Have you been wondering how to convert movies to a playable format for you Nintendo DS?
The wondering stops now!

We’ll convert our movies so we can play them in Moonshell. Don’t know how to install Moonshell? Read this post first. It explains how to install Moonshell.

To play movies in Moonshell, you’ll have to convert the movies to a DPG file.
I found a great converter called BatchDPG. This converter will help us very much later on!

Before we want to use BatchDPG we need to install a few things:

• AviSynth
• Microsoft dot net Framework
• ffdshow

After installing all those files, you can download and install BatchDPG (download).

Open to application, and if you installed all the components above it shouldn’t give an error.

Given above is the main screen you should see after installing BatchDPG.

In the input section choose a file you want to convert, you can also add a subtitle file.

In the output section you can choose the directory where to save your dpg file (the output field)

If you want, you can change the setting in the video and audio section. But it is set to a good format by default anyway.

To add your movie file to the queue press the button add at the bottom.

You can now either choose to add another file through the input section or start converting the movie to a dpg file.

Press run and it should start converting the list of movies you added.

This might take a while depending on the speed of your computer and the length of the movie.

The only thing left to do after converting is to copy the dpg files to your memory card.
Start up Moonshell and select your movie files.

Have fun!

Moonshell is a homebrew application which you can run on your Nintendo DS. It is compatible with a large variety of adapters.
Since I have the M3DS Real adapter this entry might not follow the correct steps if you use a different card.

But since Moonshell supports many different cards, I assume it’s all the same.

1. Connect your card to your computer
2. Create a backup of your whole card to your computer (Moonshell might empty your card)
3. Download Moonshell (version 1.71)

The zip-file contains a folder, and in that folder is the file: setup.exe. Run this file.

You should get a screen like this:

Select the drive you want to install Moonshell on, it should indicate your card as a removable.
Click OK.

So on the next screen you’ll a lot of options. Maybe to much, but it’s quiet simple actually; Uncheck ALL the roms to the right, you don’t need all of them I suppose.

Look at this list again and find your card. If it’s not there (or you’re not sure), just try to pick the same product name and the type of memory card you have (SD works on micro-sd too).
Btw: I choose a Micro-SD version which was not marked as M3DS Real, but it works.

You can change the other settings, but I didn’t bother trying.

Hit setup!

Give it a minute or so, get some coffee~

It should say it is installed on your card, yay!
Btw: Check your memory card if all the contents are still on there. If not: copy your backup back to your card. If you did not backup: I told you so.

Let’s put some media on your memory card.
I created a media folder containing a music, video and image folder.

Put some mp3’s into the music folder and some jpg’s into the images folder. Read more about movies in this entry.

Disconnect your card and put it back into your Nintendo DS.

Boot it up and run the .nds file Moonshell setup has stored for you. (Mine was called: MoonShell_R4TF_M3Simply-R4DS (MicroSD Card).nds)
If you use M3DS Real, running homebrew can be done by choosing the data option in the startup menu.

Don’t let the boot up of Moonshell scare you. You’ll look like a pro hacker from a movie though.

In the top half of your screen you’ll see the folder structure of your card.

Go to the media folder you created (or what ever you called it). You can navigate using the arrow keys and open files using A and B to close a file or move back one folder.

Play with Moonlight a bit, it’s a nice tool.
Cool feature is that you can close the lid while playing an mp3. But it seems to restart once you open the lid again.

Stay tuned for a insight view on how to get movies on your DS and play them using Moonlight.