Porn Industry Trials Burnable DVDs

nukular writes "The LA Times has an article discussing porn giant Vivid following the likes of King Kong in allowing users to download and burn movies to DVD. Unlike in the Hollywood plan, these DVDs will be viewable on other DVD players." From the article: "Despite their obvious differences, adult and mainstream entertainment companies face similar pressures in the Internet age. Both are grappling with how to deliver content securely and reliably to devices in a variety of ways, whether it's prepackaged on DVD for TVs or sent wirelessly to cellphones. Both also want to capitalize on digital delivery methods but can't afford to undercut their retail partners: big-box stores such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for the major studios and mom-and-pop video shops for the porn producers. They also fear online piracy, which the music industry partly blames for its lackluster sales."

Porn Industry *Trials* Burnable DVDs ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tries, damn it! Tries!

Re:TGP

[icydog]

Your post is redundant. He already said this. See where he says "IMy friend"? That is newspeak for "I have this friend, and he..."

This makes sense

[British]

Considering the average pr0n title costs a lot less to make than say, King Kong, there is not so much financial risk(er, losses) involved.

So instead of the pr0n industry helping sway one side of widespread video adoption, it will now walk into the office like it's an expert to do some research.

Old technology. I want new technology

[sgant]

Porn has always been the driving force behind new technology in entertainment. But this seems to just be more of the same. Granted, I'm glad they're getting more and more into this, working out the kinks (so to speak) so that mainstream movies may follow suit in the future.

But I'm waiting for there to be a way to hook into a machine like in the movie Brainstorm or The Matrix where all 5 senses are stimulated and it seems as your really THERE. Of course Dennis Miller said it best: "Folks, the day an unemployed ironworker can lay in his Barc-a-lounger with a Fosters in one hand and a channel flicker in the other and fuck Claudia Schiffer for $19.95, it's gonna make crack look like Sanka"

Nobody interested in what the copy protection is?

[Overzeetop]

Sure, lots of pr0n jokes, but not a single elaboration on the copy protection mechanism? Excuse my ignorance, but isn't the key area of DVDs unwritable either on typical DVDR media? So what form of copy protection is going to be used that will a) be burnable by a PC and b) be readable by a generic DVD player?

Why bother

[Straif]

You can't download anything nowadays over a P2P network without getting a full DVD quality porn.

Whether it's the latest Linux distro of your choice or Ice Age 2, you can almost guarentee that at least one of the results is just a misnamed full length porn.

There essentially trying to come up with a plan to sell ice to eskimos.
Definately an uphill battle.

Re:Vivid is the Microsoft of porn.

[JeremyALogan]

I work at a porn shop and we have a huge wall of Vivid videos (literally a few hundred). You know what? No one ever rents them. They get rifeled through regurlarly, but no one want them. To back up what you were saying, we have shelf after shelf of "star" videos by them and the vast majority of them have never been rented... not even once. To quote the "Who is Paul Thomas and why don't we like him?" question from the RAME FAQ [rame.net]:

Paul Thomas (also known informally as PT), a big star in 70's porno and the main director of 90's adult video powerhouse Vivid, has often been a target for derision in this group for his efforts. The accusation is that his films are pretentious and unexciting, and that more frequently than not he appears to forget he's shooting a porn flick and not some cheesy daytime soap.

So yeah, I'm with you. I'd rather see some people with more talent an clout do this first.

Here's a crazy thought . . .

[Orange Crush]

Have any of the content industries tried trusting their customers?

Downloading and burning a DVD is going to be too big of a pain for lots of people. For it to work in most DVD players, it's gotta be MPEG2 which means downloads of several gigs per title. They could cut that down a lot w/ an MPEG4 variant, but then the customer will have to transcode to MPEG2 which can take hours . . . so from their perspective, no time saved.

Why not release the whole library for pay-per-minte streaming, and offer an option to download the title (DRM-free) for an extra fee? Customers get to browse pr0n to their heart's content, and can download and burn titles they especially like. The studios get more revenue because it's cheap and quick on the streaming side, and they'll probably curb a lot of piracy--why bother wading through usenet and p2p networks when you can preview and download whatever you want much more efficiently for reasonable rates?

God forbid someone downloads a DVD, burns it, gives a zillion copies to their friends, etc. Because . . . you know . . . I'm *sure* that *never* happens with rented porn DVDs already . . .

There has always been and always will be piracy. The best way to minimize it is to offer your consumers what they want, how they want it, and at prices that make for a better value and less effort than going out and getting it illegally.