Top Porn Producer Shifts Loyalty from Blu-ray to HD DVD

[DeeLux]

Top Porn Producer Shifts Loyalty from Blu-ray to HD DVD



In some circles, they say Betamax lost to VHS because VHS had more porn titles. Will the adult video industry hold similar sway in the high-def DVD battle?

If so, look no further than Digital Playground, which may not be the most prolific publisher of adult videos, but is probably the most highly regarded, with scores of key awards under its belt--so to speak.

Last year, I spoke with Digital Playground founder Joone--that's the whole name, just like Cher--after reading that his company would support Blu-ray.

"First and foremost," he said during the interview, "you get more space with Blu-ray. You usually run out. A person could buy a DVD, and there might be four movies on it. They could just pay to unlock them."

At the time, he also cited the security of Blu-ray, supposedly superior to HD DVD.

Finally, he said that the Sony Playstation would provide a huge boost to the Blu-ray format, and that "gamers usually buy our stuff a lot."

Yet, Digital Playground just announced its first four HD titles, and they're all in HD DVD.

Who cares? Well, a lot of technology developers should. Some $4.28 billion worth of adult videos were sold or rented in 2005, according to Adult Video News. About 1 billion adult videos were rented in 2005. And statistics show that there is affluence among porn aficionados. Some 35% of them have incomes over $75,000. That's enough to buy a high-def DVD player or two.
Digital Playground on Tech Forefront

Digital Playground is no low-brow porn producer. Joone takes great pride in his cinematography, and in some of the key technologies that emanated from his company.

"It's so much fun to play with technology," Joone says. "It's almost like an R&D place, where you can try new things and not really be worried."

One of those new things was "interactive sex," which Joone pioneered in the early 1990s with CD ROM-based videos that put you in the middle of the action.

"You have this girl, and you can put her in any position, change camera angles, change demeanor," he says. "She can be innocent or nasty. You can record what you're doing and play it back."

The folks at Digital Playground were kind enough to send me a care package last year, and the CD ROM isn't quite as interactive as Joone makes it sound, but still it was pretty darn innovative in its day.

"We pretty much stayed on the forefront of CD ROM, as other companies would basically take their [VHS] titles and put them on a CD ROM. They weren't creating titles specifically for the format."

The same would hold true with DVD, as that technology emerged. In 1997, Joone "bet the whole company on DVD. We felt that would be the way. We did not do anything on VHS."

In fact, the company has been shooting, editing and mastering in HD for more than 3 years. Last year, Joone said, "We have a good library all ready to go." At the time, Digital Playground had two titles that could be watched in HD via PC: Island Fever 3 and Pirates. Again, Digital Playground was kind enough to send samples, although I didn't have the gear to watch in HD.

Would I really want to? According to Joone, most definitely.

"People, especially who have never seen high definition, are blown away by it," he says. "With adult material, when people are having sex in high definition, it feels like they're in your living room, close to the action."

That's a good thing, I guess.

HD DVD vs. Blu-ray

Given Joone's leanings towards Blu-ray last year, why are his first four titles in HD DVD? I don't know for sure, but I hope to interview the guy during this week's Adult Entertainment Expo, held in the Sands Expo next to the Consumer Electronics Show. Yes, I do have a press pass. No, you can't borrow it.

Last year, Joone said he had a couple of concerns. First, he wondered if Sony, the lead Blu-ray technology developer, would "allow" porn. Initially, there would be few Blu-ray replication houses, and adult video might not be the highest priority. Joone blames Sony for inhibiting porn titles on Betamax way back when.

He also indicated that many of the adult video houses were embracing HD DVD because of that format's lower cost of production.

The press release announcing Digital Playground's four HD DVD titles says, "With nearly 500,000 HD DVD players on the market today and more than 2 million expected by the end of 2007, consumers continue to embrace the HD DVD format, buying titles at more than twice the rate of any high definition format."

By the way, here are the ship dates for Digital Playground's HD titles: Island Fever 3 ships in HD the week of Jan. 15, followed by Pirates, Jack's Teen America 3, and Island Fever 4, later in the month.

Digital Playground has over 150 titles on HD.

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+ 1 for the HD DVD crowd

Source: http://www.cepro.com/news/editorial/16901.html

[Tech]

hells yes... HD-DVD may just win this thing yet. The second I heard that HD-DVD had lower production costs I'm fairly certain that Blu-ray will lose.
If theres anything the production companies, and Hollywood in general love its money and the more you can make from selling an item with a lower overhead margin the better.

[DeeLux]

And Toshiba is starting to roll out their more affordable HD DVD stand alone players, just cheap enough to grab your average consumers attention.

Right now Blu Ray has a bunch more titles announced than HD DVD, but I think that with porn backing the HD DVD circle we can't loose!!

Take that you dirty PS3-Blu-Ray viewing vermin!!

[Paladin]

I've seen the Pirates movie listed and it was crap! I'll wait for Vivid to pass judgement!

[DeeLux]

Vivid is actually supporting both formats

+2 HD DVD +1 Blu-ray

High-Def Porno winner = HD DVD

[Paladin]

damn them for playing both sides of the fence like their women!

[MajMalfunkshun]

I like High Def pirate women!!!

[DeeLux]

I'll post this here to keep all the porn in one place

http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/01/11/ce...hddvd_blu_ray/

CES 2007: HD DVD versus Blu-ray - The porn industry says HD DVD

Aaron McKenna
January 11, 2007 12:39

Las Vegas (NV) - Knowing their audience quite well, the adult entertainment industry holds their annual get together in Las Vegas to coincide with the CES. There is also a very pertinent crossover between the adult and tech industries - porn has a tendency to drive, and be driven, by technology. Which means HD DVD when it comes to high-def.

Quite famously in the war between Betamax and VHS the latter won especially because the adult industry preferred it. If you've been around long enough, you probably remember that the very early home video rental stores were primarily responsible for driving Betamax out of the market. And those stores carried almost exclusively pornographic content.


Although the market environments from then do not really compare to today's home video market, parallels are drawn between the Betamax-VHS battle to the ongoing and escalating fight between Blu-ray and HD DVD. One of the key questions at this year's CES actually is "Which high-def format will win the current format war - Blu-ray or HD DVD?" Surprisingly, it seems that there is no such question in the minds of the adult industry luminaries.

Putting myself through the arduous trek through the floor of the adult expo I did a quick straw poll on, the virtues of HD DVD versus Blu-ray, and the answer from a dozen companies, big and small, including Pink Visual and Bangbros editor-in-chief, is going into a single direction: HD DVD is the preferred format. Period.

One of the big problems they have with Blu-ray is its expense, followed by its market share. "Blu-ray has superior quality, yes," said a spokesperson for porn studio Bangbros, "but HD DVD is easier to produce, cheaper to produce and there are more HD DVD players in homes than there are Blu-ray players, for example in the Xbox 360."

Pink Visual heavily complained about the fact that Blu-ray discs cannot be replicated and a range of other studios, who did not want to be mentioned by name indicated that the cost of going with Blu-ray cancels the technology as a possible HD solution for this industry. "Only bigger studios can afford Blu-ray, and even then it's not economical," we were told.

It would seem that either Blu-ray has to do some catching up very quickly. But we got the strange feeling that HD DVD has won the format war already, at least in the porn industry.

[Tech]

No Sex, Please; We're Sony

Those handicapping the next-gen DVD race may want to note that the porn industry, the folks who pioneered commercialization videotapes and the Internet, appears to be putting its considerable clout behind HD-DVD.Pornhddvddigitalplayground

Porn marketers surveyed at CES all said they were going with the Toshiba-backed format, which they viewed as cheaper to produce than Sony's Blu-ray and more likely to achieve a reasonable installed base.

XXX types may be flattering themselves by thinking they have a choice, anyways. Adult movie producer Digital Playground said this week that it recently tried to start a line of Blu-ray titles but found that Sony had ruled porn as unworthy of a Blu-ray license.

just copied that off my google news ticker... Sounds like Toshiba has the ball and is now running for the end zone. Especially based on all the commentary everyone has on this. Especially since Sony is kind of known for creating new media formats that are far too proprietary and expensive for anyone to consider buying, not to mention even if its available since Sony is very stingy with regard to whom they grant licenses to. I mean look at MiniDisc, UMD, Memory sticks...

PSP's kind of took off and really only exist still because of the homebrew modders and such... UMD disc sales are in the crapper.

MiniDisc never even got off the ground really...

and Memory stick is gettings its ass handed to it by cheaper alternatives such as Secure Digital, and MMC cards. Heck the only devices that even use memory stick are all Sony's because they hold onto their darn license with as many hands as possible.

I predict a bitter defeat for Blu-Ray.

[DeeLux]

http://www.infoworld.nl/idgns/berich...257261002D0264

Highlight from the article above
ClubJenna plans to release its first HD DVD title in March, and aims to put out a total of 10 this year.

Boo-yaa, Blu-ray is going down!!