I saw other people share their projects, so i assume it was good to do the same.
Important: this project is NOT affiliated with Pretendo, its only made to eventually use their 3rd party authentication services, but unless they get interested in the idea of the TVii app, thats really It.
Nintendo TVii revival? wasnt that impossible due to licensing issues?
No, the original US Nintendo TVii didnt license anything other than APIs for pulling TV guide data, and programs/movies/actors metadata, trailers, live stats for football related sports, and it didnt stream any type of media.
So… whats this?
Its an (made for fun) revival project of the US Nintendo TVii.
The UI is recreated from scratch (except some assets) since, no HTML dumps of the original app exist or have ever been backuped.
Currently, it scrapes from Zap2It to get TV listings for US/Canada
TV programs and Movies are listed normally thanks to the TheMovieDB.org API.
You can (currently) search, get popular shows/movies, and see actor information, you can see trailers, description, and more info about programs (still in development).
TVii allowed you to comment on the programs/sports, and those comment would be crossposted to other social media (Crossposting to Miiverse/Bluesky already works!, Tumblr is still not complete but possible, and X and Facebook wont be supported due to pricing reasons)
Commenting (chat) is in development, and Doodling over screenshots of the program is also in development (It has been implemented UI only on an earlier instance of this project, it is completely functional on the app, drawing, changing color and exporting the drawing worked fine in the technical side)
Live sports stats are also in development, since i have found an API that seems functional, but it might be ratelimited due to limitations with pricing, unless it gets some funding.
(this picture up here its an UI/API mockup example only for the programs listings, but it will soon implemented to actually pull live programs (Zap2It API) and even programs on Streaming platforms (TheMovieDB.org API)
A TV remote that shows your favorite channels is implemented, very similar to the redesigned one of US TVii, still in development to actually pull your Favorite Channels.
This is the main menu.
This is an (early) remade version of Settings page.
About tab.
This is really cool, but, other than the live sports stats, and the commenting/doodling features, this doesnt really seem useful to me…? I cant really see anything here
Yeah, while the TV guide might be useful only if you have live TV/Cable, and you might actually use the stats feature, it might not be the MOST useful app there, but im only reviving it for the fun of it! and because i think TVii is a really neat app!!!
This revival works on the actual app…?
Obviously, i have optimized it a lot, and i got it running fast as possible on it, it isnt PJAX/Multi page based (earlier versions of this revival were multi page based, which caused terrible performance and many many bugs), but rather modal/templating based, and it doesnt really scroll the entire page unlike web apps like Miiverse/eShop, but rather, it works with scrollable divs.
I have also been able to use the APIs fine (at least in my Proxy experience) and didnt have any SSL issues with the API services.
Can i use Jellyfin/Plex on this? Can i see Live TV or movies here?
No, TVii does not stream any content, it just works as an app to see information about programs, comment about them with other people, and see sports stats of upcoming games.
In a technical level, the app doesnt have enough memory to handle long video streams or videos at all, and it only works with short videos (perfect for trailers, with US TVii supported and this version will soon)
Can i use this on Pretendo? Is it free? Can i test for it?
Uh, no, since Pretendo doesnt return any valid authentication tokens for TVii or even has game servers for it at all.
This project was made with the “3rd party service” in mind, mentioned by Jon before so other homebrew devs could use Pretendos services (like authentication) for their 3rd party projects (not officially part of Pretendo)
Also, yes its free, the original app was free too, tho it might be limited, unless users donate or i find a way to fund the Sports APIs to increment the requests allowed (+ some server side temporal caching of these responses)
No, you cant test for it, i havent even implemented an authentication server yet (since Setup Wizard is not finished yet), i have been debugging with a fake token and on Charles Proxy, and not in the Pretendo enviroment, but other Nintendo enviroment.
Wasnt the TVii icon removed in an update? Is there a way to bring it back
Methods such as TVii.wuhb, and the “men.rpx” patch work to bring the icon back, tho with its issues (not being able to start the app from HBM, men.rpx patch breaking Daily Log) so i was working or experimenting with an Inkay fork that does memory patches to the Wii U Menu to re-enable the TVii icon, (testing with comparing the latest Japanese executable with the US one to see differences), and same for the HBM.
This potential Inkay fork would also patch the RPL with the TVii URLs (vino_main.rpl) and also patch Miiverse support for it (Inkay doesnt affect TVii for Miiverse patching, since TVii is an applet)
If you have any recommendations or opinions, please tell me below!
