Porn Industry Mulls Next Generation-DVD

MBCook writes "ZDNet has an interesting article about how the porn industry might end up deciding the outcome of the HD-DVD/Blu-ray debate. One side likes the higher capacity of Blu-ray, while others like the lower costs of producing HD-DVDs. Manufacturing 11,000 titles a year, the industry would have a sizeable say in the debate."

Ah vice

[Qzukk]

In the end, porn really is what drives technology forward. You can believe that when we have fully tactile 3d VR, we'll have it because the porn industry invented it.

11000?

[slavemowgli]

11000 porn titles a year? Goodness, who's actually watching all that? I rented a few porn movies myself when I was young(er), but to be frank, I never was impressed with any of them, and I returned most (if not all) of them without even finishing watching them.

Did I just watch the wrong ones and miss those that are actually entertaining (in whatever way)?

Finally a voice of reason

[lokedhs]

I've been saying this for a long time. The porn industry is driving technology.

Why did VHS win and Betamax fail? Some people (including me) argue that the biggest reason is that all th eporn was available on VHS. Wasn't there a statement against porn from the betamax people?

Which industry was the only industry for a long time acually delivering profits selling stuff on the web during a time when all other industries promised a lot but only delivered losses?

And remember the multiple-angle button on the DVD players? Who really thinks that this button was designed for the sports industry?

I think the article hits the nail right on the head. The porn industry will decide which format will be used.

Re:11000?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did I just watch the wrong ones and miss those that are actually entertaining (in whatever way)?

No, you are gay...

Re:They have porn on DVDs now?

[garcia]

Please remember why video tapes became so popular. Porn. People wanted to be able to watch other people do their thing in the privacy of their own homes.

While porn is rampant on the Internet the movie side of it all (outside of empornium.us) is rather lame and expensive.

DVDs are available for a little money and you get quite a bit of longevity out of them (watching not necessarily anything related ;)). Some of those porn sites are shady when you pay to get the whole thing and some are just outrageously expensive ($29.95/mo? Give me a break).

Porn has always played a big role in technology...

[ddent]

They have been heavily involved in the development and early adopters of: online credit card transactions, streaming video/webcams, VHS, multi-angle DVDs, pop-up ads, affiliate programs, pay-per-view, 900 #s, geo-targetting... the list goes on.

Re:Ah vice

[jafomatic]

Close, but I'd like to suggest the following edit:

"You can believe that when we have fully tactile 3d VR, we'll have it because the porn industry paid for it"

Lame ass format war

[brywalker]

The reason DVD is so popular isn't so much cost or quality, even though it helps. It was because it was the ONLY format. Most people that have a DVD player now can't even tell the difference between VHS and DVD (sad, I know) and only got one because they can borrow movies from their friends and because they are cheap. This whole thing is going to blow up in their faces because Joe Average isn't going to know which one to get and they sure aren't going to buy 2 players.

At that rate, even if there are all in one players they are never going to hit the hillbilly Wal-Mart sub $50 price point (or $100 at that rate) having to have 3 lasers (Blu-ray, HDDVD, DVD/CD).

This porn thing is going to be a mess too. Porn is a HUGE industry. If there is going to be a format war internally there, you can expect nothing but a mess.

This is going to be a colossal freaking debacle.

More isn't always better

[Anita Coney]

First, if the industry puts more and more porn onto one disc they'll risk losing sales if they charge more for that one disc. If someone is ordering porn on sees a $50 disc and a $25 dollar disc, I'm guessing they'll go with the $25 disc, regardless of how much porn is on the former.

Second, the vast majority of porn actresses are NOT that good looking. Sure they look somewhat OK on DVD, but once you put them on HD you'll start noticing the grotesque flaws, e.g., surgical scares.

Re:Finally a voice of reason

[Grab]

You're obviously ignoring the reason that all the *movies* were available on VHS.

Certainly porn was available as well. But I doubt your typical video shop was ever renting more than a few porn films a week compared to dozens of copies of Rocky, Terminator, Tron, The Breakfast Club, Wierd Science, Top Gun, etc, etc. And Betamax screwed up by not getting films from the major studios, so they cut themselves out of the top-blockbusters-on-video market, which was where most people agree the VHS-versus-Betamax battle was won/lost.

Grab.

Re:11000?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because two women is nice.. and two men is not nice.. :-)

Re:They have porn on DVDs now?

[DaHat]

Interestingly enough, porn is also one of those areas that does a better job of exploiting the potentials of a given technology. Where else do you see the ability for multiple camera angles within a film other than in a technology demo?

It's not the porn industry

[a_nonamiss]

It's not the porn indistry per se that is driving this technology, it's capitalism. The article makes it seem as though the porn industry is lined with visionaries that sit around all day and come up with ways to better society. They're not driving anything. They're reactionaries. While it's true that the porn industry has fuled the emergence of many technologies, they are doing so mostly by accident. They are only in the business of making money. Take DVD's for instance. They are much cheaper to produce, they are more durable, lighter (cheaper distribution) and they don't melt when you leave them paused on one scene for a long period of time. This is clearly a natural fit for the porn industry, so they started producing DVD's. Same goes with the porn explosion in the early days of the Internet. Inexpensive distribution, and people clearly had poor judgement when they were wanking off. (Why do you think they can offer subscriptions for $29.95 a month.)

I know this post comes off as porn bashing, but let's not give those guys (and girls) too much credit. They saw an opportunity and seized it. Same with mass spammers. They aren't trying to ruin the Internet, but where there's a buck to be made...

Re:Funny in a way.

[Vo0k]

Too true. A game released as adult-only: Tons of gore, rivers of blood, some glimpses of naked tits. Same game released as PG-13: Tons of gore, rivers of blood, pixelated tits.

But it's not only production...

Remember "Morrowind?" There was a character named Crassius Curio, a lord with taste for earthly deligts. He wasn't a very demanding master. His tasks were quite simple. "Take off all your clothes and show yourself to uncle Crassius." Menawhile other "lords" demanded assassination of competitors, mugging people, blackmail, requested bribes, wanted betrayal and all kind of such filth. Now visit Morrowind forums and look up for threads "most hated NPC". Of course harmless Crassius is far in front of the list and many people boast how they sneakily murdered him or what tortures would they want to apply to him.

It's scary how activity of destroying life is more accepted that creating it, and how strong hipocrisy makes otherwise harmless (unless of course taken over by the crime organizations, i.e. because of the reputation) porn industry "the devil".
Probably if it wasn't treated as such "sneaky back door" stuff, all the wrongs (rape, slavery, violence) could be fought better too. ...and now we have Mafia bosses deciding what standard we will use.

Re:11000?

[slaker]

The stereotypical macho guy is bothered by looking at another guy.
Especially the five different prison escapees who show up in every straight mainstream porno. They are hairy and flabby and covered with tatoos.

Why? Because straight guys are comfortable with that.
Don't ask me why straight guys are OK with that one camera angle where the camera is pointed straight up between the guy's legs while he's going at it with a bored, plastic blonde, so that all you see is fat, hairy man ass. Is there a straight guy somewhere who wants to see that?

I have observed that the guys in gay movies (or at least the box covers) or European films tend to be a lot better looking (fit, less hairy etc). Still look like prison escapees, but maybe not the maximum security wing.

Anyway, the straight guy watches a couple girls and can have the fantasy that "Gee, all they REALLY need is a man."

Which is the kind of thing that will make an actual lesbian laugh out loud.

And for the record, I don't think anyone watches all 11,000 titles, but someone with a real interest in any particular subject matter can probably see all of the couple dozen titles related to that fetish that are released in a given year. I do pretty well with mainstream feature releases from Vivid, Wicked, VCA, Adam & Eve et al.

Re:They have porn on DVDs now?

[Tx]

That's what the $5 trial membership is for :-).

Re:Finally a voice of reason

[zero_offset]

I've been saying this for a long time. The porn industry is driving technology.

Tip to moderators: It isn't +1 Insightful if everybody has been saying that for a long time.

Re:11000?

[slavemowgli]

No, I'm bi - and lest you say that's a same, it's not, just like being bi and being hetero is not the same (in fact, if bisexuality and homosexuality would be the same, then, since by the same reasoning bisexuality and heterosexuality would also be the same, homosexuality and heterosexuality would turn out to the be same. Wouldn't *that* be fun?)

Another viewpoint

[IndiJ]

I think the porn industry will have little or no influence on this fight. Unlike with Betamax/VHS, the porn producers already have a cheap, ubiquitous format, and there's no way that porn is stretching the limits of DVD.

I think computer users will influence the decision. Given a penny or two's difference in medium cost, a computer user will most likely opt for the bigger storage medium. I doubt many will have any qualms about a $50 difference between a Blu-Ray-ROM and a HD/DVD-ROM, considering the huge size difference. A number of game companies are already endorsing Blu-Ray, because they have no problem packing in extra content (the game itself and associated media, possibly in many resolutions, artwork, story boards, sound files, desktop themes etc. etc.).

The entertainment industry is leaning towards HD/DVD for the moment, but I think that the sheer volume of Blu-Ray discs that computer users would consume (movie consumers don't buy stacks of 100 discs at a time) would force the price down to compete or beat HD/DVD. The entertainment insudtry would probably have to follow the crowd, assuming they don't jump on the bandwagon early. The porn industry would probably follow later.

Many people are aware that the porn industry has been a major driving force in the adoption of new entertainment technologies. However, the next-gen DVD isn't exactly a new technology per se, it's just an upgrade to an existing technology. It offers pretty much nothing new to porn producers except more space, which they don't need. DVD's already have scene-selection, menus, multiple angles, soundtracks, etc. What really does the next-gen format have to offer?

Re:It's not the porn industry

[killbill!]

I'd say this is more about improving access to customers. Remember, this is an industry that has to cope with moral stigma. An industry that the so-called "moral majority" wants to censor.
The porn industry faces an uphill battle when it comes to distribution, and is unhappy about this. The mainstream movie industry only cares about keeping the level of control it currently enjoys.
No wonder Hollywood is scared to death of p2p, but San Fernando lives with it.

Porn embraced video tapes because customers felt easier renting a small package at the video store (especially if you can conceal it between a couple mainstream movies), rather than standing in line at a porn cinema or sex shop. After all, you can't wrap a brown bag around a cinema. ;p

Porn embraced the Internet because customers didn't even have to face the glare (or winks) of the videostore clerk any more. And also, as it was cheaper to distribute.

No to return on topic, I fail to see what advantage HD-DVD/Blu Ray brings over vanilla DVD, as far as distribution is concerned...

Re:Finally a voice of reason

[Phisbut]

And remember the multiple-angle button on the DVD players? Who really thinks that this button was designed for the sports industry?

When they want to sell the DVD player, they talk about that button a lot, but I've yet to find a use for it... Are there really movies that offer multiple angles? Which ones (both porn and non-porn)? I never, ever saw a multiple-angle enabled movie (or never noticed it...).

Re:From a porn store clerk's POV...

[Anonymous Coward]

u worked there for 3 yrs, have intimate knowledge of the content, and yet everyone else is scum? hmmmmmmm

Re:11000?

[gl4ss]

people WATCH PORN, mostly because people MASTURBATE WHILE WATCHING PORN, mostly because getting an orgasm feels good - whatever way you had it(it's biological that people feel good after an orgasm, so don't start humping a dead tree and telling there's no feeling in it).

maybe you should have spanked the monkey instead of trying to find the plot(unless you were watching some crazy 70's porn flicks, like alice in wonderland and such)? they're made for masturbating, cheap modern whores so to speak. if you were just watching them with your hands on the table you were doing it wrong, sorry.

this is not a troll, it's the truth. that's why porn is so popular.

Re:It's not the porn industry

[deblau]

There are two industries that drive tech: porn, and war. Always have, always will. But the only reason porn is listed is because it's tolerated in the US. The military alone drove Soviet tech. The problem with your theory is that their socioeconomic system was communism, not capitalism. They put the first man in space, made the first spacewalk, and the Russians are using Soviet legacy tech to get our astronauts into space when we can't ourselves. Capitalism has nothing to do with tech development.

To be a little more precise, in the US capitalism is the economic vehicle that the porn industry and the military industrial complex are driving to reach higher technology. Capitalism is a nice theory, but it requires money to actually make it work. That money comes from Ron Jeremy and Donald Rumsfeld. (Never thought you'd see those two in a sentence next to each other, did you?)

Without assigning any moral judgment to porn (or the military, for that matter), I simply state that those two industries contribute the largest amount of money to new technology development.

Seriously, though...

[Anonymous Coward]

With the exception of few women, I don't think that bigger, sharper movies are better. Some blurriness keeps the fantasy nice and clean. Additionally, have you seen the kind of actors porn attracts? It's no wonder guys like lesbian porn. Remove the hairy, sweaty, fat guys and you get many times better porns. I don't wanna see them in high definition, thank you very much.

Re:Funny in a way.

[mattwarden]

The big problem with porn is that it is a caricature of the real thing - ie. sex with a live person. Porn is to sex as a roadrunner cartoon is to real life. Both exaggerate and distort; they don't represent or characterize.

Try turning on the news.

This has nothing to do with anything inherent in pornography, and everything to do with of what an entertainment industry (including news) consists. If this is a reason to discount pornography, then it is a reason to discount other forms of entertainment/news as well.