WiiMC-SS

WiiMC-SS
General
Author	SuperrSonic
Type	Media Players
Version	3.0.0-Revised
License	Mixed
Last Updated	2023/02/08
Links
Download
Website
Source

WiiMC-SS is a modified version of the popular media player, WiiMC, which offers enhanced functionality and new features.

Features

• Supports cover art embedded in MP3, MP4 (AAC, ALAC), FLAC, OGG, WMA, and AIFF files.
• Dynamically updates cover art from Tunein, Yggdrasil Radio, and ANISON.FM.
• 720x480p tiled rendering depending on video size.
• Provides perfect sync in 29.97/30 fps videos in 480i/p modes.
• Offers sync options for interlaced videos (MKV elements and DVD Videos).
• Subtitles are always based on DAR instead of SAR.
• Supports GameCube controller.
• Improved handling of game formats ADX and BRSTM.
• Features various options such as 240p mode, night filter, volnorm, deflicker, etc.
• Uses ".dash" extension to skip the deblock filter in H.264 and VP8 files.
• Includes Shuffle, Loop, and Continuous modes for video playback.
• Artwork Viewer for videos and music with support for external files.
• Wii Message Board playlog support when launched from a Channel.
• Changing themes now requires arguments to be passed.
• "Force IOS" argument allows for using a different USB module with IOS202.
• Automatically reconnects to radio streams after a minute if a failure is detected.
• Removed photo viewer, BMP/GIF, NTFS, and several codecs to reduce memory usage.

User guide

Below are some of the notable new features/changes over WiiMC.

Enabled ADX audio decoding

Encrypted ADX files such as the ones in NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams are not supported, but can be fixed by first using an external decryption tool, afterwards it will play correctly.

GameCube controller support

Every button from the Wii Remote is currently mapped.

Please note: there are still some things that require the pointer.

Option to disable the H.264 deblock filter on a per video basis

To disable simply change the extension of your video to ".dash".

Disabling this increases decoding speed a lot, but decreases visual quality, usually if the video has sufficient bitrate it will look fine.

The discontinued stream services on Wii (Netflix, Amazon, Crunchyroll, etc.) would make use of this to increase decoding speed. A global override option is also available.

Video shuffle modes

Choose from Through, Loop, Shuffle, and Continuous.

Artwork Viewer for Video and Music modes

Place artwork files on the same directory as the video or audio file, sharing the same filename.

• Song 01.brstm
• Song 01.jpg
• Note: Currently it looks for a .jpg extension, but you can use PNG files as well.

To load descriptions and year/run time info:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<file app="WiiMC" version="1.3.8">
<image number="5"
       year="2000 - 1h 27m"
       desc="Two Spanish con men win a map to the legendary city of gold, but when they reach El Dorado, things don't go according to plan." />
</file>

• Image number - The amount of artwork that will be randomly selected, normally you only want to set it to 1.
• Year - The first line that can have text, you may put anything here, but it's intended for year and/or run time, it's right-aligned and does not wrap.
• Desc - The rest of the lines which can be used for short descriptions, up to 5 lines, left aligned. Linebreaks are done by adding spaces.

Save the XML with the item's filename:

• Title 02.mkv
• Title 02.xml

The XML must be saved to the "art folder" dir, and will not work on the same folder as the item. You absolutely need to have at least 1 image present otherwise the desc and year line won't appear.

When using an image or multiple images the naming changes slightly (only when using an xml.) The difference is adding "_01, _02" etc. to the file names, this is just to allow using multiple artwork but even if you use 1 you must add _01 to it.

If you use special characters and nothing is showing up then you must save the xml with utf-8 encoding. The "art folder" can still be used without an xml, just for artwork, but then it follows the original naming style. (without _01)

A PLX playlist can contain "xml=" to specify desc/year but art is still specified by the "thumb=" argument. The desc/year lines are always in the same area of the screen, so the artwork must have a reasonable vertical size so they don't overlap.

Adding a tunein link to onlinemedia.xml

Add tunein=http://feed.tunein.com/profiles/sNNNNNN/nowPlaying?&partnerId=RadioTime after an 'image=' element. The image is used as a fallback. Where N is the ID, you can get this by going to the stream's tunein page and looking at the url.

<link name="Display name" addr="http://link to radio" image="http://link to default artwork" tunein="http://feed.tunein.com/profiles/sNNNNNN/nowPlaying?&partnerId=RadioTime" />

The same can be applied to a PLX playlist. To enable art from Yggdrasil Radio or ANISON.FM an 'image=' link should be specified.

Adding the interlaced flag to an MKV file

Open mkvtoolnix-gui, select Header editor, open the video file, expand the video track, and select video interlaced flag, check add element, set it to 1. If the video is BFF, you can specify video field order, with a value of 6, (though anything over 1 will use BFF in WiiMC.) Then Ctrl+S to save.

The interlaced flag is read as of version 2.0.0 of WiiMC. It works by syncing the video a specific way that allows CRTs and HDTV's deinterlacers to work correctly. This will only work if Enhanced Resolution is enabled in the global settings. These settings are available for DVD Video in Settings->DVD, it applies to physical DVDs and loading ifo or iso files from sd/usb.

Changing themes

Open the included meta.xml in a text editor and change the argument for 'theme=' to: gray(default), red, blue, green, random, dynamic, and blank.

• Dynamic will change theme every time you suspend a video, change modes, etc.
• Blank is the gray theme with no background image, used for testing quality of tiled rendering.

Other minor changes

• An option to enable the volume normalizer audio filter, set it to "2" to enable volnorm method 2.
• An option to always zoom videos to 4:3 ratio. (Only available if the Wii is set to 4:3 mode.)
• An option to enable deflicker, 480i and 576p/480p supported.
• An option to scale the screen width to 720.
• Support updating the Message Board playlog when launching from a channel.
• An option to switch to 240p mode. This setting can be found in the global section, under the name of Double-Strike.
• Added Screen Burn-in Reduction support. To enable go to Settings->Global, it will dim the screen if the screen saver is active after 4 seconds. This setting requires AHBPROT disabled.
• The option of using an alternate font for subtitles, your video file must include an attachment with the MIME type for fonts.
  • The font must be named "monospace.ttf" alongside the regular subfont.ttf file.
  • The purpose of this is to seamlessly switch between a monospaced font and a regular font, hence the filename.
• Backported BRSTM demuxer and THP fixes.
• Night Filter setting.
• M3U playlists can include a link for artwork.

Features you can only enable by editing settings.xml

Setting the debug option to '2' will enable an on-screen display for currently dropped frames. Increasing this number will add more info. (3=used memory, 4=fps, audio info)

Setting the shadow option to '0' will turn off all the shadows in ASS/SSA subtitles styles, it will also force outlines to '1.7'. Changing it to '2' will remove shadows and outlines for an "opaque box" background.

Setting bold will force the subtitles to use the bold style.

Screenshots

Media

WiiMC: Album Art Screensaver (SuperrSonic)

WiiMC - Title showoff (SuperrSonic)

Changelog

v3.0-Revised 2023/02/08

• New content:
  • Control more stuff with arguments, you can hide 240p and 576p modes that aren't compatible with your display.
  • Entries in the online media XML can show artwork that's stored on the SD/USB, previously it would crash.
  • If your file has multiple posters and you don't want it to randomly pick the cover, you can specify in the arguments the value.
  • Artwork from online radio or from local storage can have a fade effect enabled, if it's too slow it may appear glitchy.
  • Reworked the language support for the GUI, now only languages that have finished translations are included: English/Spanish/Korean
  • Included setup for controlling the composite output's trap filter, currently it's always enabled.

v3.0 2022/12/29

• Online audio streams (aka radio streams) can reconnect 1m after inactivity.
• ADX, BRSTM, and OGG Vorbis files can have loop support.
• A new screensaver can be used for the video section; it scrolls banners from a folder across the screen.
• MKV files with CC as the title of an entry will swap to monospace.ttf instead of subfont.ttf.
• Better handling of interlaced videos.
• More choices for overriding subtitle styles.
• The GameCube controller or 3DS can now use the on-screen keyboard and dial.
• IOS forcing allows using a different module for usb compatibility.
• Further fixes to metadata reading for audio files.
• Banners should be 16:9, but it's best to use 978x550.
• Also, BRSTM got a lot of changes so BFSTM and BCSTM should work better now.

Update 2021/01/31

• Prevent clashing options for 'force-ass-style' when mixing bold and shadow/box settings.
• Fixed all visual glitches when using tiled rendering.
• The seekbar progress and info now reset after the video ends.
• 'Auto' Enhanced Resolution is now enabled for ~4:3 videos in 16:9 mode.

Update 2021/01/06

• Added 'JPEG Resample' global option. If the JPEG art file is over 188px wide scale down to 188x, it gives cover art a softer look. If the 'screensaver art' setting is set to 'full' this limit is changed to 448x to match the full screen size.

Update 2021/01/01

• Perfect sync in 29.97 videos.
• Fixed random audio desync when using subtitles. (partly enables nocorrect-pts)
• Added HTTP hack to reconnect after idling, instead of closing the video.
• Added setting for displaying album artwork on the screensaver, choose from Top, Side, and Full.
• Removed samplerate switching, always uses 48kHz.
• Fixed crash when pressing L/R on a GC controller while screensaver is active.
• Don't show the first few frames, fixes garbage when loading from System Menu.
• Make cover art size 188x, fixes forced filtering.
• Enabled FLAC metadata reading.
• Seed the random function for cover art.
• Delay 2 seconds when loading from SD cards, fixes initial slowdown. (depends on the video)
• Corrected scale when using 'Force Fullscreen' setting.
• Changed VI scale to 711 for 16:9 mode.
• Added tiled rendering as a setting.
• Fix memory leak when toggling 'Force 576p'.
• Merged libass speed improvement.
• Pressing B on GC or WUPC can close message/keyboard prompts.
• Removed 'CorrectPAR' from libass, now it will always display at the correct AR.
• Added dynamic cover art from tunein for radio streams.
• Added site-specific dynamic cover art for Yggdrasil Radio, ANISON.FM, and CVGM.
• Added OGG Vorbis metadata reading.
• Added AIFF metadata reading.
• Added support for reading embedded cover art in aac(.m4a), mp3, flac, ogg, asf(.wma), and aiff.
• Removed MPlayer's ASF demuxer, now uses ffmpeg (supports text and picture metadata.)
• Increase art size limit from 200 KB to 900KB
• Proper 16:9 support in the gui.
• MKV files with the interlace flag will use a different sync method to allow CRTs to play interlaced video properly.
• Added a DVD Video setting for selecting the sync type, this allows perfect sync in interlaced videos.
• If screensaver art is set to 'Full' adjust JPEG downscale to 448px
• Themes as args: theme= gray, red, green, blue, random, dynamic, and blank.
• The argument 'path=' can now be specified to launch videos from sd/usb, but the original way still works.
• English, Spanish, and French will now search for def.ttf to allow users to switch the gui's font.
• Added ID3v2.2 for MP3 metadata reading. (Doesn't follow the standard fully, but it works.)
• Added ID3v2.3 for MP3 metadata reading.
• Added ID3v2.4 for MP3 metadata reading. (Only supports the same as v2.3 but reads TDRC for year.)
• Update to 2.0.0.

Update 2020

• Update 2020/06/21: Added a new setting -Force 576p-, adjusted the gui slightly to fit more description text, corrected aspect ratio for artwork/posters in widescreen mode.
• Update 2020/06/16: Load fonts at startup to improve performance with subtitles, if no fonts are available it will load an internal one, added support for BorderStyle=4.

Update 2019

• Update 2019/12/29: Improve stability when loading descriptions from XML files.
• Update 2019/12/15: Handle debug=4 case to not crash when there is no audio info available, correct some quirks with descriptions getting stuck in the online media area.
• Update 2019/12/10: Try to fix memory leaks when using XML files for file descriptions, fix hang when loading audio files with 'video loop' enabled, added delay to avoid crashing when moving the pointer fast enough on items.
• Update 2019/10/27: Add optional descriptions for items when using the art viewer, added a setting that lets the user pick a folder to look for artwork/info, support desc/year line for PLX playlists, added an extra buffered image that might help maintaining performance between videos, further tweaked the mem2 allocations to reduce the likelihood of out of memory errors when loading or playing a video, added debug=3 to show free mem1/2, and debug=4 to disable pointer controls.
• Update 2019/08/01: Artwork Viewer, support for artwork in M3U playlists, BRSTM demuxer, video bar will no longer show a tooltip, a night filter setting, THP files now display total length, AVI hack to enable restore points in h264 files, if shadows are 0 also remove ScaledBorderAndShadow.
• Update 2019/07/01: Video Shuffling modes, restored NTFS/EXT support, made some minor changes to the playback bar so it shows the current time until the very end.
• Update 2019/05/18: Tweaked volnorm setting so that it can be switched without reloading.
• Update 2019/02/12: Added settings for controlling libass shadows, a display for dropped frames, and other small tweaks.

Update 2018

• Update 2018/08/20: Added a setting that removes writing to device during usage. This prevents initial slowdown when loading a video if you were previously on the settings screen.
• Update 2018/08/14: GameCube controller's R trigger can be used to change the current angle.
• Update 2018/07/06: Sync to video, should fix any remaining tearing (usually in 60fps video or during buffering), added a setting to disable libass, added a setting to reduce cache size to 2MB, added some minor fixes to prevent small instances of lag in certain situations.
• Update 2018/06/11: Exit during video playback when using autoboot, default value for burn-in is now taken from system settings.
• Update 2018/05/16: Added Wiimpathy's autoboot file support, added 240p switching.
• Update 2018/04/22: Enable GC controller to work in window prompts, add max VI width setting, hide YT quality levels from the settings menu.
• Update 2018/04/17: Enable seeking in http streams, added new options to the settings menu, added global setting for skipping deblocking, added burn-in reduction.

External Links

• GBAtemp - https://gbatemp.net/threads/wiimc-ss-gamecube-controller-support-and-more.469452/
• GitHub - https://github.com/SuperrSonic/WiiMC-SSLC