MoonShell
Encyclopedia
MoonShell is a homebrew
multimedia player for the Nintendo DS
, Nintendo DS lite, Nintendo DSi, and Nintendo 3DS. It is a well known, popular piece of Nintendo DS homebrew
software,
and offers a way to play videos and audio on the DS, along with other homebrew games.
Published development versions of MoonShell began with "ver0.1" on August 2, 2005. Current releases of the player support DPG video files, MP3
/ OGG
/ MOD
/ SPC
/ MDX
(no PCM) / GBS
/ HES
/ NSF
/ XM / MIDI / WMA
/ low bit rate AAC
audio / non-progressive JPEG
/ BMP / GIF
/ PNG images, text files, and ebooks. The latest version (2.10) can play FLAC
files, though with some audible sound distortion. MoonShell plays videos at 20fps (higher frame rates are possible but slowdown may occur, especially in video scenes with a lot of motion), with joint stereo sound at a sample rate of 32.768 kHz. Both screens on the DS
are used, with the bottom screen allowing file selection and control via touchscreen
. The integrated plug-in system provides extensibility of program features. To add a feature, the plug-in files are simply copied to the appropriate folder. In order to function as a media player, several plug-in files are distributed with the software.
MoonShell is included as the default multimedia player for the commercial products N-Card, R4 DS, EDGE, CycloDS, i-cheat XTRA, M3 DS Simply, M3i Zero and SuperCard DSTWO. The EZFlash V Flash Card and SuperCard One has modified Moonshell source code for firmware use which can be used for booting NDS files. Another modification made for the product M3 Real is the DSM Player. MoonShell installation depends upon the modchip
built into these products.
, the programs
and Mac OS X
, MEncoder
is capable of producing compatible files if given the right settings, and numerous scripts such as
Nintendo DS homebrew
Nintendo DS homebrew software is unofficial software written for the Nintendo DS by hobbyist programmers, as opposed to software written by a game production company or corporation . The DS homebrew software is typically used on the DS via third-party rewritable game cartridges, or SD cards...
multimedia player for the Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
, Nintendo DS lite, Nintendo DSi, and Nintendo 3DS. It is a well known, popular piece of Nintendo DS homebrew
Nintendo DS homebrew
Nintendo DS homebrew software is unofficial software written for the Nintendo DS by hobbyist programmers, as opposed to software written by a game production company or corporation . The DS homebrew software is typically used on the DS via third-party rewritable game cartridges, or SD cards...
software,
and offers a way to play videos and audio on the DS, along with other homebrew games.
Published development versions of MoonShell began with "ver0.1" on August 2, 2005. Current releases of the player support DPG video files, MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
/ OGG
Ogg
Ogg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The Ogg container format can multiplex...
/ MOD
MOD (file format)
MOD is a computer file format used primarily to represent music, and was the first module file format. MOD files use the “.MOD” file extension, except on the Amiga where the original trackers instead use a “mod.” prefix scheme, e.g. “mod.echoing”...
/ SPC
SPC700 sound format
An SPC700 sound file is a video game music file consisting of scores and music data from RAM used by the SPC700 sound chip on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System or Super Famicom...
/ MDX
X68000's MDX
MDX is a Music Macro Language based format designed to be played on the Sharp X68000 series of computers. The music data is programmed then compiled into the MDX file. An optional PDX file containing PCM data may be present....
(no PCM) / GBS
Game Boy Sound System
The Game Boy Sound System for the Game Boy is akin to the sound system of the Nintendo Entertainment System , the difference being that GBS has a higher pitch than NES sound format...
/ HES
Pcengine HES sound format
HES files are music rips of PC Engine / TurboGrafx games. They are comparable to NSF files from the Nintendo Entertainment System. The HES sound format was devised by in 1999....
/ NSF
NES Sound Format
NSF is the DOS 8.3 filename Filename extension of the audio file format originally designated as NESM by the inventor Kevin Horton. This format was originally designed for playback in a custom hardware device named HardNES by the inventor...
/ XM / MIDI / WMA
Windows Media Audio
Windows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs...
/ low bit rate AAC
Advanced Audio Coding
Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
audio / non-progressive JPEG
JPEG
In computing, JPEG . The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality....
/ BMP / GIF
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability....
/ PNG images, text files, and ebooks. The latest version (2.10) can play FLAC
FLAC
FLAC is a codec which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost...
files, though with some audible sound distortion. MoonShell plays videos at 20fps (higher frame rates are possible but slowdown may occur, especially in video scenes with a lot of motion), with joint stereo sound at a sample rate of 32.768 kHz. Both screens on the DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
are used, with the bottom screen allowing file selection and control via touchscreen
Touchscreen
A touchscreen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touching the display of the device with a finger or hand. Touchscreens can also sense other passive objects, such as a stylus...
. The integrated plug-in system provides extensibility of program features. To add a feature, the plug-in files are simply copied to the appropriate folder. In order to function as a media player, several plug-in files are distributed with the software.
MoonShell is included as the default multimedia player for the commercial products N-Card, R4 DS, EDGE, CycloDS, i-cheat XTRA, M3 DS Simply, M3i Zero and SuperCard DSTWO. The EZFlash V Flash Card and SuperCard One has modified Moonshell source code for firmware use which can be used for booting NDS files. Another modification made for the product M3 Real is the DSM Player. MoonShell installation depends upon the modchip
Modchip
A modchip is a small electronic device used to modify or disable built-in restrictions and limitations of computers, specifically videogame consoles...
built into these products.
Video encoding
There are several methods of encoding standard video formats into the DS-native DPG video format. On Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, the programs
SUPER,, batchDPG, dpgenc, the latter being included with the MoonShell package, and Daniusoft video converter ultimate, are able to convert a wide variety of video formats into DPG format. There are also other alternatives for Windows. On other platforms, such as LinuxLinux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
and Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, MEncoder
MEncoder
MEncoder is a free command line video decoding, encoding and filtering tool released under the GNU General Public License. It is a close sibling to MPlayer and can convert all the formats that MPlayer understands into a variety of compressed and uncompressed formats using different codecs.MEncoder...
is capable of producing compatible files if given the right settings, and numerous scripts such as
mpeg_stat and DPG Converter exist to automate this process. Additionally, the Moon Books Project website offers browser-based online video conversion, providing another platform-neutral alternative.