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Button Mashers is a periodic audio podcast covering a range of topics in the gaming industry. This blog was created for myself, Tetsuotrunks, as well as a few guest co-hosts, to contribute our 2 cents on topics that really don't warrant any discussion, or to just express things that we'd like to get off our chests. Check back often, as we update frequently and feel free to leave any feedback.

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Home » Archives » April 2008 »
iPlayer on Wii - it's the thought that counts.
By CloudANDTidus on 04.09.08 at 08:05 PM CST
As you may have already heard, the BBC announced that the iPlayer video catch-up service (which streams many of their most popular shows from the last week of TV airings) was today made fully compatible with the Wii's Opera browser, following in the footsteps of many other gimmick websites that think people will use the Wii to browse anything other than YouTube. When I first heard this news I thought the BBC was really on to something. From experience with the PC version of the service, I have been pretty impressed by both the quality and speed of iPlayer videos and find it to be a great tool for catching up on missed episodes.

iPlayer on Wii and PC


The implementation of iPlayer on Wii however, is less than impressive. In fact, the so called "optimisation" for Wii actually removes what I consider to be a key feature of iPlayer, or any streaming video player for that matter. As the above picture shows, the iPlayer on Wii loses the ability to display full screen, defeating a lot of the reasons I would ever want to use this service away from the PC.

Sat across a room on a sofa, no one in their right mind is going to want to squint at a tiny video box in the middle of the screen (that's right PSP owners hooking your handheld to a TV, I'm talking to you to). I'm sure your all shaking your head at this point and saying something along the lines off "the Wii has a zoom in function you nOOb". Well don't, because of course that was my first thought. The problem with simply zooming in on a video that won't expand full screen however, is that this pixelates the programme your trying to watch beyond the point of tolerable quality. Add this to the fact that the Wii's memory simply doesn't allow for the ability to quickly jump through the video without more than a few seconds of buffering (one of iPlayers best features), and the fact that it doesn't take long for the video to start lagging, and you start to wonder why you didn't just hook your laptop up with an s-video cable.

It's a neat idea BBC, and I sure hope some sort of deal with Nintendo can be struck to create a separate iPlayer channel (with full screen please), however right now quality of video provided through iPlayer on Wii just defeats the point of using the service completely.
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