Adult Film Industry Moving To HD DVD 527
profet writes "One of the heavyweights in the war between BlueRay and HD DVD has chosen its format. Various members of the adult film industry have decided on HD-DVD. The article says the reasons seem to be based primarily on cost of manufacturing. History has shown that the porn industry can be a driving factor for technology, as it was in deciding for the VHS format over BetaMax." Heise reports that US BlueRay press plants are refusing the adult industry's business (in German).
Protect Reputation or Shoot Foot? (Score:5, Interesting)
However, hearing that Sony itself has been pressuring the porn industry away from the Blu-Ray format, it seems they've shot themselves in the foot and mooted their brand from competition.
I suspect they want to keep the format that is used in their gaming system free of purient-interest content and not be a portal for pornography, preserving it as a "kid friendly" device. And with a limited number of facilities able to produce BD disks compared to DVD houses refitted for HD-DVD production, that scarcity allows Sony more control. Perhaps Sony is still stinging with the parental backlash against kids putting porn on their PSPs [wired.com]. How many more PSPs to adults did that revelation sell again?
Looks like... (Score:3, Interesting)
But a semi-serious question though: Have sales of porn movies decressed with the greater availability of online content?
Re:I'm not sure I want my porn in HD (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:plus the features!! (Score:5, Interesting)
I think Leo went on to predict the Porn industry will win the race with this feature alone...
Slashdotters will be able to superimpose their own face over Ron Jeremy's and finally get to see themselves (albeit a hairy version) do nasty things to girlz.
Re:one big difference (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Protect Reputation or Shoot Foot? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Protect Reputation or Shoot Foot? (Score:5, Interesting)
But porn is different. There already exists a thriving movie download industry. The quality regularly improves as bandwidth allows. Small studios coexist with large ones without the conltroling cartels that force "legitimate" indie movies to distribution hell. In short, unlike in the "legitimate" movie industry, customers have both accepted the quality and continued to pay for downloadable content in large numbers, despite the greater production values and higher resolution of DVD.
I have no doubt that many people will buy HD-DVD to view porn. There's a market for higher quality and physical media. But I'll be very suprised if the download scene doesn't outpace the HD-DVD scene all the way to the point where HD downloads start making practical sense for everyone.
TW
Too much control ... (Score:3, Interesting)
And there is the problem, that also affects things like DRM: trying to control too much. The industry is so intent on controlling everything they own and not allow the indivual fair use, that they seem more ready to shoot themselves in the foot than letting have other people have any sense of using it a way that makes it worth while.
Re:History repeats (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, porn is an Internet thing now. It's free. Why would I care either way about HD-DVD or Blu-Ray porn?
Re:Protect Reputation or Shoot Foot? (Score:5, Interesting)
You have a wife and 3 kids -> you're not buying a $3000 TV
You have a wife and 3 kids -> you're not buying a $500/$1000 DVD player
The format war will be over before the average family even knows there has been a format war.
From what I have seen, early technology adopters seem to be the young single well employed men or older men with no children living at home who are still empolyed; in either case they are (probably) interested in porography because they have no woman or no woman who is interested in sex. I (used to) know a woman who worked in a video-rental store that had an adult section and one of her comments was that it seemed like men lost their interest in the 'Adult Section' at 30 and regained it at 50.
tired of HD-DVD called "technically inferior" (Score:4, Interesting)
Blu-ray is capable of having some more storage capacity. Meanwhile, HD-DVD disks are cheaper to make, do not scratch as easily, are more backwards compatible, have a more capable and author friendly development environment/UI system, more advanced video encoding algorithms (as of at least very recently), and support the highest available resolution available (1080p)!
Apparently, what people mean by "technically superior" is "has a little more storage capacity". I prefer my way of looking at things -- HD-DVD is "better" and was more intelligently designed because it has all the advantages above over BluRay. It appears that Sony reinvented the wheel for negligible gain, yet many-fold setback.
Re:one big difference (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:I'm not sure I want my porn in HD (Score:3, Interesting)
The funniest thing is Sony is a Japanese ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm not sure porn was that big a factor (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't high quality porn an oxymoron?
Check out titles by Michael Ninn. The first time we saw one it was by accident, channel surfing on cable. We had to double check which channel we were on because the production quality seemed to be too high to be the pr0n channel.
Re:Protect Reputation or Shoot Foot? (Score:5, Interesting)
Really??? then why am I able to store HD content as Xvid at only 5.5 gig at full resolution and 120 minute length??? It looks FAN-TAS-TIC on customers Projectors and high end LCD and plasmas. This is a conversion from a HD-DV recording shot with a Canon XL1HD at the Michigan international speedway. We use it to show the customer what their display is capable of
I can easily fit a HD movie in a standard dual layer DVD. There is no need for HDDVD or BLU RAY for HD video content. and hard drive space will easily hold many many movies at that bitrate.
The only reason BluRay or HD-DVD exists is to introduce a new DRM type and licensing revenue stream.
Re:I just don't get it (Score:3, Interesting)
This is slashdot, after all.. Hentai is about as close to real women majority here has gotten so far.
And, hey, I read somewhere that 2/3 (or was it 1/2) of american men won't munch kitty. So this "help, HD, help"-sentiment doesn't surprise me at all. Here comes the real shocker: Some people do it with lights off!
How's that for twisted?
If correct, SONY has made a grave error (Score:2, Interesting)
All joking aside, the success of any new communication technology depends on it being useful for a variety (preferably a broad variety) of different purposes. This isn't a particularly new observation, but I've documented evidence for it elsewhere. For better or worse, one purpose that is often seen as desirable is education. One that is frequently seen as undesirable is pornography. I understand the reasons for the the widely shared bias that leads to these judgments. I'm a fan of education and haven't much use for most of the things that are currently regarded as pornography.
It remains, however, that pornography is an important benchmark in the success of new media. I frequently summarize the nature of this benchmark (see, for example http://evolutionarymedia.com/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi?WhyN ewMediaMatter [evolutionarymedia.com]) as three "laws of new media":
This pattern holds for a huge number of new media going back over 100 years. The nature of what has been deemed pornographic has changed along the way. Jazz, for instance, was once frequently described as pornographic. It was the porn of early records and broadcast radio. It remains that porn users are often one of the first mainstream sets of users to widely adopt new media, that their opinions and equipment purchases often drive other uses of the medium, and that the publicity generated by the anti-porn movement often raises awareness of the communication technology and its potentially useful applications.
I can understand SONY not wanting to invoke the wrath of the considerable anti-porn movement (religious, feminist, and otherwise), but history suggests that SONY is reducing BLU-Rays chances of success by taking a hard line on it.
Re:tired of HD-DVD called "technically inferior" (Score:1, Interesting)
I, too, already have a full collection of HD movies stored on DVD-5...but they are 720p only and heavily compressed.
Even with high profile h264, you NEED extra bandwidth to make a real TRANSPARENT encoding of a fully detailed picture.
Sure you can cram a 1080p version of a movie on a DVD-R, but that's nothing compared to the best HD disc available today (check http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=7
And about your "a single sided, one-layer HD-DVD has enough storage for lossless audio and 1080p" assertation: again, YES, that's POSSIBLE, but there's no PURPOSE...just by the dvd if you want over-compressed picture.
Just so you know, UK and DE hdtv is broadcasted in h264 with AC3 (384kpbs only, FAR from lossless), but the average video bitrate is something like 15mbps...
Guess what ? Most movies ripped from thoses arguably lesser-quality source CAN'T fit on a single layer HD-DVD, because they're larger than 15GB !!! And that's without any high quality or alternate audio tracks nor any bonus feature.
Don't believe me? Go download one and check for yourself !
A Random example:
Re:The VHS/Beta Porn myth sufaces again (Score:3, Interesting)
Trivia: We called the Beta duplicators MastahBetas; the SuperBeta was called the SuperMastahBeta.