Photo Channel

The Photo Channel is a built-in Wii Channel on every Wii allowing users to view and edit photographs and videos from an SD card. It also supports playback for audio files.

The user can create a slideshow by inserting an SD card with photos and audio files. The Wii automatically adds transitions between the photos, and plays either the audio files on the SD card or built-in music in the background. A built-in editor allows users to add markings and effects to their photos or videos (the edits float statically above the videos). Mosaics can also be created with this feature. Puzzles can be created from photos or videos with varying degrees of difficulty (the first puzzle is always six pieces) with 6, 12, 24 and 48 piece puzzles available, and 192 are selectable while holding on the Wii Remote. Edited photos can be saved to the Wii and sent to other Wiis using the Wii Message Board.

The Nintendo 3DS includes a standalone application for handling audio files, Nintendo 3DS Sound, whereas photo and videos are managed by the Nintendo 3DS Camera.

Supported formats
For images, the Photo Channel supports only the .jpeg and .jpg formats. These files can be up to 8192x8192 resolution and in baseline format. Photos, even high resolution ones, are compressed and decreased in resolution.

For videos, only the .mov and .avi formats are supported. All videos must be in an -compliant and use some variant of this format for their videos, with a resolution of up to 848×480 pixels (Wide VGA).

Intially, only audio files in the .mp3 format, but a later update replaced this with MPEG4-encoded audio files in the .m4a extension.

Update
Photo Channel 1.1 is an optional update to the Photo Channel that became available on the Wii Shop Channel on December 10, 2007. It allows users to customize the Photo Channel icon on the Wii Menu with photos from an SD Card or the Wii Message Board. It also allows playback of songs in random order. Only MPEG-4 encoded audio files in the .m4a extension are supported in this update.

Wii owners who updated to version 1.1 can revert to version 1.0 by deleting it from the channels menu in the data management setup. Wii units released after December 10, 2007 have the version 1.1 update pre-installed, and cannot have it downgraded to version 1.0.

Owners of Japanese systems can download a "Revert to Photo Channel 1.0" Channel from the Wii Shop Channel if desired.