Difference between revisions of "Forecast Channel"

	Forecast Channel
Version	0.7 (7)
Title ID	HAFA, HAFx
Type	General channel
Installed from	System Update
Peripherals

Latest revision as of 05:23, 23 September 2023

Forecast Channel allows weather reports and forecasts to be downloaded onto the console from the Internet via the WiiConnect24 service. Since the official servers for this were discontinued on June 28, 2013, RiiConnect24 has since bought this back.

The data files are RSA-2048-SHA1 signed, and the LZ10 compressed content begins at 0x140. A Kaitai file documenting the file structure can be found here: forecast.bin and short.bin, and code used by RiiConnect24 to download forecast data and generate files is available here.

Description

The Forecast Channel displays a view of the Earth as a globe (courtesy of NASA), with which users can view weather in other regions. The user can also spin the globe. When fully zoomed out, an accurate star map is visible in the background (the Big Dipper and the constellation Orion are easily recognizable, for example). The Forecast Channel features include the current forecast, the UV index, today's overall forecast, tomorrow's forecast, a 5-day forecast (only for the selected country), and a laundry check (Japan only). The Forecast Channel first became available on December 19, 2006, one day earlier than previously advertised. Certain games (like Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games and NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams) can use the Forecast Channel to simulate weather conditions depending on the player's region. The channel is also well known for its peaceful music. The music also is time-sensitive, 2 different tracks (one for local music and one for globe) play for daytime and nighttime.

Region Variations

There are slight variations of Forecast Channel versions in different regions. When viewing weather conditions in Japan, a different set of weather icons is used. The Japanese icons were originally going to be used for all regions, but Nintendo of America (NOA) requested that more life-like icons be used. NOA also requested that the current weather conditions be displayed on the start-up screen. Nintendo of Europe requested that specific icons be made more distinct, such as the storm clouds so that it would be possible for the user to tell if an area is getting rain, snow, sleet, hail, or thunderstorms. Additionally, the laundry index and pollen count were only featured in the Japanese version.

System Menu 3.0 update

After the August 6 update, the Forecast Channel shows the icon for the current weather in the Wii Menu. Like the News Channel, long neglect of this channel will result in the icon not appearing, although the set time is longer than that of the News Channel.

Trivia

The Forecast Channel was developed by nearly the same team that designed the Photo Channel and News Channel.
During the development of the Forecast Channel, a thunderstorm disconnected Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Japan.

Region without the Forecast Channel

The Forecast Channel is not available in South Korea.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
+[[Category:Nintendo software]]
 {{Infobox channel
 | title       = Forecast Channel
 | image       = [[File:Forecastchannel.png|200px]]
-| desc        = Weather informations
+| desc        = Weather information
+| id          = HAFA, HAFx
+| source      = update
 | type        = General channel
 | version     = 0.7 (7)
@@ Line 10: / Line 13: @@
 Forecast Channel allows weather reports and forecasts to be downloaded onto the console from the Internet via the WiiConnect24 service. Since the official servers for this were discontinued on June 28, 2013, [[RiiConnect24]] has since bought this back.
+The data files are RSA-2048-SHA1 signed, and the LZ10 compressed content begins at 0x140. A Kaitai file documenting the file structure can be found here: [https://github.com/RiiConnect24/Kaitai-Files/blob/master/Kaitais/forecast_file.ksy forecast.bin] and [https://github.com/RiiConnect24/Kaitai-Files/blob/master/Kaitais/forecast_file_short.ksy short.bin], and code used by RiiConnect24 to download forecast data and generate files is available [https://github.com/RiiConnect24/File-Maker/tree/master/Channels/Forecast_Channel here].
 == Description ==
-The Forecast Channel displays a view of the Earth as a globe (courtesy of NASA), with which users can view weather in other regions. The user can also spin the globe. When fully zoomed out, an accurate star map is visible in the background (the Big Dipper and the constellation Orion are easily recognizable, for example). The Forecast Channel  features include the current forecast, the UV index, today's overall forecast, tomorrow's forecast, a 5-day forecast (only for the selected country), and a laundry check (Japan only). The Forecast Channel first became available on December 19, 2006, one day earlier than previously advertised. Certain games (like Madden NFL 07 and NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams) can use the Forecast Channel to simulate weather conditions depending on the player's region. The channel is also well known for its music which is calming. The music also is time-sensitive, 2 different tracks (one for local music and one for globe) play for daytime and nighttime.
+The Forecast Channel displays a view of the Earth as a globe (courtesy of NASA), with which users can view weather in other regions. The user can also spin the globe. When fully zoomed out, an accurate star map is visible in the background (the Big Dipper and the constellation Orion are easily recognizable, for example). The Forecast Channel features include the current forecast, the UV index, today's overall forecast, tomorrow's forecast, a 5-day forecast (only for the selected country), and a laundry check (Japan only). The Forecast Channel first became available on December 19, 2006, one day earlier than previously advertised. Certain games (like Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games and NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams) can use the Forecast Channel to simulate weather conditions depending on the player's region. The channel is also well known for its peaceful music. The music also is time-sensitive, 2 different tracks (one for local music and one for globe) play for daytime and nighttime.
 == Region Variations ==
-There are slight variations of Forecast Channel versions in different regions. When viewing weather conditions in Japan, a different set of weather icons is used. The Japanese icons were originally going to be used for all regions, but Nintendo of America (NOA) requested that more life-like icons be used. NOA also requested that the current weather conditions be displayed on the start up screen. Nintendo of Europe made a request that certain icons be made more distinct, such as the storm clouds, so that it would be possible for the user to tell if an area is getting rain, snow, sleet, hail, or thunderstorms. Additionally, the laundry index was only featured in the Japanese version.
+There are slight variations of Forecast Channel versions in different regions. When viewing weather conditions in Japan, a different set of weather icons is used. The Japanese icons were originally going to be used for all regions, but Nintendo of America (NOA) requested that more life-like icons be used. NOA also requested that the current weather conditions be displayed on the start-up screen. Nintendo of Europe requested that specific icons be made more distinct, such as the storm clouds so that it would be possible for the user to tell if an area is getting rain, snow, sleet, hail, or thunderstorms. Additionally, the laundry index and pollen count were only featured in the Japanese version.
 == System Menu 3.0 update ==
-After the August 6 update, Forecast Channel shows the icon for the current weather in the Wii Menu. Like the News Channel, long neglect of this channel will result in the icon not appearing, although the set time is longer than that of the News channel.
+After the August 6 update, the Forecast Channel shows the icon for the current weather in the Wii Menu. Like the News Channel, long neglect of this channel will result in the icon not appearing, although the set time is longer than that of the News Channel.
-== Region without the Forcast Channel ==
+== Trivia ==
+*The Forecast Channel was developed by nearly the same team that designed the [[Photo Channel]] and [[News Channel]].
+*During the development of the Forecast Channel, a thunderstorm disconnected Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Japan.
+== Region without the Forecast Channel ==
 The Forecast Channel is not available in South Korea.
-== Technical Information ==
-The Forecast channel download data packages from Nintendo servers via plain http connection.
-Some examples:
-http://weather.wapp.wii.com/1/076/short.bin<br />
-http://weather.wapp.wii.com/1/076/forecast.bin<br />
-http://news.wapp.wii.com/ displays a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Test Page.
-File [[WC24_Content|structure]]:
-<pre>
-$0000 - $003F: padding (00)
-$0040 - $013F: rsa encrypted sha-1 signature of rest of the file
-$0140 - $0143: header
-$0144 - .....: compressed data
-</pre>
-The compression is very [[LZ77|simple]]:
-# Read one byte
-# For each bit of the byte, msb-to-lsb,
-#* if 0, copy one byte to the output
-#* if 1, read 16 bits msb first in v, copy n bytes at offset m from the end of the output, n=3+(v>>12), m=v & fff
-Quick and very dirty C code:
-<source lang="c">
-  i = 0x144;
-  j = 0;
-  while(i < size) {
-    int k;
-    int v = data[i++];
-    for(k=0; k<8; k++)
-      if(!(v & (1 << (7-k)))) {
-        result_data[j++] = data[i++];
-      } else {
-        int vv = (data[i] << 8) | data[i+1];
-        int nb = 3+(vv >> 12);
-        int off = (vv & 0xfff);
-        int l;
-        i+=2;
-        for(l=0; l<nb; l++) {
-          result_data[j] = result_data[j-off-1];
-          j++;
-        }
-      }
-  }
-</source>
-[[Category:Software]]