Adult Film Industry Chooses HD-DVD

Sarusa writes "If this is true, it's Beta vs VHS all over again and HD-DVD may be the foregone winner of the format wars. First, Heise reports (summarized from the German by sgknox.com) that Digital Playground, who were committed to Blu-ray last year, are now producing HD-DVD titles instead. No Blu-ray disk manufacturer would make their disks because Sony doesn't want porn on Blu-ray (just as with Betamax). Second, as reported by tgdaily, the porn industry overwhelmingly favors HD-DVD because it's much cheaper and easier to produce. As noted in the tgdaily article, porn was a huge factor in VHS winning the VHS/Beta format wars even though many people don't like to acknowledge it. Porn, like gaming, pushes tech adoption."

I'm not sure I want my porn in HD

Too much detail can be a bad thing ... unless you're into that sort of thing.

Re:I'm not sure I want my porn in HD

I can just see one of the first shot for HD DVD porn's title being....

1080pee

Re:I'm not sure I want my porn in HD

Actually, (and this is legit) this [wikipedia.org] was shot in HD, so I imagine it'll get a re-release soon enough. ;')

Re:I'm not sure I want my porn in HD

we should indeed want our porn released in HD. Then when it's ripped and stuck on torrent sites, the playback quality will be better.

Re:I'm not sure I want my porn in HD

I must visit the wrong torrent sites. I don't see a lot of adult material torrents.

Re:I'm not sure I want my porn in HD

1. Register [thepiratebay.org] on The Pirate Bay.
2. Be over 18.
3. Select "show porn" in preferences.

Um, that's what I heard, anyway.

Re:I'm not sure I want my porn in HD

Or easier. Go to Torrentspy.com. Click On Latest Torrents, Check on the Adult Checkbox, And uncheck all others if necessary.

Re:I'm not sure I want my porn in HD

I'm a little disappointed.

They have many references to a movie where the lead character was "Jack Sparrow", I was expecting the lead in this version to be "Jane Swallows".

It's not bad, really.

Let me put it this way: It's like a real woman. Just because you can whip out a microscope and examine every inch of her body (every pimple, every blemish, every hair), doesn't mean you do. She's there, she's naked, presumably she wants to fuck you, so why are you counting the hairs in her landing strip?

Same thing with HD. Yes, if you pause it and zoom in, it may look much worse. But you've got a giant HDTV and some nice surround sound; again, why count the hairs in her landing strip when you can just sit back and enjoy the show?

Re:It's not bad, really.

Well I think that's exactly the point.

"Sitting back and enjoying the show" would be watching it on DVD.

Going out and buying the HD version instead is like buying a microscope.

Re:It's not bad, really.

How is that different from anything else in HD? I'm not going to miss any action in a football game on a regular cable broadcast, but if I'm to believe the ads for comcast HD I see everyday, I ASBOLUTELY MUST GET HD so I can REALLY appreciate the game. If you think you can see too much of a porn star on HD, why the hell would I want to watch a game populated by 350 pound linemen in HD?

Re:It's not bad, really.

What I like about watching sports in HD vs SD:

1. I can actually read the coach's clipboard (especially the ones that print it instead of writing it on a whiteboard).
2. The crowd looks like real people instead of a blur. You can see the thrill of victory and agony of defeat. Entertaining, really.
3. And probably most important....you can see the cheerleaders in more shots.

Layne

I just don't get it

What's with the massive anti-HD sentiment regarding porn? What happened when you guys see a woman in real life? Do you go "EWWWWWWW! She's so hi-def! I can see her pores!" Christ, if detail really turns you off that much why not just confine yourself to viewing hentai?

I think that just as most people (of the appropriate gender and orientation) prefer to see a naked woman in real life vs.a naked woman on DVD, so too would most people prefer to see a high-resolution picture of a naked woman vs. a picture which is so low-rez that you can actually see the individual pixels fairly clearly from 10 feet away (I can, at least.) Now don't get me wrong, that's not enough to make me want to rush out and buy an overpriced, over-DRM'ed piece of shit AND a new TV to use it with, but saying that HD is the TV equivalent of a microscope is just dumb. My laptop has a WUXGA (1920x1200) screen, and you'd have to be smoking some amazing crack to say that it makes naked women look uglier. It most certainly does NOT. It makes pictures--ALL pictures, regardless of whether or not they involve naked women--look vibrant and real in a way that makes owners of XGA-resolution laptops weep with envy. I suppose I COULD stare with my eyeball an inch from the screen and scream "AHHHHHHHH! I SEE A PIMPLE!" but... why? Just why would you do such a thing? Not to imply that imperfections bother me that much--on the contrary, I find that the plastic, 'pancake makeup' look to be pretty unappealing... I'm just saying, why would you go out of your way to look for such things?

HD isn't a microscope; it's simply a MUCH NICER PICTURE TO LOOK AT.

Re:I just don't get it

Quoth: Christ, if detail really turns you off that much why not just confine yourself to viewing hentai?

You do realize that you just posed this question to Slashdot members, right?

Re:I just don't get it

What happens when you guys see a naked woman in real life?

I got married five years ago. So I can't remember.

Re:It's not bad, really.

DVD porn already makes women look substantially worse. Google around, I'm sure you can find an adult film company talking about it. Flaws that you wouldn't even see on VHS are going to look like another orifice in HD.

Re:It's not bad, really.

Then you rebrand it as "Hentai"

Obligatory

"She's there, she's naked, presumably she wants to fuck you"

You must be new here.

Why else do you think pr0n technology makes headlines around here?

Re:Obligatory

More like, "She's there, she's naked, and probably wants to fuck every guy in the room BUT you."

Re:It's not bad, really.

Let me put it this way: It's like a real woman. Just because you can whip out a microscope and examine every inch of her body (every pimple, every blemish, every hair), doesn't mean you do. She's there, she's naked, presumably she wants to fuck you, so why are you counting the hairs in her landing strip?

She's there, she's naked, presumably she wants to fuck you, and the object you choose to whip out is... a microscope. You, sir, are one nerd who is overdue for a promotion.

Re:It's not bad, really.

I don't get that. You want a woman right? Above the age of 11?

Re:It's not bad, really.

most guys i know prefer a girl who waxes/shaves. i just don't enjoy getting pubes in my mouth.

Re:It's not bad, really.

Amen, it's the only reason I care. Btw - this does go both ways, guys, at least trim.

Re:Explanation

And if your girl tells you that she's perfectly satisfied after 15 minutes, she's lying to you for your ego. :-p

Things don't really get interesting until she's come for the third time.

Re:I'm not sure porn was that big a factor

Most people could not see the quality difference between the two formats.

The OP was not suggesting that Beta had higher quality pr0n. He was suggesting that in the VHS v. Beta war there was no interweb. When you can get (legally or illegally) high quality pr0n online, who cares if you can get high quality pr0n on HD-DVD as well?

Re:I'm not sure porn was that big a factor

Isn't high quality porn an oxymoron?

Protect Reputation or Shoot Foot?

In the previous discussions about pornography decided the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray battle, I'd always said that the porn industry was fully capable of going both ways, and a few others besides (with the double-entendre wholly intended).

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?

Re:Protect Reputation or Shoot Foot?

I'd always said that the porn industry was fully capable of going both ways

Must. Resist. Urge to comment.

Re:Protect Reputation or Shoot Foot?

The more I have thought about it the more I think that the 'best' (and probably most plausable) outcome to this whole Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD war is that both formats will retain enough support for the first few years that eventually every 'Movie Player' will support both formats; at that point the consumer doesn't care anymore and the each of the 'camps' will be fighting over content providers.

Ultimately, if I see this as the likely outcome next christmas I will probably buy a HD-DVD player because I will have no worries about the content I buy not playing in future devices.

Re:Protect Reputation or Shoot Foot?

18 months ago I read an article that said Toshiba said they had a triple layer HD-DVD disk which holds 45GB, which pretty much makes the extra expense of Blue-Ray pointless. I read that Here [theregister.co.uk]. Move ahead to August 2006 and they are still just talking about it Here [hometheaterblog.com] and say the spec won't be finalised until mid 2007. They should make sure that HD-DVD players are ready now for this format, and can be firmware upgraded to read them. Of course even if they don't, the next gen HD-DVD players will still be able to play all the HD-DVD movies you already bought, so looking at that it's probably still the better investment.

Re:Is 45 enough?

I'm no expert on video compression, but shouldn't it require six times as many bytes to store HD video at the same compression rate? That means you'd need 51 GB just to store the same length movie as a dual-layer DVD.

If you were using the same compression algorithm, yes it would require that much more data ...

We're fortunate that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are not limited by the same compression algorithm that DVD is ...

DVD uses MPEG 2 [wikipedia.org] compression and (IIRC) Blu-Ray and HD-DVD can use H.264 [wikipedia.org] and H.264 [wikipedia.org] can fit (practically) the same ammount of video data at 1080p on a DVD that MPEG 2 can fit (at 480p) on a DVD.

Re:plus the features!!

listing to 'this week in tech', last week and someone (Leo / Dvorak) was saying they visited the HD-DVD booth who's rep's were all about how movies can be filmed with 'skinable features'.. and gave the example of Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift where they got to select the color of the cars....

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:Protect Reputation or Shoot Foot?

I know a lot of people say that neither Blue-Ray or HD-DVD will win as the next format. The winner, they say, will be broadband and hard drive. In general, I disagree. Enough bandwidth to do High Def is years away, as is the hard drive space to store very many movies. People are going to be hitting the stores for discs of various kinds for quite some time.

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

Re:Protect Reputation or Shoot Foot?

Enough bandwidth to do High Def is years away, as is the hard drive space to store very many movies.

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:Protect Reputation or Shoot Foot?

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.

Along with this point, why does Sony get to ride the moral-high-horse after their rootkit debacle?

"No, we don't want porn released on our products, but secretly installing crippling software on computers -- regardless if people accept the EULA -- we fully support (*ahem* until we get caught and sued *ahem*)."

Just me or is that a big hypocritical? On the other hand, I'm sure there is a "business philosophy" disconnect between the HD DVD and music groups/divisions.

Re:Protect Reputation or Shoot Foot?

Just me or is that a big hypocritical? On the other hand, I'm sure there is a "business philosophy" disconnect between the HD DVD and music groups/divisions.

My understanding is that if Sony were a person, they'd be diagnosed with severe multiple-personality disorder.

Re:Protect Reputation or Shoot Foot?

For most people in the world this is the standard situation:

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.

VHS vs. Beta

You mean the mythical VHS versus Beta where the "better" format lost, or the _real_ VHS vs. Beta war where the better format (longer tapes, for one thing) actually won but where people keep propogating the "Beta was better than VHS!" myth?

Re:VHS vs. Beta

Right on. I think the only reason more people don't point out the parallels between HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray to the last format war (SACD vs. DVD-Audio) was that SACD and DVD-Audio were both such catastrophic failures that only audiophiles even know what they were. Because in the mean time, mp3s took over.

And if VHS was 'technically inferior' to Betamax, mp3 compared to SACD/DVD-A would be off the charts bad. And guess what people chose?

Re:It's Over

It's jergens, kleenex and HD-DVD over Neutrogena, an old sweat sock and blu-ray by a landslide.

History repeats

It really is VHS vs. BetaMax all over again. And it's even Sony again pushing the more expensive and less open option!

Re:History repeats

they're ugly sisters whose only saving grace is the amount of capacity they offer.

i think i saw that porno once. thanks for making me relive the horror, asshole.

oh god, the things they did with that 6 foot sub...