B-Log | Work / Play / Create

10 Mar 2010

Hulu, Netflix on the Wii

So…I geeked out last night for longer than I would care to admit attempting to push Hulu to my Wii. The end result? I did eventually get Hulu pushed through my Wii but not without the help of Playon Digital Media Server, Parallels Desktop (only needed if you are a Mac user like me) and the Wii Internet Channel. None-the-less, at the end of the night I was watching my shows from Hulu on my TV via my Wii.

Here’s what I used and how I set it all up:

1) Download PlayOn Media Server. It’s a 14 day free trail, if you decide it’s the right program for you it’s around $40 to purchase a license.

2) Run the Installer. If you are a Mac user (like me) you will need to have installed or purchased Parallels Desktop or install Apple Boot Camp to run Windows on your Mac. Sucks but until PlayOn develops a native Mac application it’s the road we have to walk down.

3) Enter your Hulu, Netflix etc. account info so the media server can access your ques.

4) Configure Parallels. To get Parallels to properly stream the data we need to change a few settings. Under “Virtual Machine Configuration” click on “Network Adapter 1″ and either change or confirm that the settings are as follows: Network Adapter 1 is “enabled” and “connected” (should be two check boxes) and that under the drop down we select “Bridged Ethernet”. That should be it. Just save the settings and restart Parallels.

This is by no means a definitive guide, just the process I went through to get it up and running. Here’s a link to a more detailed guide. The screenshots are a little out dated but they worked for me.

It was all a huge pain especially since I had to run it through Parallels but it worked and when it was all said-and-done it worked pretty well. Happy streaming.

03 Mar 2010