A Simple HD Dump Solution.

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NOTE: 7/18/2010 – See Correction and Update Notice regarding the previous .bat files in the next post.

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Unfortunately the WII is unable to play files over certain resolutions and bitrates, commonly referred to as HD or High Definition files and as a result WIIMC will dump, hang or terminate if one of these files is played.

Solutions have been posted on how you may stream these files from VLC after transcoding them to Standard Definition, either as a single stream http://www.wiimc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=405 or as Video-on-Demand with vlc-shares http://www.wiimc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=562 .

While these are the appropriate solutions to play these files on the WII, the problem remains as to how one can identify these HD files within ones video library, before playing directly on the WII in order to avoid the dump. Unfortunately WIIMC cannot be modified to detect these files before playing, and so a more simple solution is required.

The attached addhd.bat file will scan all files in a subdirectory and add .HD to the filename in front of the existing extension if the file meets the HD criteria as set in the bat. This criteria conforms to the “What Plays and not Plays” sticky post http://www.wiimc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=224 . It may be run repetitively in order to keep the subdirectory up-to-date as new files are added. The cut.hd bat scan all files in a subdirectory and will remove any .HD markers and restore the fienames to their original state. So “movie file name.mkv” may become “movie file name.HD.mkv” and may be restored to “movie file name.mkv”

The bats require the installation of MediaInfo.exe (Command line version) from
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/mediainfo/MediaInfo_CLI_0.7.34_Windows_i386.zip on 32 bit systems or
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/mediainfo/MediaInfo_CLI_0.7.34_Windows_x64.zip on 64 bit systems , and shortcuts to the bats should be added to your “Send to” folder so that directories can be sent to addhd or cuthd as required.

This labeling allows WIIMC users to identify their HD files within the WIIMC browser listings before playing them.

EDIT1: The patch file originally included to automate this detection contained errors and so has been removed.

EDIT2: Unfortunately with further testing showed errors in the previous addhd and cuthd bats. The corrected bats are in the attached WIIMC-HD2.zip file along with directions to the previous patch that automates detection of these files by WIIMC.

Also included is a ListVideos.bat to which directories maybe sent which will generate a list of the key attributes of all video fies in the directory. This may be used to verify the results of running the addhd and cuthd bats. This bat processes about 6 files per second on my I7 processor so be prepared to wait a bit while it runs. Running… indicators are provided. Again this bat requires MediaInfo and addition to your Send To folder as detailed above for the hd bats.

EDIT3: A small change to also add and remove .HD from any matching .srt subtitle files.

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NOTE: To accompany the automated detection of HD files included in the Enhanced WIIMC Pack, the former addhd and cuthd bat files have been enhanced and corrected. If you are one of the 11 users who downloaded WIIMC-HD.zip, please see EDIT2 at the end of the original post above and download the corrected files now contained in WIIMC-HD2.zip along with a new ListVideos.bat Report utility.

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