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Despite Blu-ray Disc's momentum, adult video still likes HD DVD

Despite all the talk regarding Blu-ray Disc's momentum after Warner Bros. gave its support exclusively to the format, the high-definition format war is far from over. With the overall high-definition market barely a drop in the bucket when compared to DVD sales, there is still a lot of ground still to be claimed.

Analysts looked early to the adult industry as a  strong decider of the format war. The adult industry is often credited with giving VHS its support, helping the format to edge out Betamax – and some believe that history may repeat itself with the HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc battle.

Digital Playground founder and director Joone originally backed HD DVD, but at this year’s Adult Entertainment Expo he reportedly told German publication Heise Online that his company will be shifting its support to Blu-ray Disc by the end of the year. Joone also said that Blu-ray Disc movies were selling better than HD DVD, a fact that he attributes to the PlayStation 3.

When reached for comment regarding the report, Digital Playground media relations denied its validity, saying, “This is not accurate. We are currently supporting both formats, HD and Blu-ray.”

Another statement from Digital Playground received by a member of the High-Def Digest forum expands further, reading, “We are currently producing both HD DVD and Blu-ray. HD DVD is still a viable market for us and we’re selling a lot of units. There are over a million players out there, so it may be perceived as ‘dead’ in the long term, but on an immediate basis, it’s still a viable market. We will continue to grow our Blu-ray business as well, and for us, it’s going to be a smooth transition if we have to go from one to the other. For the time being, we will continue to release our movies on HD DVD. We have a good, solid customer (HD DVD) base that is buying a healthy quantity, so until that number starts coming down, we will continue supporting it.”

Digital Playground isn't the only adult film studio currently in the high-def arena. Vivid Entertainment Group, the world’s largest adult film producer, expressed to DailyTech plans to stick with HD DVD on grounds of the format’s economic strengths.

“Currently Blu-ray is very expensive to encode and replicate. It probably won't be embraced by the adult industry until the price is lowered,” Steven Hirsch, co-chairman of Vivid Entertainment, told DailyTech. “We will continue to consider [Blu-ray Disc] for some of our blockbuster titles and also continue to produce in HD DVD."

Hirsch’s comments underscore an ongoing concern in the adult film industry: cost. “With DVD sales down as much as 50 percent for some companies, it's difficult to fund new product based on current sales,” said Kathee Brewer, former editor of AVN Online and now an independent analyst and consultant. “So the price of new endeavors becomes a huge issue.”

While producing an HD DVD product requires only minor changes to a standard DVD production line, making a Blu-ray Disc is a much more expensive undertaking since it commands new hardware, analysts from the adult entertainment industry explained.

Although the Blu-ray Disc Association loosened its restrictions on the production of adult content, film producers like Steven Hirsch had to find his own facilities to press movies on that particular format. “Sony is not giving any assistance in the authoring or replication of adult content on Blu-ray,” said the Vivid Entertainment co-chairman in a previous interview.

Now that there are a greater number of Blu-ray Disc replication houses, companies such as Vivid Entertainment and Digital Playground may find it easier to publish its content in blue boxes. One obstacle, besides cost, preventing the adult industry from making a stronger push to Blu-ray Disc is piracy.

“Now there are a few replicators in Asia, who’ll touch adult, but sending masters to the people who are notorious for contributing to the piracy problem is a lot like handing the chickens over to the fox with your blessing,” explained Brewer.

Unlike with VHS and Betamax, it appears that the format war of current day won’t be decided by the adult film industry.


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who cares
By mdogs444 on 1/17/08, Rating: 0
RE: who cares
By retrospooty on 1/17/2008 10:05:10 AM , Rating: 4
It explains it in the article... Because the porn industry is one of the largest sellers of media. They were a major factor in the VHS victory over beta years ago. If they stay with HD-DVD, its a major win, more so than WB, or paramount, or any of the others.


RE: who cares
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 1/17/2008 10:05:57 AM , Rating: 5
I personally feel digital downloads are the third, unmentioned format that will end up winning this whole thing. But we'll see :)


RE: who cares
By rum on 1/17/2008 10:18:07 AM , Rating: 4
Digital downloads really won't come into their own till ISPs actually get decent download speeds.

10 meg download isn't going to cut it, especially with ISPs filtering your downloads to load balance their networks.

Someone isn't going to wait 2 days, at current speeds and filtering, to get a movie they can go get from a local movie rental place within an hour.

digital downloads will become a factor when you can download movies within an hour, till then it will be in a distant third place.


RE: who cares
By lukasbradley on 1/17/2008 10:39:43 AM , Rating: 2
You don't have to wait for the entire program to download before you watch it, even in HD.

http://fyretv.com


RE: who cares
By Belard on 1/18/2008 1:11:16 AM , Rating: 2
Besides being a limited adult ON-DEMAND system, which some cable companies offer simular stuff. It is NOT an HD system, its SD... according to the website.


RE: who cares
By Oregonian2 on 1/18/2008 5:20:13 PM , Rating: 2
Which makes things even more interesting when you've seen half of a movie and the ISP inserts kill-session strings to control data flow.


RE: who cares
By DeepBlue1975 on 1/17/2008 10:43:44 AM , Rating: 2
That's your opinion.

I think you forgot about illegal movie downloads via p2p networks, and that not everyone cares about getting the highest quality movie because many (including me) can find a 700mb rip more than sufficient to be watched 4 feet away or even further.

And for many, a 2 days wait to watch another film is not the end of the world at all.

Why would anyone want to download a simple comedy with no special fx in ultra uber super high definition? Just to get a better view of the goose bumps actors have on their skins?

If you're talking about movies with a lot of special fx or pornography, where people want to see the thing as detailed as possible.


RE: who cares
By littlebitstrouds on 1/17/2008 11:42:41 AM , Rating: 2
So you think people will spend 2k on an HDTV and be happy paying full price for a 700mb movie? Nah, we're talking about the real market, not the p2p market, of which, 95% are illegal downloads. When money's involved, people will want the best they can get, and that's not in the form of downloading yet.


RE: who cares
By DeepBlue1975 on 1/17/2008 12:06:43 PM , Rating: 2
The user whom I was answering was talking about downloads, not "the real market".

So my post is not about "the real market" either, as I was just answering about downloads :)


RE: who cares
By mindless1 on 1/20/2008 12:00:15 PM , Rating: 2
When it comes to downloads it's not just what people want that matters. HD datarates would make for quite massive bandwidth, not so practical for many distributers on the internet vs a closed system like CATV.

700MB is an arbitrary size, was meant to fit on a CDR but there is no reason to think it would still have to be 700MB since there's no CDR involved. It could easily be 2, 4, 8GB, etc. as a download instead of 25GB. Sitting on your couch across the room from an HDTV, do you think you will be able to tell the difference in a 6GB and 25GB movie? Maybe, but what if the quality difference is small and it costs less plus arrives faster?

Yes I think people who spent 2K on a HDTV will still accept some things in less than perfect detail, like when they play their DVDs on it whether those be self owned or rentals or new purchases. Believe it or not many even watch plain old SD TV on their 2K TV.


RE: who cares
By robinthakur on 1/22/2008 12:17:14 PM , Rating: 1
Whilst porn in HD is appealing in theory...and sidestepping the morality of it (for it has no place in this discussion) I think this whole debate is academic. The reason that sales of Porn on dvd have dropped 50% is because it is a product which people are mostly still ashamed of purchasing either in person or on the internet for fear of being found out by persons unknown. Hence an intangible format (download) is much preferred as its easier to hide and the quality is good enough for porn quite frankly.

If they can get it for free this gets even better, and I'm sure the significant majority of p2p traffic is formed of torrented porn, some of it in HD rips. Ths is ideal as you have massive choice, its all free and people are far more likely (even more likely) to pirate it because it already feels slightly 'illegal' and its based on a very real and specific physical needs...

I'd be surprised if they sell many blu-ray copies or HDDVD copies once people settle in and get used to viewing HD. The market now cannot be compared to the videotape wars. The human imperfections made more obvious in HD are more likely to turn off the intended audience than anything else.

Oh and anyone who spends that amount on a TV could at least afford a real life whore :)


RE: who cares
By rum on 1/17/2008 1:02:40 PM , Rating: 2
It isn't just my opinion, it is the opinion of a lot of people I know and a lot I talk to online.

Current speeds suck for digital downloads, especially HD content.

I don't do the illegal p2p for movies and a 700meg movie isn't going to look good on a 52" Sony HD 1080p LCD either.

While you are right, 700meg downloads will be fine for the pirate kiddies out there, most adults won't like it.

If they are going to pay 1k plus for a TV the movies they want to watch on it will be the best quality they can get.

Currently that'll be from going to their local movie rental shop and getting it on DvD, maybe, maybe in a few years they'll be able to sit down, use another remote for another gadget they have to have, and download it from the internet.

But currently our internet speeds suck, and they couldn't handle a neighborhood attempting to do this at one time.


RE: who cares
By Belard on 1/17/2008 2:23:58 PM , Rating: 2
700mb movies look like crap on anything bigger than a 14" screen.

People buy movies on media for a reason. Flexiblity. So when your PC dies, or your HD dies - you may somehow lose all your movies. Besides, downloads tends to be JUST the movie.

I happily bought the Blade Runner Ultimate box set (5 DVDs) with extras. That's about 30~40GB worth of data... Easy to transport to a friend's home to watch, etc etc.

Download to a Hard drive? Consider than 50% of BR discs are double sided (25gb ss/ 50gb ds) and about 85% of HD-DVD discs are Double sided (15gb ss/ 30gb ds) meaning that a large portion on HD-Def data is over 25GB.

So for a person to DL 25GB per movie (taking about 4-8hrs) and storing it, a 1GB HD would hold about 40 movies. Some of us have hundreds of DVDs! And a HD failure can wipe out your collection.

DLs are for portable playres or rentals... not much more.

I pay usually $7~12 per DVD movie... and there are some movies I want to own on HiDef, but I don't need everything to be that good.


RE: who cares
By tmouse on 1/17/2008 10:19:29 AM , Rating: 2
I believe I have read that the adult industry is one of the leaders in adopting this tech as well, so maybe this is where they will make their major push; if you will excuse the pun ;)


RE: who cares
By FITCamaro on 1/17/2008 10:48:27 AM , Rating: 2
Especially with porn since most don't want to go to a store to buy it.


RE: who cares
By jajig on 1/17/2008 10:59:27 AM , Rating: 2
It can be ordered online and delivered to your door, no need for a trip to the store.


RE: who cares
By QueBert on 1/22/2008 3:47:41 PM , Rating: 2
when you say most, the remaining who will buy it in a store is still A LOT of people. I worked at a liquor store that had a small adult DVD section. We'd sell probably 10 DVD's a day, and mind you this was a liquor store, not an adult book store. The market for people to buy dvd's is still huge. Also I have 2 adult book stores within walking distance from my house.