Porn industry leaning toward HD-DVD

And also, stop saying pr0n.

Everyone who is saying that the Internet is making this war meaningless is disregarding the fact that plenty of people are still buying porn DVDs, whether through a brick-and-mortar store or from an online retailer.
You might get your porn for free and online, but don't make it like there aren't billions of dollars of this stuff getting sold yearly.

"Porn isn't gonna decide this format war."

LOL

It wont matter what format they choose because everyone is going to buy a universal disc player. Anyone who is buying a blueray or an HDDVD player now is throwing away money.

This is a huge thing to say. Considering the porn industry bascially made the standard format VHS back in the 80's (there were two formats of tapes back then for VCRs), they might do it again with DVDs. This will be an interesting thing to watch!

You could not be more wrong. Porn was the single most important reason that VHS beat Betamax, despite Betamax being the superior format. Laser never takes off... no porn. DVD explodes... porn. UMD a huge hit in Japan... porn. UMD an abject failure in the US... no porn. See a pattern forming? Porn leads technology far more than anyone would care to admit. Stating that it won't be a factor is simply showing your ignorance. You'd think sony would have learned their lesson by now, but apparently not. I'm not making a judgement call one way or the other, but ignoring the facts that date back decades in inexcusable.

Porn is pretty versatile. It's all over the internet, still en masse in magazines, VHS, and DVD.... Some peeps will want to see that in HD, so while it isn't the top factor in sales, it is still a significant one.

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@ #9
""Did you even read this blog post? The very company you mentioned has switched to HD-DVD due to Sony not wanting porn on its format.""

and yet, when someone announced they were gonna make the first porno UMDs, Sony announced they were NOT happy with it, but couldn't stop people from using it that way.

"I'm surprised with your comment "Porn isn't gonna decide this format war.". Like the porn industry has shown in the past, their format backing is usually a strong factor in the war. They make up a massive sect of the market today, and certainly can't be so easily ignored. In 2005, the Porn Industry contributed to 4.28 billion USD of DVD sales. Not a tiny bit of change when you consider the total sales of DVDs during 2005 only amount to 24.5 billion."

except most porn has gone cyber now, the internet is the new frontier. no one is forced to buy dvds any more.

Porn is a huge factor in the early acceptance of any new media format. Sure porn may only account for 15% of DVD sales now, but go back and look at the numbers in the first couple years it was out. We already know that it was a big deciding factor with VHS. Porn flourished on the internet well before more legitimate businesses started to use it. That's not to say that a media can't work without porn, but it helps get a new media to that critical mass needed for more mainstream content to work.

Everyone on the internet has heard the whole "porn decides video formats" theory. Including, no doubt the author of this article. We get it.

HD-DVD FTW

So, Sony can effectively censor what content gets published on Blu-Ray (based on what's said in the "forced to side with" link) through tight control of licenses. That's scary.

And, how many license fees does Sony collect? Blu-Ray disk manufacturers have to pay Sony for the privilege of supporting Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray laser diode manufacturers have to pay Sony to make a part in order to sell that part back to Sony (no wonder the PS3 ran into Blu-Ray diode shortages). And Blu-Ray player manufacturers have to pay Sony for the right to sell a product that competes with Sony's products.

Do we REALLY want to see porn in HD? :P

As a person who watches porn and isn't afraid to admit it, (don't let the kiddie screen name fool you, I'm not as wholesome as the real Scooby), I actually agree with the author's statement.

This is not the same game as what happened with VHS or DVD's at all. Both formats came out and solved certain consumer pain points. With VHS/Beta tapes, it was the fact that you could only watch a movie by leaving your house. Cable certainly had not hit critical mass back then. With DVD/DivX, consumers learned that digital media is more convenient for things like not having to rewind and being able to skip to your favorite scene. Even then, only until maybe 3 or 4 years ago, did I walk into an adult store and find more DVD's than VHS tapes.

The reality is I get my movies through the internet now through digital distribution and I'd argue that the same internet has done more for this particular industry than either VHS or DVD's and will continue to be the future. I think both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray have a particular struggle of explaining why we need these new formats. The extra space is nice, but other than technophiles who are really looking for HD Movies, I can hardly see the same kind of adoption rate inherited by Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. I actually expect it to take a longer time than the switch from VHS to DVD's.

man, where do you guys get your information from? http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=4221

you guys do love to spread to bullshit, don't you? they don't have a ban on porn, it's most likely has to do with pressing issues.

I don't think porn will be the deciding factor in this format either. As some people have mentioned 15% of the DVD market is porn. Which means 85% must be non-porn. Blu-ray has a majority of the publishers with the 85% and according to http://www.blu-ray.com/ blu-ray software sales have surpassed HD-DVD. Take that as you will, given that the blu-ray.com is obviously a blu-ray fanboy site, so its kinda hard to take at face value. But, if you take everyones favorite site for these wars http://www.thedvdwars.com you can see a similar trend in amazon. Blu-ray, which was once far behind is gaining significant ground.

That is not to say that the porn industry won't be a significant factor. It is just to say it probably won't be the deciding factor. Capturing an uncontested estimated 15% of the market is a big deal though. One might be interested to see how much Universal has of the market as well. Then to counter those arguments one might take into account the market share of those studios exclusive to blu-ray. Warner is supporting both HDDVD and BD, and Warner holds 21% of the market. Buena-Vista, BD only, holds second place with 18%. Followed by Universal, HDDVD only, at 17%. Fox, MGM, and Sony Pictures also hold significant amounts of the market, and they are BD exclusive as well (unless something has changed since I last reserached this).

I think these is another thing people need to take into account. Many don't think HD Content will replace SD content. Instead it will work alongside of it for a long time. I imagine that DVD will be around for a long time just like VHS was and may not go away like VHS did. Those with the setup may opt for HD content where as those without will continue on DVD. I don't know who is buying porn but I wouldn't be surprised if the demand for HD porn isn't as large as everyone in this post is claiming.

It seems BD has made an official response to the claims that BD is declining the porn industry, but that at least one studio "Digital Playground" has switched sides to HDDVD. DP claims that BD would not allow them to make their movies on BD, so the BD reps might just be lying to save face. Who knows the truth /shrug.

Guys, look, if you really wanted porn on your PS3, all you would do is go onto the PS3 browser and download it, whats the point in buying, I don't even buy it for DVD, which iddiot does that, this is why we have Limewire PCs and a very large harddrive. Porn or no porn, it won't make the slightest bit of difference, even if PS3 had porn, that won't stop Blu-ray from flopping if it flops nor will it help it succeed.

Its like musci, how many of you actually go and buy CDs anymore unless its an album you want, most people keep thier music on thier comps, Ipods, MP3s and PSPs etc which we pay for and download over ther internet, some don't even pay, but thats thier issue. The only DVDs we actually buy any more is films, and not even crap ones, only films worth picking up :P So Porn on DVD of any type, be it HD-DVD or blu-ray is about as useless as having the pictures imprinted on your cat.

Whoever said porn on Betamx was an option needs to shut down his computer right now.

The Pornographer clearly said that the Blu-Ray factories wouldn't copy his stuff because Sony told them not to. That is the same thing they did with Betamax.

I don't get it though. They obviously remember how it hurt Beta, and I no for a fact they that have UMD porno's in Japan?? What are they doing?

I agree with everybody that says this is a HUGE blow to blu-ray.

The writer of the article is wrong if he thinks that porn won't be a deal-breaker.

Though on-demand and ubiquitous online porn have cut into dvd sales, the cash purchase of porn DVDs is the one way in which you can get access to hardcore porn, without leaving a paper or electronic trail, and is thus the preferred method for a huge segment of the population. I'm sure it's well into the billions of dollars annually, and it will drive early adoption.

According to AV/N, $4 billion in 2005 spent on video sale & rental (most of which has to be DVD at this point). Blu-ray is really screwed by this (pardon the pun)

http://sexuality.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.avn.com/index.php%3FPrimary%5FNavigation=Articles%26Action=View%5FArticle%26Content%5FID=250935

Actually, Porn is given the credit of deciding the format wars between VHS and Beta Max. However I don't think it makes a difference this time around.

As far back as November, there were already several porn movies released in blu-ray in asia. The Blu-ray association didn't stop their publication.
http://www.glayz.co.jp/gbd_web/gbd_web.html [possibly NSFW]


Companies are still playing it safe. If nothing else, it sounds like they cant get companies to press their discs because they are already booked solid in ramping up to meet the rising demand for Blu-ray content.

It sounds like they've been getting turned down left and right, so they make big deal in the press talking about moving towards the competing format so that the Blu-ray association clears space in the queue at one of their plants just to shut them up.

This IS the porn industry folks; if not shady, they can be downright shrewd businesspeople. You have to take everything with a grain of salt.

I just think it's funny that a producer said Blue-Ray is higher quality. There is no quality issue, Blue-Ray and HD-DVD are just storage formats. BR discs hold like 50 GB and HDDVD discs can hold like 30 GB. Just cuz it has more memory on the disc doesn't mean it's better quality. I guess that's why he's just a porno producer. (Although I'd still much rather be doing that than my currect occupation.)

@43. "Can't find any "tips" button anywhere on joystiq, so might as well put it in HD-DVD comments: http://www.dvdtown.com/news/hddvdgoesbeyond50gbwithnewdisc/4260

"Toshiba has announced a new 51GB HD-DVD Rom disc at this year's CES.

Beating Blu-ray by 1GB, Toshiba today said that they had successfully created a triple layer HD-DVD disc that could contain 51GB worth of data with 17GB on each layer."

Oh my!"

The you might as well add that this increase by toshiba means little to nothing, and theyre not even close to beating Blu-ray. Maybe you'd like to submit the following, as well...

TDK SHOWCASES INNOVATIVE BLU-RAY SOLUTIONS INCLUDING QUAD-LAYER 100GB DISC TECHNOLOGY AT CES 2006:
http://tdk.com/procommon/press/article.asp?site=corp&recid=111

TDK SHOWCASES LATEST BLU-RAY DISC INNOVATIONS AND INTRODUCES 200GB DISC TECHNOLOGY AT CES 2007:
http://tdk.com/procommon/press/article.asp?site=corp&recid=140

Oh my! indeed.

LONG LIVE PORN!!

And in response to hemmy, those are "new technologies" as in, not being used yet. They will be used eventually, however. But it still has no effect on quality. That is up to whomever creates and puts the information onto the discs. In which case, porno movies will probably still be lower quality than mainstream movies and higher quality than the bootlegs I buy from my friends on the corner (just be able to have hundreds of hours instead of just 5 or 6).

@71: I hope you're not trying to imply that Toshiba is disqualified from your "new technologies" qualifier, because that's "not being used yet" either :)

Toshiba is pursuing fulfilling the hddvd specification, which calls for a 3 layer disc, maximum. The BDA partners, TDK, Panasonic, Sony, and others are also pursuing fulfilling the BD specification, which calls for 8 layers. My post was illustrating just that, and to preempt the "Oh snaps, blu-ray am d00med, hddvd has 0ne more gig L0L PWNED" talk, because it's simply not true.

"Porn isn't gonna decide this format war."

James, oh James. You VASTLY underestimate the power of porn. Honestly, if all the porn studios are going HD-DVD, then I'm calling a win for Microsoft, no joke...

The real underlying answer here is which format is easier and cheaper to produce for? Oh yeah, there we go. The porn industry unsurprisingly chooses to go that way. End of story.

The adult industry is tremendously influential. I remember the Economist magazine (as touted by your favourite world leader) had a cover article on how it has driven technology and innovation in many industries e.g. the internet, VHS, DVD, premium rate phone services etc. etc.

In answer to those who wonder why there isn't more downloadable HD content, the answer is bandwidth costs. Not for you, but for the adult companies. I've got a friend with a fairly successful adult site and his hosting costs are $40,000+ A MONTH. And that's with non-HD content. A lot of men are going to want to show off their new home HD rigs with an adult hi-def disc.

Ok, so HD-DVD wins. Makes my decision so much easier.

That story about VHS and porn is a legend, nothing more. VHS won over Betamax because it was able to record 2 hours straight, while Betamax needed the cassette to be turned after one hour. That way you could not record a whole movie while being absent. That is the only reason why Betamax lost the format war albeit it's superior quality.

The author might want to do a little research before making a guess about the porn industry's affect on HD formats. http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/05/02/pornhd/index.php?lsrc=mwrss

I think porn will be a big factor in this battle. Despite all the various mediums available people still buy DVD's, and if HD DVD are made available in plentiful supply, people will buy those too, even if it just for the novelty factor.

Sony is relying heavily on the PS3 establishing the Blu Ray format, as the players from the likes of Panasonic and Samsung are so expensive. What Sony may have forgotten is that people still think of the Playstation as a games machine and not a movie device.

The porn industry has also realized that people buying a PS3 want it as a gaming machine and that these people are likely to be between the ages of 10 to 30. This age range isn't the porn industries target market. It has to target 18+. Conversely people buying HD DVD are buying dedicated machines to watch films, and the age range is far greater.

Like many others out there I have a PS2, but I don't use it for watching films! I have a separate machine for that.

So what this boils down to is cost and people will ask themselves "Why buy a Blu Ray player when you can buy HD DVD player for less?"