Wii DvD playback?

[rollen]

Just wondering been seeing lots of rumors and articles on the subject and me soon to be a Wii consumer I wanted to know from a experienced Wii owners if it can really play DvDs.

I tried the search for this subject nothing came up on your search I even put in Wii as a word and it still didn't want to find anything which I find out considered I just said Wii 4 times in this one post alone.

Thank you in advance.

[Ads]

[wezeles]

Still nothing confirmed, its a possability in the future to maybe help boost sales, the wii has the capability to do so now with a simple "mod chip" but that voids the warranty.

Really its a needless extra, who doesn't have a DVD player these days? Who cant afford a 19.99 one at Walmart? There is no point lowering the life of a video game console by playing DVD's on it. How many Ps2's died from over heating because of people using them for games and Movies? May they rest in peace.

[rollen]

True, I barely play consoles or even watch TVs. I'm more of a computer gamer and what not so yeah. If the Wii doesn't come with that feature I guess I'll just keep using my PC.

[vashivihan]

yeah no. dvd on wii is not something i am looking forward to as i have 2 dvd players.

[gidget]

i'd be all over a dvd-channel one less component on my shelf and has component-out... i estimate a $15 download since you can get cheap players for $20-$30

imagine... some programmer could make a mint without ANY hardware manufacturing...

[sremick]

I understand why it'd appeal to some people but it certainly has zero value to me. I have owned a DVD player for many, many years and even my several-year-old current model is far-better than anything the Wii would spit out using its hardware.

That said, I believe that the Wii hardware could play DVDs with nothing more than a firmware upgrade. I also don't believe that Nintendo will produce such an update... instead, it is my personal opinion that Nintendo will leverage this feature as a reason to buy the 2nd-edition of the Wii whenever that comes about, along with color options and more memory. A marketing technique that has been immensely successful with Apple and their iPods.

[AutumnWind]

DVD is dead. Within a few months, if it isn't blu-ray, it'll be entirely worthless anyway.

[[DT]]

DVD is dead. Within a few months, if it isn't blu-ray, it'll be entirely worthless anyway.

Not even close - get back to me in 5 years when SD-DVD is still outselling HDM and HD downloads and we'll try again.

[rukus]

DVD is dead. Within a few months, if it isn't blu-ray, it'll be entirely worthless anyway.

you are wrong.

[sremick]

DVD is dead. Within a few months, if it isn't blu-ray, it'll be entirely worthless anyway.

Wow, you couldn't be more wrong. As much as high-def might be exciting and a visual improvement, the real-world sales numbers and market do not even come close to backing up your claim. Walk into any DVD store or rental place and compare the amount of space devoted to Blu-Ray compared to the amount of space devoted to traditional standard-def DVDs... that will tell you something right there.

Fact is, most people still have standard-definition TVs and have no intention of upgrading anytime soon.

Also worth taking into account (and something most people don't think about) is that most people who do buy HDTVs buy 720-line ones, since 1080-line displays are so much-more expensive (and often they don't even realize there are two "levels" of HDTV, they just think they're all the same). 480 lines to 720 lines = 1.5X improvement in resolution. They don't realize though that when watching widescreen movies on their old 4:3 standard-def TV, they weren't even getting that full 480 lines. Worst case, watching a 2.35:1 aspect-ratio movie on a 4:3 screen means that you're only getting 363 lines of resolution. That's almost a third the definition lost from your standard-definition content! By simply upgrading to a 720-line HDTV, it's possible to be able to view the full 480 lines of resolution already contained on all your existing DVD collection... an improvement in definition of 1.32X by only getting a new TV.

"But wait," you say. "Once they have the HDTV, they can buy a Blu-Ray player, at which point there's no point in them buying anything but Blu-Ray discs!". Perhaps, but remember again: a lot of movies are shot in 2.35:1, which means even on a 16:9 widescreen HDTV there are black bars on top and bottom. So with only 720 vertical lines of resolution on your typical HDTV, you're now down to 533 vertical lines, a mere improvement of 11%. Is someone going to pay hundreds for a Blu-Ray player and replace all their DVDs for a 11% increase in quality on a huge percentage of movies? I doubt it.

Although no-doubt that some clueless consumers will do it anyway. But those same suckers will then go and tell their friends "It doesn't look any better, don't bother, it's not worth all that money" (which is basically true, being just a +11% improvement).

(This doesn't count the clueless people who might choose to display 2.35:1 content horizonally-compressed on their 16:9 screen in order to get full vertical resolution. But I consider watching video in a distorted aspect ratio to be an abomination that should be banned).

Blu-Ray done right involves the ability to see the 1080 lines at a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, but pulling that off is big-bucks at the moment and outside most peoples' budgets.