Will Wii U play Blu-ray or DVD?
People who are hoping that the next-generation Nitendo Wii U would double as a DVD or Blu-ray player in your living room, you’re out of luck. According to Kotaku, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata just confirmed that the upcoming Wii U will only play Nintendo’s proprietary 25 GB game disks, even though they are the same size as Blu-ray disks.
Why Wii U exclude a DVD or Blu-ray Player?
The reason for that is that Nitendo feels that enough people already have devices that are capable of playing DVD and Blu-ray, such that it didn’t warrant the cost involved to build that functionality into the Wii U console because of the patents related to those technologies.
Fix Nitendo Wii U Blu-ray/DVD Playback issue
The lack of DVD or Blu-ray player on Nitendo Wii U makes it impossible for you to direct view Blu-ray/DVD disc on Nitendo Wii U. The good news is you can rip Blu-ray/DVD into digital file formats that’s supported by Wii U for viewing on it. But Nintendo doesn’t offer an app that will play media files from an external drive or media server. The trick is that with a media server app on your computer, you can use your Wii U’s web browser to play videos back on the TV or gamepad.
Install Media Server on your computer
Here, we recommend you to install the Plex Media Server on your Windows PC or Mac system. Plex provides a nice web interface that you can acess not just from Wii U but also other devices. In addition, it also assists you to transcode media files to the MP4 format that Wii U supports. However, as for commercial Blu-ray/DVD disc, you will need a special disc ripper application called Pavtube ByteCopy. The program not only helps you to bypass all Blu-ray/DVD copy protection automatically in the background, but also rip/convert Blu-ray/DVD to Wii U playable MP4 format on the same interface.
Related article: 3D Blu-ray to Xbox One X | Play DVD on Xbox One | Stream DVD via Plex to Smart TV
For Mac users, you can go to download Pavtube ByteCopy for Mac to complete the same ripping process on macOS High Sierra, macOS Sierra, Mac OS X El Capitan, Mac OS X Yosemite, etc.
Step by Step to Rip Blu-ray/DVD for Wii U Supported MP4
Step 1: Load Blu-ray/DVD disc into the application.
Launch this Blu-ray/DVD to Wii U converter on PC, and click “File” and “Load from disc” to import Blu-ray/DVD movie. For Blu-ray disc collectors, an external or internal Blu-ray drive is required to recognize your Blu-ray disc.
Step 2: Output Wii U preset profile format.
Click “Format” bar, from its drop-down list, select Wii U supported digital file format “H.264 HD Video(*.mp4)” under “HD Video” main category.
Step 3: Start Blu-ray/DVD to Wii U ripping process.
Stream the ripped MP4 format from Wii U’s Internet Browser
Now, grab your Wii U’s gamepad and tap the Home button to head to the home screen. Tap the “Internet Browser” icon to load the web browser – it’s that blue, globe-shaped icon at the bottom of the screen, in the center.
Tap the “Enter URL” field at the top of the screen and enter to the following address: plex.tv/web
Despite the web address, your connection won’t really be going “through” Plex’s servers. You’ll be taken to the Plex sign-in page and, after you sign it, you’ll be pointed at your local media server. The videos will stream entirely over your local network, from your PC to your Wii U, and won’t use any Internet bandwidth.
If you don’t have an internet connection, you can also directly connect to the PC running Plex. You’ll need to check your computer’s local IP address to do this. Once you have, you’ll type an address in the form: http://[IP address]:32400/web
So, if the IP address of the computer running the Plex server is 192.168.0.100, you’d type: http://192.168.0.100:32400/web
However you connect, Plex’s web interface will appear on your screen. You can browse your media library from here. Tap a video to see more information, and then tap that video again to start playing it.
