iPlayer hands-on demonstration. The iPlayer is an intriguing Nintendo DS flashcart, and not just because it purposely prohibits any loading of pirated or commercial ROMs, (though the device will run homebrew games).

This DSi-compatible product is specifically designed to play media files on your handheld. Current carts can already play videos using applications like Moonshell, but only after using PC-side software to convert the file to DPG first due to the DS’s CPU limitations.

The iPlayer uses a built-in CPU and extra RAM to “decode various file formats on the fly”, enabling it to support codecs such as DivX, Xvid, Quicktime, Windows Media Video, MPEG, Flash video, etc. As you’ll see in the above walkthrough, it works as advertised — jump to the 2:00 mark for the video portion.

GBAtemp’s initial impressions of the cart so far are positive, too — it sounds a lot like the media-playing solution that many hoped the DSi would turn into with future firmware updates, except it will be available in the coming months instead of in several years (if at all), and isn’t restricted to inconvenient file formats.

See also: DSi flashcarts technically illegal

tags / homebrew / iplayer / flashcart / media player / ec