The Wii undoubtedly became one of the best selling items this past holiday season (although it can never be compared with the iPod) — and why not? The Wii is one of the freshest gaming consoles in years, which just happened to have Zelda as a launch title. Now, what other stuff can you do with it besides gaming? Well, Wii Transfer is here for your Mac so you can transfer media to your Wii and more. Keep on reading for the full review.
Videos. The app is not able to stream your videos to the Wii, yet. But the author of the app has mentioned that it’s part of the plan, although there may be some important minor updates before then. For the moment, the app can convert any QuickTime movie file for the Wii, then automatically copy it to the desired SD card, if connected.
In the tests performed, a 2GHz MacBook Pro was able to convert a 45-minute (.avi) video in about 17 minutes — although in the end, the huge 1.8GB file (because of the high-quality settings) did not play on the Wii because of the system’s own restrictions. And yes, as long as QuickTime is able to play the video, it can be converted (although certain restrictions still apply, like muxed files and those bought from iTunes). Consequently, it was possible to convert .avi, .wmv, and other type of files within Wii Transfer thanks to the QuickTime plugins that may be installed in your computer. Wii Transfer also has the ability to search for podcasts within your computer, so you can convert them in a few simple clicks.
Music. Wii Transfer can stream your MP3 collection over the web so you can play them in your Wii via the Opera browser. In the tests performed, the interface may need some work, but the whole thing worked fine. The song’s info and cover art are even displayed on the TV as it plays. Unfortunately, AAC music (even in an unprotected format) does not work with Wii Transfer, yet. Once again, the author believes that eventually this may be added, even if using a method where the music must be converted on-demand.
Photos. Not much problem, here. Your iPhoto collection can also be streamed over the web and into the Wii’s Opera browser. The only limitation besides the interface was that all the movie files within iPhoto won’t appear — so if you want them to play on the Wii, you’ll have to convert them and add them to an SD card. Something that may be useful for a future version of the app would be for it to automatically detect these movies, just like it does with the podcasts.
Game saves. If there are any saved game files in the SD card that you pop into the Mac, Wii Transfer will automatically add them to the Saved Games part of the app. There, with a single click of the Restore button, the game files can be restored to any SD card. One limitation is that sometimes these files are named in a cryptic way — some such as Twilight Princess may appear correctly, while others are only recognized by some letters or initials. But if you know your games, you may not be bothered by this.
In the end, I’m sure many of the Mac/Wii owners may appreciate this piece of software. Sure, it may be missing some features of interest — but it’s a great start, nonetheless. If a feature that you’re interested in is not here (such as AAC music support), you probably can wait for an app that does so. But if you’d like to see your MP3 and photo collection magically appear for enjoyment on the Wii, or even transfer some short videos, this app’s the best for Macs so far in terms of usefulness and easiness. And for the few remaining days of January, you can get this app for the promotional price of $9 dollars — it’s $15 after that.
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[tags]Apple,Mac,Software,Shareware,Nintendo,Wii[/tags]
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