Turn your computer into a music server.

[Gaffer]

Most of you have a router and the Wii is on part of that "network".
There are programs appearing that take advantage of this fact, and allow you to turn any computer on the network into a web server to be browsable by the Wii.
There is no need to pay for shareware here

For PC peeps (and Mac & Linux): There is an excellent little freeware program called Wii MediaCenter X. It's designed for PC and is in the process of being ported over to other platforms such as OSX and Linux.
As it is an early alpha, it's a bit rough around the edges at the mo', but very impressive all the same.
Instructions on how to install and use are in the link (it's actually quite complicated to explain.....more than the other prog below....so just read about it at the developers site).

For Mac & Linux peeps (and PC): Wiisic is a very streamlined app that only allows you to stream music...but the media center mentioned above doesn't play music properly yet and only allows you to browse photo's and .flv vids. Choose what you want to use

So, download the wiisic.jar file to wherever you want.
Double click it and a pref pane appears with some options:
1 Select a music folder (e.g I store my music in my iTunes folder....no probs there)
2 Select the colour of player, I also checked the "shuffle" and "scan subfolders" boxes
3 Change the port to something like 696969. Remember to open this port in your Firewall.
In case you don't know it, go into the Network pref pane as well and note down your DHCP address...eg it will be something like 10.0.1.6
WiFi is termed en1 and ethernet is termed en0....how you're connected to the router should be autodetected and it's this that's displayed in the drop down.
4 Launch the server

IGNORE OPTION 5.....don't need it



Go into the Wii Opera browser and type your computer address into the address bar followed by the port you chose.....in my example it would be

10.0.1.6:696969

That's it.
You should now be able to browse and play your entire iTunes library (or any library you choose) from the comfort of your telly.
Even the artwork (if you have it) is displayed :cool:

The only downside is that it currently only works with mp3 files, but it's still quite a cool little app to have.

[stevebutt]

Downloading now, sounds like a good app.

Got alot of music i can use

[Hodgeworth]

Sounds good! Might give it a go later, cheers for the info

[stevebutt]

Working well so far, only problem so far is copying my music from the "my music" folder to;

My Music

Place MP3's in:

Windows: C:\Program Files\Red Kawa\Media Center\software\Music\music

Will probably have to leave the PC on for at least the next few hours

[Gaffer]

Originally Posted by stevebutt

Working well so far, only problem so far is copying my music from the "my music" folder to;

My Music

Place MP3's in:

Windows: C:\Program Files\Red Kawa\Media Center\software\Music\music

Will probably have to leave the PC on for at least the next few hours

I had the same prob with media center x

The advantage of wiisic is that you specify the folder yourself, so you don't need to duplicate anything.


Oh, btw, you can simply create a softlink of your "My Music" folder and place it into the "media center x--->my music" folder, and that should (in theory) redirect the browser/prog to the folder you want. Again avoiding the need for you to copy mp3's anywhere.

Not being a PC man myself, I'm not sure how you make softlinks on XP, but I'm sure someone else here knows.

[Carrera_C]

Ok, I went ahead to download Media Centre X from the website, but I'm getting a permission denied error when I click the download button. Is anyone else getting this? Are there any other websites it can be downloaded from?

[Craig]

I got that error, just tried it again and it worked

[stevebutt]

I've downloaded this about one week ago, go to test it using my Wii and the first time i do, it won't play my music even though its all listed on there

[Bradwiin]

Winamp remote works too

[lesinge2k]

I followed all the instructions to download wiisic, and al I get is a blank screen... no music, no files, nothing...

update: left the port setting as 80, and it worked...