If you have experience with Homebrew for Wii, what are your thoughts?

I’m not sure what you mean by Homebrew but yes you can watch Netflix via your user account on a Wii.

Well, apparently, there’s a way to hack the Wii to make it read movie DVDs.

Despite this assertion, third parties have used Wii homebrew to add DVD playback to the original unmodified Wii units.

I’m not exactly clear what it is, either.. there’s Wii homebrew, which the article I quoted above links, and then there’s Homebrew Channel. I’m not sure if they’re separate or connected or what.

Anyway, I would like to play DVDs on my Wii because my DVD player sounds really shitty with this new (used) TV, but the Wii sounds perfect.

You’re talking about modifying the operating system of your Wii in a way that will break the EULA you have with Nintendo. This is a legal agreement between you and Nintendo, just so you know.

I have a modified Wii, and I must say I think it’s bloody brilliant. You can install the DVD-X mod and also emulator programs that will let you play SNES, Genesis, n64 and PS1 games. You can also install media players that can stream music to your Wii over a network. You can stream video too, but it’s not HD and isn’t great quality anyway.

On the other hand, Nintendo do not just go along with you doing this quietly, and ensure that their flagship titles – the games that everyone wants – are accompanied by a firmware update that prevents execution of homebrew applications. It generally takes the hackers a few weeks to find the exploits to update the homebrew channel to the new firmware.

If you buy a lot of games, this means that you will often need to restore your system to a virgin state, update your Wii, then go through the tutorials to get your homebrew apps back.

It can be something of a pain in the arse, but on the whole I think it’s worth doing.

Obtaining the Homebrew Channel gave me a reason to start using my Wii again.

I don’t know about DVDs, but I have an application that I use to watch files off an external hard drive with my Wii, and I use it almost every day now. Whether I’m listening to music in the background or watching a movie with my friends, it’s exceptionally helpful.

The only real cons that I’ve discovered is that the homebrew software can be finicky and randomly slow, and there are times when I had to reset my Wii several times be able to watch something. However, I find this a small price to pay for the new-found use of a system that had for some time been gathering dust in my room.