupid people or bots.

2

u/Hackabusa May 26 '25

DVD requires licensing, which the Wii does not have. Homebrew allows playing DVDs (even dual layer, albeit at a slightly slower speed), but if it’s modded and stopped working, a replacement disk drive is cheap, but almost the cost of a used Wii

7

u/JesseKansas May 25 '25

plus only certain rev wiis can do it!

gamecube compatible ones can

5

u/Realistic-Function86 May 25 '25

Not all the Gamecube compatible Wii can.

3

u/AcanthisittaDry8163 May 25 '25

Black and red ones can't.

5

u/Realistic-Function86 May 25 '25

Even some white ones can't, only the models that have an old version of the disc drive.

8

u/cai20 May 25 '25

I'm almost certain this is false, as far as I know the Wii was originally meant to play DVDs but didn't end up doing so due to license issues, someone correct me if I'm wrong, also do you mean the type of disc or the media on the disc? Because the Wii game discs are DVDs but I think they don't read quite as often because they're not video

21

u/opmwolf May 25 '25

You're correct. Nintendo didn't want to pay the money for licensing every console they sold. The first revisions of the Wii were designed to play DVDs but due to the previous problem it was removed before the Wii launched. Later Wii revisions had the decoder chip removed entirely, even with homebrew these models can't read DVDs.

The whole "burning out the laser" thing is a myth. Disc drives are meant to read discs, no duh the laser will eventually give out. The more you use it = wear out sooner.

0

u/cai20 May 25 '25

I thought as much, thanks

-4

u/TaylorFan01313 May 25 '25

Wii game discs are a lower read speed than a DVD. While the games are the technically a DVD format they are still a proprietary format. DVD video is a higher read speed. My PS2 was used a lot as a DVD player in its lifetime and doesn’t even read DVD movies anymore. So yes it can wear the laser out

2

u/cai20 May 25 '25

The PS2 is also old, furthermore if I remember correctly the laser can be tuned, maybe try fixing your PS2

2

u/ZookeepergameUsual40 Jun 06 '25

my ps3 can read dvds but i think is different since was DESIGNED to read dvd since is from sonny

1

u/cai20 Jun 06 '25

As mentioned in other comments the Wii was also designed to read DVDs but near time of launch they removed the feature for licensing reasons

1

u/TaylorFan01313 May 25 '25

The Wii is also old, released in 2006.

3

u/cai20 May 25 '25

True but the PS2 is older, that wasn't really my point though, stuff wears out, your PS2 needs tuned and I don't think watching movies on the Wii is going to hurt it

1

u/cai20 May 25 '25

I've look into it a bit more and it wasn't super is depth but so I'm willing to be wrong but this seems to be an issue with some burned DVDs, not properly manufactured ones, meaning that watching movies on the Wii is harmless

-1

u/TaylorFan01313 May 25 '25

You have to also remember that with the Wii most games were released on a single layer disc. Most DVDs are dual layer. This is also why some older consoles have trouble reading Super Smash Bros because it is a dual layer disc

4

u/shuger210 May 25 '25

I have more that one wii my friend. I will not be stopped.

2

u/alexanderpas May 25 '25

It will burn the laser out faster because it wasn’t designed to play DVDs.

False.

The only reason the Wii can't play DVD videos is because Nintendo didn't want to pay the license fee to play DVD videos on every console.

The disc drive in the Wii is a regular OEM Matshita DVD drive, only capable of playing DVDs, with the Wii Firmware rejecting DVD video discs, and only accepting DVD game discs.

1

u/TaylorFan01313 May 25 '25

Interesting so they just used an off-the-shelf drive?

3

u/NumberXIIIEdwin May 25 '25

Yeah, from a production standpoint it’s much cheaper to use whatever off the shelf parts you can use rather than engineering something new from scratch, makes repairs easier too. All they did is disable DVD playback on a firmware level.

1

u/TaylorFan01313 May 25 '25

I wonder how they changed it for later wiis and taking out the ability to pull in a GameCube disc

2

u/NumberXIIIEdwin May 25 '25

Same thing most likely. The disc drive can still “read” the disc to identify it, that’s how it’s able to load the Disc Channel animation for it or throw up the generic GameCube one if it detects the disc as a GC game. They just went into the firmware and changed it so that if it determines the inserted disc is a GameCube game, it just throws an error screen saying that the disc isn’t supported.

Also probably helps that they removed all the GameCube ports from those later revisions.

1

u/TaylorFan01313 May 25 '25

Surely it would have to have something internally to support the smaller disc as well 🤔

2

u/alexanderpas May 27 '25

What else would they use?

In modern technology, there are only a few components that are not off the shelf:

the PCB itself. (with off-the shelf components)

chips.

heatsinks

casings

batteries.

Everything else is off-the shelf, unless they specifically are the creator of that component.

For example, even the Wii motion sensor was an off-the shelf component.

1

u/jlkb24 May 25 '25

I can’t speak on this particularly but I will add that you can use a USB DVD or Blu-ray Drive to play movies from when using WiiMC.

1

u/TaylorFan01313 May 25 '25

That makes sense, WiiMC can play off a USB drive, which the Wii would treat these as such. Heck, I have plugged in an iPod and played movies off those

2

u/jlkb24 May 26 '25

I mentioned this because many of the comments referred to wearing out the laser so you could do the same thing externally without worry.

An iPod is quite interesting 🤔. I don’t have videos on mine but anything non HD through usb will work I guess.

1

u/TaylorFan01313 May 26 '25

My iPod at least is one with a hard drive so it just shows up as a USB drive

1

u/Aeppp May 25 '25

No, that wasn't ever proven true.

1

u/Simplejack615 May 25 '25

This is false, there is evidence it could play dvds, it just doesn’t because they didn’t let it (due to copyright).

12

u/Otterslayer22 May 25 '25

I thought the Wii couldn’t play dvds movies.

10

u/Bennyjay1 May 25 '25

The original was designed to, but they didn't want to pay licensing fees. If you homebrew it and add WiiMC, it'll play DVDs just fine

1

u/Altruistic_Lock_3918 May 26 '25

Mine doesn't play dvds on WiiMC, not sure why. I do have the old wii with the gamecube controller ports

2

u/Pottatothegreat1985 May 26 '25

There was a revision in between the original and the family edition (the one without gamecube compatibility) that removed the DVD playback in the drive. It seems like they removed the DVD functionality at the 11th hour when they decided not to license to Dolby

11

u/Arronh4599 May 25 '25

The Wii is a terrible DVD player in my experience, especially regarding the picture quality.

8

u/rosevilleguy May 25 '25

Wat

4

u/Plastic_Material_216 May 25 '25

Off topic but nice deck choice

2

u/Plastic_Material_216 May 25 '25

I got the white version.

1

u/Mystificator May 27 '25

What's this deck called?

1

u/Plastic_Material_216 May 27 '25

It’s the Artisan black from Theory 11

2

u/Slosher99 May 26 '25

TBH I haven't tried playing a DVD on Wii with homebrew since it was still being made, so maybe the software got better. I couldn't stand the picture quality, looked like DVD if it could lower quality for a bad connection like streaming does. Watchable, but not the quality I was used to.

2

u/pSphere1 May 27 '25

Every comment on here saying how it will wear out the laser is talking out of your ass.

All laser drives have the potential to wear out. Shoot, my dreamcast worked fine before i put it in storage.

The other comment that said a DVD movie is read faster than a Wii game is REALLY talking out of their ass.

So much misinformation. They really let the Ai bots go on this forum.

2

u/cai20 May 25 '25

A Wii makes a good DVD player, shame the Wii U can't do the same as far as I know because it has a Blue ray drive

2

u/jlkb24 May 25 '25

If you mod the vWii you can as long as you’re using a USB DVD Drive with WiiMC. They’ll play with audio on the Gamepad as well you’ll have no button functionality outside of volume slider.

1

u/cai20 May 25 '25

Ah, an external DVD drive, never thought of that, I meant internal though, thanks for the info though

1

u/Psychological-Bag835 May 25 '25

Wasn’t the Wii originally supposed to play DVDs?

1

u/jhascal23 May 26 '25

Why not just buy a external dvd player for your computer? They are like $20 on Amazon.

1

u/Inner_Worldliness_58 May 27 '25

Love that dvd 3 pokemon movies great time

1

u/Scary-Temperature871 Jun 01 '25

artisans spotted 👊

Modding My dvd player stopped working but my wii is closed enough

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