Nintendo Wii Fanboy

I actually use the Internet Channel alot. I have noticed that I am on my computer less because of it.

The Mii Channel is something I just don't get.. I hear and read about how people love the Miis and love making them. To me, it's just a hassle. Maybe I'll like them one day, but for now, I don't.

When I first bought my Wii, I used the Photo Channel alot. Now, I have cut back some. But I still like it.

The Weather Channel, I don't care what others think, I love it. I love everything about it, and I find it to be quite useful. I love how when you move over a city that's raining, it plays the sound of rain. It's just very thought out, and I find it to be very peaceful.

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I got my Wii yesterday (Woo!), but I didn't even see the browser. I didn't think about it until you posted this. Do I need to enable it somewhere? I'll take a look when I get back home later today.

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I personally don't use many of the channels at all. I have my laptop near by if I want to use the internet or check the weather (Forecast Channel doesn't update fast enough). I use the Mii channel every now and then just to see if I have received any new Mii's from friends and see if the parade has gotten any bigger.

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Yeah bros, I use the internet channel all the time. The Weather Channel is actually faster than waiting for the morning news to actually tell me what it's doing outside before I go to work. Photos , I have no use for. The Mii channel, I just pick up new Mii's from the parade.

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I like the internet channel and the weather channel, I usually play with them after coming back from the local tavern. Nothing like watching Foamy the Squirrel (www.illwillpress.com) when you are trashed. I have used the photo channel somewhat, but I guess I find it too much of a hassle to get up, take the SD card out of the camera and put it into the Wii after removing its SD card. I guess I am that lazy I would rather just look at the photos on the computer.

I would like to see a DS Demo Download channel. Where is all this WiFi connectivity with the Wii and DS? I have yet to see any except some rumors about Pokemon, but that is for kids and I never liked Pokemon anyways.

BTW Kevin, to get the internet browser you need to go to the Wii Shop channel, then click on Wii Ware, then you can download the Internet channel.

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I'm lovin the web browser for watching Youtube videos from the couch - http://www.miitube.co.uk makes the experience a little more Wii friendly.

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Thanks for the info, neo. What about the News Channel? I have that channel open, but when I click on it, it tells me it needs to update before I can use it. When it tries to update itself, it says there are no new updates available. Is the News Channel not available to anyone yet?

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I get the same thing Kevin. Just got mine yesterday as well.

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I consider this stuff as a bonus, certainly not why I bought it, but think it is pretty cool. The weather channel needs to get more up to date info but I think it is great. The internet channel is something that I am starting to use a lot. It is great to be able to go to IMDB or the wikipedia right after watching a movie to answer those "so how old was so-and-so in this movie" questions. My kids use it to play flash based games. And I will occassionally read the BBC news on it.

My only real complaint is that it seems to take a while for the internet connection to become established, and sometimes it plain does not work (and my network connection is fine during these times).

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The News Channel becomes available to North America and Europe on January 27.

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Some channels I'd like to see in the future:

RSS channel
Media Player channel (with podcast support, bonjour support, and possibly direct integration with YouTube)

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I use the internet channel occasionally, the Mii channel whenever someone new plays, Never use the photo channel, and I do actually use the weather channel. The news channel will probably be the same way, used on occasion to either show off the capabilities of the system, or when you're too lazy to get off of the couch. What I would like to see is maybe a music channel where you could listen to music with your Wii. You could just load up the songs the same as you do photos, and I know Nintendo could think of something creative for the screen visualization while the music is playing.

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I only use the Browser to go to sites like wiiarcade.com to play funky flash games with the remote. To this extent, I'd score the Browser high, maybe 8/10. For actual browsing, such as catching up on news, I think it does a poor job due to the resolution of the output.

I haven't touched the photo channel, only for the fact that I don't have a digital camera. I'm not much into photo taking.

The Weather channel is fun and interesting. When I have the Wii on, I flip to it to see the five-day forcast. But I'm not turning the Wii on just to check the weather. And since I'm less concerned about the CURRENT weather than I am about the FUTURE weather, a few hour difference in the update time doesn't bother me. Score: 7/10

The Shop Channel is amazing. I didn't expect to be interested in the VC games, but I've already got a few and I have several points cards sitting in a drawer waiting for the release of Super Mario World, Star Fox 64, and at least a dozen others. I even went out and bought a classic controller yesterday. My only complaint about this channel, and it is a common one, is the time needed to connect and navigate through the pages. I have high speed internet (cable), and it still takes 3 or 4 minutes to get into the Shop Channel and about 20 seconds to flip pages. Nintendo: add more bandwidth to your server system and I'd score this channel high. As it stands, 6/10.

So we come to the Mii Plaza, the most used feature of the Wii, at least from what I've seen. I was skeptical of the use of Miis when it was first announced, but this feature has sold the Wii to several of my friends already. My girlfriend spent several hours creating Miis before she even put in Wii Sports. After many hours on the channel myself, the only thing I'd like is MORE options for Miis. I have about 40 Miis and have had a ton of fun creating them. 9.5 / 10, scored down only for what the feature COULD have.

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I use the browser for checking TV listings, movie details on IMDB, news, googling/wikiing, and some blogs. I prefer the sites which have the main content in a narrow column, so it's easy to zoom in and read. It's actually much easier on the eyes than I thought it would be.

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Internet Browser
The fact that you have to use the on screen keyboard is the main reason that I don't use the internet browser. It takes too long (compared to using a computer) to navigate from site to site.

Weather Channel
It would be nice to see actual data on the globe view, rather than just the location. For example, if I want to see what sort of weather is headed my way, I have to click on a bunch of individual cities rather than just seeing a standard "high/low temp" number next to the city name. Additionally I'd like to see some sort of Doppler radar associated with it so I could see any precipitation headed my way as well.

Photo Channel
Don't use it. Don't plan on using it.

Mii Channel
Love it. When people come over they seem to have just as much fun creating Miis as they do playing the games (which is saying a lot since they LOVE the games, and most of them are previous non-gamers)

Shop Channel
The Shop Channel isn't that bad. I wish they would release more games for download (cough...Goldeneye...cough,cough), since most of the NES stuff up there is boring. Lets go big N, bust out some N64 titles already!

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I use the internet channel maybe more than I play games. Between youtube, wii fanboy, digg, peekvid, ect. I'm busy for HOURS. Comfortable sitting on my awsome couch with my 50" TV :). I havent gone on my comp prob since i got the internet channel. They need to apply some things to the final version though. Tabs, controler button shoftcuts, and most important of all, a wireless keyboard option.

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The weather sucks, this is the weather "as of" some 10-18 hours ago. Why can't it at least update every hour?

As for the browser, it has created a new ritual. Instead of waking up last minute and scrambling around trying to get ready for work, we wake up an hour early and drink coffee while watching peekvid.com (it's suffering from overload at the moment) but it's great to sit down together and talk and watch whatever show we want and drink coffee to start the day.
We've gone through kicks of 70's Show, Whose Line, Scrubs and many others, but now we're on Twilight Zone.

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I just got my Wii yesterday. My fiancee loves the Mii Channel. That's all she wants to use. It was fun creating them, but it's even more fun seeing the Miis show up in Sports and Wario Ware.

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I use the internet channel a lot thanks to YouTube and other videosharing sites. AllFC.org + Wii = any TV show I want on my TV. Granted, the quality is bad, but I love it.

I don't touch the weather channel, it's much easier for me to look outside or on the computer.

I doubt I'll touch the news channel when it comes, as well. It'll be interesting to see what else is in store, though.

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The photo channel is fun to do puzzles on videos, ofcourse half the time the videos wont play although i got some episodes of teh office on. I occasionally use the weather channel for 5-day forecasts but i dont really need to check the temperature 6 hours ago so its pretty pointless. Internet channel i use quite a bit. its great for youtube and stuff, better then the computer. Making Mii's is fun every once and a while. Whenever someoen new plays or to create celbrities. A demochannel would be great. Get some wii and ds demos.

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I use the weather channel i live in new york,newyork queens and my weather updates every 3-2 hours and i also use the browser I really want to see a music/video channel where u can easily access your music and have the ability to watch your own videos and i really want them to fix tat wii code problem i heard that we are going to have individual codes for each online game

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I wish they had a Wii internet radio station channel.

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I don't use any of the channels anymore. I think they are waste of memory space. Why use photo and internet channels when you have a computer? Why use the weather channel when the weather info is like half day late. Just turn on the real weather channel on your cable TV.

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for me everything's okay except for the Internet Channel:
for whatever reason, if I'm using WEP encryption for my wireless internet, it will freeze about 10 seconds after I start it up. Using WPA or no encryption whatsoever works fine.

Also, while I don't think this will ever happen, I would love to see a multimedia channel that plays mp3s from CDs DVDs and SD cards, videos (mpeg-1, DivX) as well as Shoutcast streams.

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I would love to see an e-mail client channel. Like Outlook or Thunderbird for the Wii. Sure, I can log into Gmail using the Opera Browser, but it's not really meant for the Wii's low resolution. I want a custom Wii e-mail client with big buttons and text.

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I use finetune.com through the wii browser. It works great. Nothing much else, just playing games.

Warioware is the shit!!

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Photo Channel:
It's limited, but I don't take enough pictures for it to be useful. I suppose I'll get more use out of it when I come back from a vacation or something.

Weather Channel:
It's out-of-date (including the forecasts), but it's fun to look around the world. I'm sure they'll work on improving this.

Internet Channel:
I think this has the most potential. I find it useful for Checking my web email, playing simple flash games, and catching up on news. Text is hard to read on many sites, so it would be nice if Opera worked on they zooming capabilities. Also, the Back button doesn't always work, especially with sites that have pop-ups (or use new-window links).

News Channel:
I'm not expecting much from this one. We'll see this weekend.

Mii Channel:
I really haven't gotten into this yet, so I'm not a good judge.

Shopping Channel:
I think it's great (one of the main reasons for buying a Wii). Sometimes it displays incorrectly, and searching through the lists of games can be a bit confusing (the paging of items isn't all that obvious). Also, downloading large files (like the browser) gets really annoying when Mario starts banging on the coin box!!

Channels I'd like to see:
VNC Channel - control your computer from your Wii.

File Transfer Channel - Share files (mostly photos, videos) with machines on your network.

Widget-like Channels - Channels that display information on the Home screen, without having to enter the channel.

Custom Channels - Let the Wii community make their own channels!


Internet Channel Improvements I'd Like:
Download / Uploading files
Better Wii Remote / Flash integration
Tabbed Browsing / Reliable Back Button

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Yeah , It hink That At least }The Upgrade To The Internet Channel I mean More FIREFOX based Than Opera

And I Think That Thw Wii Must Have A Wii Media jukebox Or Player Like A psp And Support To external Usb Devices
like Awebcam So you will have Wii Chat Channel (When I thInk About That I Really Want To Share This Idea)

Wii Chat Channel:
Live Chat With Other Wiis Around The World
Use Your Mi For Online games
Voice and Videochat For Better Comunication

Wii Media Channel
MP3, Mp4 , Avi, Divx , Mpeg , Mpjg , X vid , aac , atrac (maybe) And A lot More Files

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for people getting slow load time on the internet channel change your router channel to 1 or 11. the defult is 6. this will make a huge difference.
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the only thing the wii needs rigt now is a demo channel.

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@22, Travis, there's a couple web sites that stream internet radio that have been optimized for the Wii. I went to one and it worked very well. I can't recall any of the names off the top of my head, but they shouldn't be too hard to Google. You can add one to your favorite places on the Internet Channel and just leave it on.

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Great discussion again! I think I can throw a little more light on the photo channel.

Family and Friends: We use this extensively to show pictures to relatives when they visit. Its so much easier viewing photos like this than trying to cram around an album. You also get to put have your favourite music in the background!

Kids Fun: Our kids (2 and 4) also enjoy watch slide shows of themselves. Our oldest has also had a bash at some of the photo editing features. She loves splating sun glasses on various family members!

Home Movies: We had taken some home movies over Christmas, and its great to be able to easily play them on the Wii. I particularly like the way the background music fades to half volume when a video starts to play, so you can hear its audio.

Video: Finally, I am just looking into converting video files to a Wii compatible format. There are a few different ways to achieve this, (hope you don't mind a few links):
-Orb (http://www.orb.com/): Web browser streaming.
-Dot tunes (http://www.dottunes.net/wii.html): Flash player that hooks into your itunes library.
-Red Kawa (http://www.redkawa.com/mediacenters/wiimediacenterx/): Enables you to convert files to a format playable on the photo channel.

Although not as popular as the Mii channel, the photo channel has a few hidden gems that shouldn't be overlooked.

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comment #15

if you use the left and right on the d-pad in weather channel, you can scroll through other data without selecting the individual city.

about channels

I think the internet chanel is awsome for group browsing.

A seperate media channel would be great, but a nice media extender to play stuff from your computer over the net can be found for free at www.orb.com

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I use the Internet Channel a decent amount, mainly reading blogs and the like. It took a few minutes to set up my bookmarks the first time, but now it's great. I'd use it 10x more if it was possible to go to it without killing a game, though. Nintendo should put some sort of save-state tech in so that going to the Wii Menu doesn't end a game.

Mii Plaza -- meh. I made me and my friends in the first few weeks. Don't touch it much now.

Weather Channel -- I open it occassionally. I'd be a lot happier if you could make it show the five-day forecast on the menu instead of just the current weather.

Photo Channel -- opened it once with a few pictures to see how it worked. If I actually took digital pictures more, it might get some use.

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My internet channel freezes all the time and forces me to do a hard reset. I'll eventually try to use WPA encryption instead of WEP like was stated in post #24. I'm hoping there's an update on the 27th included with the News channel that will fix it though.

I do sometimes use the Forecast channel and everybody who's ever played on our Wii has made a Mii.

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i use all of the channels, exept the wii shop and photo channels. i don't use the wii shop channel because i ran out of points(i only have 100, and i have no money), and the hoto channel i never use because its too picky with file formats

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I use the Photo Channel just to listen to music, I've never bothered with the Shop Channel before Its completely useless unless you have points (No points :( ), and I enjoy the internet channel, just for a past time so I don't have to get up and go to my computer to search something.

I'd like to see a CD or DVD player channel on the Wii, seeing as it is capable of reading them, as well I wouldn't mind seeing a nice Media Player channel, so I can hook up to my iTunes on my Wii or something along those lines.

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