If you own a Nintendo DS with some sort of flash cart (eg. R4DS, Supercard, M3 etc), you can almost certainly run a homebrew multimedia program named Moonshell. Moonshell is able to play videos, but they must be in .dpg format. While many solutions for converting other formats to .dpg exist in Windows, there have been remarkably few efforts to create a similar program for Mac OSX. This guide outlines the best and easiest method to use on Mac OSX.
Setup
Download the software listed and create a folder named Mac
DPG Conversion.[DPG Converter]
Place the files inside this folder and extract, open any
Disk images and make sure that all the applications listed are placed there.
Creating the right AVI
Drag your chosen video onto MPEG Streamclip and go to File
> Export to AVI.Make sure that it is encoded as a 15 fps 256*192 avi with MPEG-2 128 kps sound. Now click Make Avi. When your AVI has been converted, open it using MPlayerOSX (if you have not bought the Quicktime MPEG-2 plugin) and check that the video has been converted properly. If the video has been 'squeezed' -everything has been made thin and tall- change your Zoom X/Y settings before reconverting the video.
You can now check your AVI using MPlayerOSX or/and VLC.
Creating the DPG
Open DPG Converter and open Prefences
Make sure that video quality is set to best and audio quality is set to better. If you want your video in stereo, be sure to tick the Stereo box. Click done.
Drag your
Avi video into the window and click Start You should now have a working DPG. Connect your flash cart to your computer and drop your video to a chosen folder.
Playing the video file
Boot up your flash cart and open Moonshell
Find your video and watch.
AVI Tips
You do not need to purchase the Quicktime MPEG-2 plugin if
You wish to convert from DVD to DPG or wish to view AVI files.
Some of the compression settings will lead to bad quality
Or overly large files. Quality settings that work well include Apple Photo - JPEG at 65% quality or Apple PNG (quality seems not to matter with this type of compression).
Checking the AVI using BOTH MPlayerOSX and VLC will make
Clear that any playback problem is the fault of either the video file or video player.
DPG tips
DPG Converter will crash if the preferences are changed
Twice in one session.
Users have reported that video lags slightly behind sound -
You may want to experiment with your own DPG Converter settings.
Moonshell Tips
This DPG Converter will only create old DPGs -not the new
DPGs that allow instant jumping to any point in the video and usable rewind/forward-wind. When skipping sections the colours and shapes of the video will mess up, but this disappears a few seconds later.
Moonshell - when downloaded from its homepage - is packaged
As a windows .exe, so you will need to download it from the R4DS homepage, where it is named DS_MSHL.nds.
Other Tips
Try to use the stable versions of the programs listed, as
The unstable versions may have bugs that affect the conversion.
MPEG Streamclip also allows you to save and convert youtube
Videos and other streamed videos.
Warnings
- MEncoder MUST be in the same folder as DPG Converter for the final conversion to work
- You may need a few gigabytes of space on your hard drive if you are converting large video files.
Hardware
A Macintosh computer running OSX (preferably 10
4 PPC or later)
A Nintendo DS
A rewritable flashcart capable of running moonshell.
Software
Moonshell:
Exe can be found here, .nds can be found here packaged with R4DS firmware.
MPEGStreamclip
DPGConverter (for mac) -Version 0.2.0
MEncoder
If you have not bought the Quicktime MPEG-2 playback
Plugin: MPlayerOSX or VLC
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