Joystiq Poll: Pick your next-gen movie preference

by Christopher Grant { Sep 20th 2006 at 3:30AM }

With today's announcement from Tokyo that the Xbox 360 would support the truest of all high definition resolutions, 1080p, for everything from games to HD-DVD to your existing DVDs, it got us to thinking. We already know there is a considerable amount of backlash against Sony's decision to couple Blu-ray technology to the PlayStation 3 but, if given a choice, what movie format would you opt for? You've got the Xbox 360's HD-DVD add-on (it's all about choice!); you've got the PS3's bundled Blu-ray (it's all about storage!); you've got the Xbox 360's available-this-Fall ability to upscale your DVDs (it's all about convenience!); and, lastly, you've got the Wii's inability to play any optical movie media (it's all about the games!).

Tags: Blu-ray, DVD, HD-DVD, Poll

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

ill trooper @ Sep 20th 2006 3:36AM

Ho boy... hornet's nest of comments coming - just do us all a favor and remember that BOTH formats will use DRM.

ymmv @ Sep 20th 2006 3:36AM

Where's the smart answer: I'm waiting to see what format will win?

Metaldave @ Sep 20th 2006 3:39AM

And whats wrong with the Wii answer? I tell ya, you guys just want to start flame wars these days. You shouldn't even have the Wii as part of the voting if you are going to make it sound bad.

Vote for Blu-ray(the Sony didn't ship enough because it had problems with production answer)

johnny @ Sep 20th 2006 3:43AM

Whichever one the porn industry will embrace.

Paco From Del Taco @ Sep 20th 2006 3:44AM

Its Blu-Ray all the way. Ill take 90% of the studios and 90% of the CE industry, plug better hardware and larger storage then what HD-DVD is offering. Thanks, but no thanks. HD-DVD stinks of desperation more and more everyday.

ill trooper @ Sep 20th 2006 3:45AM

The porn industry has already 'embraced' the internet, so I don't think the 'porn' formula works as reliably as it used to...

teeth.rabbits.snakes.snow.spiders @ Sep 20th 2006 3:54AM

That's like asking what do you prefer "future boxers" or "future briefs?"...I don't know i haven't been to the future yet

Matt @ Sep 20th 2006 3:50AM

"Whichever one the porn industry will embrace."
and
"I don't think the 'porn' formula works as reliably as it used to..."

Ahaha. I love it!

mjsmitho @ Sep 20th 2006 3:52AM

Where is the Upscaled DVDs and HD-DVD choice? I have an Xbox and want an HD-DVD add-on but I am not replacing my DVD library except a few choice titles . . .

C. Grant @ Sep 20th 2006 3:54AM

"You shouldn't even have the Wii as part of the voting if you are going to make it sound bad." We're not "making" it sound bad. It does sound bad. They removed a feature that, we think, a lot of consumers wanted. Licensing cost too much? Make it a paid software patch, or hardware dongle like MS did. Pass that cost off onto consumers. To remove that functionality altogether is a dubious decision when they're trying to get your grandma to use it. Wii channels, grandma ain't touching. DVD playback, she might try that.

Kite @ Sep 20th 2006 12:41PM

Honestly the only thing I care about is cost and durability, and as far as I can tell hd-dvd wins both hands down. I'd hate to pay alot of $$ for a disc and have it become unreadable when it inevitably gets a bit scratched.

Dylan @ Sep 20th 2006 3:58AM

Funny you say that about the porn industy formula, because I'm getting quite positive this whole "war" will blow ever before it really gets started once the digital distribution revolutions starts.

phipscube @ Sep 20th 2006 4:01AM

Stop overhyping this article C. Grant. The PS3 will upscale all DVD content too and be TRUE HD at 1080p (60).

The Patch will allow UPSCALING of all resolutions. It wont provide NATIVE 1080p (60).

PS3 will do true 1080p (60) in hardware.

you can't possibly do 1080p (60) without a HDMI 1.3 compliant interface. There isnt enough bandwidth on analogue outputs that the Xbox360 has. There's barely enough to do 1080p (30) on analogue.

Its nice that MS are allowing a progressive scan rate at that high a res with upscaling, but it makes you look stupid comparing it to the native capabilities of the PS3.

Nintendo have the right idea. Stay out of the mess of HD. Good choice.

Matt @ Sep 20th 2006 4:12AM

Chris can "over-hype" his own article all he wants, thank you. ;)

As far as the 1080p bull, I don't agree with either company's choice, but it's nice to see Microsoft offering it, at least they admit most games won't use it, instead of trying to launch it as a major feature of the system. A feature is not "major" unless it's used. ;)

Alistair @ Sep 20th 2006 4:12AM

This isn't a poll on the Next Gen Movie platforms, this is a fanboy counter basically. A site like this will not have the input of enough informed Home Theatre enthusiasts to get a proper read from people who know what they are talking about.

Oh, and Blu-Ray, even though I very much doubt I will ever be getting a PS3.

RiemannLebesgue @ Sep 20th 2006 4:13AM

Oh, do spare us. The anti-Wii spin in this poll is disgusting. And no, no grandma is going to care one bit about DVD playback, but being computer-phobic as many older people are, she might just like to check her weather via the Wii weather channel. If DVD playback is what you guys at Joystiq think consumers want, then frankly, Joystiq is a little bit out of touch.

C. Grant @ Sep 20th 2006 4:15AM

Good point Alistair, since only home theater enthusiasts buy game consoles or watch movies at home! Obviously the mainstream consumer market has no interest in any of these solutions. :)

Zo� K. @ Sep 20th 2006 4:24AM

I'm sorry, but I don't see a damn thing wrong with the format we currently have. It's barely even a decade old.

ill trooper @ Sep 20th 2006 4:26AM

In a topic about upcoming video-disc formats, it's not dissing the Wii to point out that it won't be involved. It's the facts. Nintendo opted to exclude movie-playback. Again, please read the topic of the post, and stop defending weird decisions by Nintendo like it's 'good' to exclude something as easy (hardware-wise), fun, and as common as watching movies.

Matt @ Sep 20th 2006 4:29AM

I love Joystiq (and it's blogger's) ability to throw sarcasm and personality into the mix. It's so refreshing, and much more authentic than that clone blog website... the one with the 'K', I forget the name. ;) :P

C. Grant @ Sep 20th 2006 4:29AM

RiemannLebesgue: are you being serious? I honestly can't tell. So people have been clamoring for a computer console to tell them the weather, but DVD playback is clearly not very popular with consumers? Thanks for setting us straight. We'll get back in touch with consumer demand asap!

RiemannLebesgue @ Sep 20th 2006 4:31AM

ill trooper,

I seriously doubt anyone is bothered by facts, but it's the way Chris wrote the post and the poll that's bothering people. He's a good enough writer to know better. He gets no slack from his readers because of that.

Zoe,

You are absolutely right. For all of the talk about the mainstream consumer market, it's amusing to me how some can ignore the fact that HD is simply not mainstream at the moment. I will fill my remaining days and nights with laughter if both of the new formats fail.

Adam @ Sep 20th 2006 4:33AM

Xbox 360 can CURRENTLY upscale your DVDs using the VGA cable. It's been able to do that since the June 6th system update.

Check it here: http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archive/2006/06/06/Daryl.aspx

Adam @ Sep 20th 2006 4:38AM

@phipscube re: #13

There is plenty of bandwidth on analog component and VGA video outputs to display 1920x1080p @ 60Hz.

HDMI is just another video transport mechanism.

digital != higher quality

RiemannLebesgue @ Sep 20th 2006 4:47AM

C. Grant, yes I'm being serious, and yes, you are out of touch (and what's worse is that you're smug about it too).

Here's the reality: People haven't been clamoring for DVD playback in their game systems. Your average consumer doesn't give a rip about that. And people haven't been clamoring for weather and news channels on their game systems. No one has been clamoring for either, nor did I suggest that such a thing was going on. However, I can see our hypothetical "grandma" looking at the Wii and thinking that she'd like that weather and news capability long before she'd care about the DVD playback especially considering the fact that she most likely already has a DVD player that was given to her by a family member.

You are more than welcome to dismiss the reaction of your readership* as being non-representative of the market if you want, but let's at least be honest that in this day and age DVD playback is not a big deal when everyone already has a DVD player. The news that the Wii will not have DVD playback was not in the least bit disappointing.

*When Nintendo announced that there wasn't going to be DVD playback, you'll notice that very few of your readers cared. Most could have given a rat's behind and they openly stated so. Only a handful said the news was disappointing.

thecactusman17 @ Sep 20th 2006 1:57PM

If I had to guess now, Blu-Ray because unlike HD-DVD or upscaled DVD, the original signal is in 1080p already. This makes a huge difference, especially in games. Games where enourmous processing power has to be devoted towards upscaling the video to an acceptable level without sacrificing framerate will have less power to devote to the actual software. Those of you who are computer gamers already know this, higher resolutions tax your computer more and leave less processing power available to handle other activities, especially graphics. Any person who has their high-def TV set to Game mode so they can play DDR and Guitar Hero in synch to the sound have already experienced this--all they've done is disabled the TVs visual upgading routines.

RiemannLebesgue @ Sep 20th 2006 4:53AM

Adam (#23), I didn't know that. Good to know.

Zo� K. @ Sep 20th 2006 5:04AM

"For all of the talk about the mainstream consumer market, it's amusing to me how some can ignore the fact that HD is simply not mainstream at the moment."

Yeah. I mean, hell, a lot of the TV sets I play on don't even have AV jacks. You think I'm worried about 1080p, let alone Blu-Ray or HD-DVD?

No, what I, and a good portion of the population are worried about are companies forcing us to spend loads of cash on marginal upgrades that will required the repurchase of an entire library.

Blu-Ray/HD-DVD adopter, "Wow, look at your DVD collection!"

Me, "Yeah, man, what'da'ya wanna watch? I got it all."

Blu-Ray/HD-DVD adopter, "Jeez, Zoe, I don't even know where to start. You have such a large collection. I'm still waiting for them to release 95% of these films on Blu-Ray/HD-DVD so I can BUY THEM ALL AGAIN."

I'm sorry that I'm just not tripping over myself at this concept, but I don't know who it would appeal to aside from maybe filthy rich oil tychoons and multibillion dollar software CEOs. For me? I'm still happy with my DVDs.

Zo� K. @ Sep 20th 2006 5:12AM

require**

C. Grant @ Sep 20th 2006 5:16AM

"The news that the Wii will not have DVD playback was not in the least bit disappointing."

Not in the least? Now you're just being hyperbolic.

SquirrelPhister @ Sep 20th 2006 5:23AM

@13

Nope, you are incorrect.

Movies on HD-DVD will be able to output in the native 1080p of the encoded movie. The only upscaling that happens is from 480i/p, 720p, and 1080i content from standard DVDs or downloaded movies.

Games will also output natively in 1080p if they are designed that way. If they are designed for 720p or 1080i output, that's when it would be upresed. Obviously, no one has made a game to take advantange of 1080p yet, since it doesn't exist yet, but this seems like something we'll see in only a few games (and probably most or all of the Live Arcade games since they don't normally require as much processing power). 1080p games on 360 will probably be as common as 1080p games on PS3 and 1080i/720p games were on the original Xbox (maybe 5%ish)

And I'm not sure why anyone would be all that amazed by this. I've been playing 360 games natively in 1024p @ 60Hz through the VGA cable for a few months now. This isn't that much of a stretch.

Rallion @ Sep 20th 2006 4:05PM

Well, hmm, for one thing, I'm totally fine with DVDs as they are. No answer for that.

Also, anybody who cares about movies should have no trouble with the Wii. Anybody who cares would have a standalone player.

Probot @ Sep 20th 2006 5:41AM

Personally, I couldn't care less about higher resolutions. However, I would like to see more content fit on one disc, like, say, an entire season of a TV show on one HD-DVD or BD ROM. That seems more useful to me than just improving the picture quality.

I do like the reliablitly of the Durabis coating though. Can't beat a good steel wool durability test.

As far as movies in my game console, I've still only used my PS2 as a DVD player a handful of times. It was the first DVD player I owned though. Still, one in the Wii would be useless to me.

AssemblyLineHuman @ Sep 20th 2006 5:49AM

I just got one of them thar newfangled DVD players, and I have to say I'm not quite ready to buy a new player. Maybe in 15 or 20 years when I decide to start watching non-movie TV again, I'll pick up a super-HDTV along with a Yelo-Ray or super-HD-DVD player.

EdZ @ Sep 20th 2006 6:31AM

I'm gunning for blu-ray. I may or may not get a PS3 (exorbitant price, and I'll be buying a 1080p screen first for my PC) but I'd much rather have the vastly larger storage capacity and increased durability (I've seen a demo of the new coating on the blu-ra discs. It really is quite tough, similar to those stick-on cases for the Nano).

Even if the PS3 is a flop and HD-DVD wins as a movie format (but remember, the first DOES NOT beget the second), I'll still be buying a Blu-ray drive, purely for storage purposes.

the_game_master @ Sep 20th 2006 6:50AM

Well my HD upconverting DVD broke on me so I am in the market for a new DVD player.

I definitely will not be going the way of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray Disc as I like to make backup copies of my movies I buy or rent, and seeing that the main point of this new wave of video format aim is to eliminate that I am not going to be foolish to fall in that trap.

Plus with the falling prices of dual layer DVDs, DVD copying has now reached its golden age. Another reason for me any person with a brain should hold out on going HD-DVD or Blu-Ray.

I was hoping Nintendo included DVD-video support into the Wii. A $250 dollar price tag would have really been justified if it had DVD-video support, but seing that it doesn't I will just turn a blind eye to the system.

Now to some comments here:
@phipscube what is 1080p(30)? Isn't that pretty much equivalent to what you get through 1080i?

@Adam we know the Xbox 360 can upscale DVD via Component cable or VGA cable, but it only does it to the DVD's native display 480p, its not a HD-upscaler that can upconvert DVDs to HD resolution: 720p or 1080i.

Only premium priced DVD players offer that ability oh and the PlayStation 3 of course. I think the HD-DVD add-on drive for Xbox 360 will also act as a HD upconverter for DVD-video playback also.

Also, am I the only one here disappointed that Nintendo sort of dropped the ball on delivering DVD-video support. Out of all the next gen consoles I surely thought they would have jumped on this bandwagon, it would have made the Wii a more fitting home entertainment device.

Beats @ Sep 20th 2006 6:55AM

C.Grant,

If your grandma wants to play DVDS, buy her a DVD Player. The Wii is supposed to attract non-gamers to gaming, not movies, so if your grandma has no intention of playing games using the Wii channel, then yeah get her a DVD player or a PS3. We all know the PS3 doesn't "sound bad".

Also, saying that Nintendo pulled a feature that alot of people wanted and then using a grandmother as an example is completely ridiculous. I don't know of any grandma who is remotely aware of this announcement let alone one that is losing sleep over it.

krizage @ Sep 20th 2006 7:24AM

There is a missing option on the poll. How about option 5: I am fine with broadband delivery of HD content.

iTunes (do you capitalize itunes if it is the first word in a sentence?) and Amazon are both selling downloadable movies. Bandwidth will only increase in the years to come (not to mention compression). Why am I going to drop 500 bucks (or even a 1000 if I am brain damaged) for a library of movies on disk that no one will want to be caught dead with in five years.

What do you think of people who have a stack of CDs in their car? That’s right you think, “Who is this savage! Why does this damn dirty ape carry his music around on plastic.”

The days of bringing your date home to ooh and ahh over your movie collection is over. Time to find another way to compensate brothas!

Scott @ Sep 20th 2006 7:27AM

I decided to opt for HD-DVD, for the simple that IF i wish to take the dive into this whole HD movie malarky, that i'd have to buy the HD-DVD attachment for my Xbox 360. I currently don't have a HDTV so i'd be forced to pay out for a HDTV, then i'd have to look at my options for players.

As i already have a Xbox 360, my options are; a stand alone HD-DVD player, a stand alone Blu-Ray player, the Xbox 360 HD-DVD attachment, or a PlayStation 3. As i've just spend £x on the TV, i'd be more inclined to take the cheapest option, which will be the HD-DVD attachment for the Xbox 360. But at the end of the day, i personally dont see any reason for my spend that kind of money just to watch movies or play games in higher resolution.

Scooby Doo @ Sep 20th 2006 7:31AM

I picked the Wii choice, although the wording didn't really bother *me* all that much. I actually have no problem not having DVD playback. I mean, after all, I have an XBOX, a PS2, a computer hooked up to my TV, a regular DVD player, a portable DVD player and I'm looking at DVD recorders so I can move some shows off my Tivo...and that doesn't even include the laptops which are both capable of DVD playback on a TV. While I know it's strange for the common person to have that many DVD devices, I don't know anyone, even my grandma, who doesn't have at least one.

The question is still relevant, since there's a good chance we'd see the winner become the standard for other things, such as internal storage in electronic appliances, or computer disc drives. However there needs to be a choice for: "I don't even have an HD set. I'll let John Q. Public decide for me."

LaughingTarget @ Sep 20th 2006 7:45AM

Since I've never once bought into the whole single-unit multimedia hub. I lost the taste after I had to lose an entire television set because the built-in DVD player broke. Losing a DVD player to breakage is normal, but for it to take out regular television viewing as well? TV worked fine, but you have to send the whole damned thing in for repairs when one part breaks. The only way units like the Playstation 3 can become worse is if Sony builds it right into an HDTV. One little part of it breaks, and not only did you lose that part, you lost everything else along with it for 4-6 weeks while it is sitting in some Sony factory repair shop. That is 4-6 weeks of no games, no movies, no television, and 4-6 episodes of Lost you missed because the DVR wasn't hooked up anymore.

Nintendo did it right. An old adage is never put all your eggs in one basket. Yet that is what all these units are trying to sell us. Lots of eggs, one flimsy basket. Building all these different multimedia devices into a single unit and trying to sell it as your one and only center of your entire media existence is not a feature, it is a massive glaring flaw. And I am surprised that people who are supposedly tech-saavy are even trying to pass that kind of eggs-in-one-basket approach as a GOOD thing.

KP @ Sep 20th 2006 8:01AM

There is no point for me in the Wii supporting DVD playback unless it also supports VCD/SVCD/MPEG/MPEG4 (DivX/Xvid). That's probably a bit of a tall order for Nintendo to fulfill since they've never released a media player as part of their line up (AFAIK), so I'd rather that they do it properly as an additional software download later on down the line, or just not have it as part of the equation in the first place.

There's also the question of what to do if you're in the middle of a game and you want to watch a movie with no save point in sight. Having DVD player functionality probably brings up a lot of issues that Nintendo simply don't want to have to deal with, and they're probably betting that most of their target market already have a DVD player anyway (I think they're probably right.)

I think Nintendo are smart in sticking to their guns and saying that the Wii is a games platform, no more and no less. The other stuff like photos etc. on the memory card sounds like a source for counter-arguments at first, but when you think about it, it does dovetail nicely with game customisation and modding.

The Wii is small enough that if consumer demand for a media box is high enough, they could bring out a companion module to go alongside it which would have HD-out and a pass-through for the Wii video signal, communicating with the Wii over USB.

I'm really looking forward to the Wii, and I won't be getting a PS3 or 360 - Not because I can't afford them, but because I know I wouldn't get my money's worth out of them. Instead, I'm going to wait until the content actually starts coming out on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray before I make any decisions on a player for those formats, and at that stage it will most likely be a player which supports both anyway. The media playback on the PS3 and 360 is not a selling point to me.

Evan @ Sep 20th 2006 8:14AM

I hate that Sony is pressuring games into 1080P. Where do you think those games are going to get the extra power to render twice the pixels (compared to 720P)? The extra resolution comes at the cost of reduced effects and filtering. I would prefer rich pixel-perfect effects rendered at 720P, over simplified effects and crappy aliasing artifacts at 1080P.

As for BluRay verses HD-DVD, upscaled DVD is more important to me.
- I don't want to re-buy my DVD collection.
- A lot of stuff I watch (like anime and obscure movies) will probably never be released on BluRay or HD-DVD.
- Most source material is too low quality for BluRay or HD-DVD (unless they do a Star Wars quality remastering for every old movie, and that's highly unlikely).

CheekyLee @ Sep 20th 2006 8:15AM

I have at least 7 machines on which I can watch movies at this moment in time, and I can also go to the cinema. (It's an old-fashioned concept, I realise, but I do still enjoy it somewhat.) So, releasing a console without the ability to play movies does not concern me. If HD-DVD, BluRay, or even optical cubes become the standard format, then I will get a player. I want GAMES! Plus, I'm not alone in this.

I have 20 or so friends on XBox Live at the moment. I think I have only ever seen one of them online with the status listed as 'Watching a movie'. And certainly not more than twice. Console manufacturers, blogs, and news websites are vastly overplaying that card. People don't want movie playback from their consoles. They want GAMES!

J B Cougar @ Sep 20th 2006 8:20AM

Is there some kind of new editorial direction at Joystiq these days? Supporter of Nintendo or not, you have to look at that last choice and just scratch your head.

Joystiq Logic: If you don't watch movies, you are the type of person who will buy Nintendo's system. Makes perfect sense if 1+1=3 in your mind, but not to anyone else.

Hey, how about a choice that lets me say "I plan on buying cheap DVDs as they exist now, because they look just fine on my current television." I suppose you're lucky it's two months from a huge launch of two new systems, otherwise I assume traffic would be spiking downwards after the events of the last two weeks.

James @ Sep 20th 2006 8:20AM

downloadable media.

The only optical media I will ever buy again are games. And that's a maybe.

Gazbin @ Sep 20th 2006 8:36AM

Grab a DVD that you know well, go find a store that has a demo of an "Oppo" brand of DVD with upscaling (costs $200 - $250). Sit down watch your movie and then come back and leave a post. I have and it's AWSOME!!!!!

Upscale DVD - I don't know how it works but it just does.
Blow me Blew ray and HD-DVD - Frrrrt! Who cares? Dont need it, just regular DVD works fine.

PapaChabre @ Sep 20th 2006 8:36AM

I don't care if my underwear has a built-in schedule management system. That's what PDAs are for. Similarly, I don't care if my video game console has the ability to play DVDs. That's what DVD players are for.

bouchert @ Sep 20th 2006 8:50AM

I think it's completely fallacious to tie gaming system choice and movie format choice together. You might as well have put up a poll: "Do you want an N-Gage or do you not care about cell phones at all?"

Maybe I want a PS3 but prefer HD-DVD as a movie format. Maybe I want an Xbox 360 but prefer Blu-Ray for my movies. Maybe I want a Wii, but still care about movies.

There's a thing called "standalone players". Sure, there's not much of a selection right now, and prices are a bit high on them, but they're great because they often offer simpler and more complete functionality than a movie playing function embedded in a console, and they free you of the restriction of tying what should be two totally independent sets of purchase criteria together.