Even The Porn Industry Can't End HD Format War

from the bring-in-the-UN dept

It’s almost a cliché that the porn industry tends to be a driver of new technologies and a kingmaker when it comes to standards. The industry is definitely on the cutting edge when it comes to internet distribution of movies, and many have predicted that the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray battle would hinge on which format was adopted by Silicone Valley. But this particular format war has become so convoluted that even the adult film industry is taking an uncharacteristic wait-and-see approach with the new technologies. Studios aren’t inclined to make a heavy investment in a new format, when so much remains unclear. Meanwhile, the longer this battle rages on, the shorter the lifespan for the eventual winner; the porn industry is already interested in more advanced modes of distribution.


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Comments on “Even The Porn Industry Can't End HD Format War”

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36 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

Re: what's wrong with dvd?

Answer: The encryption was broken.

To the entertainment CONSUMER, there is nothing wrong with DVD. To the computing CUNSOMER, there is nothing wrong with DVD. Hell we cant even get freakin BLIZZARD to ship WoW in dvd… (at least not in the us, they seem to think we americans only want multi-cd sets… those rat bastards)

To the Entertainment producers, DVDs represent a mistake. They THOUGHT their content was going to be protected from piracy when it shipped on a DVD. Now they think that the protection is too weak, and copying/distributiuon is rampant (which its likely not, but they think whatever they want to think).

So the entertainment industry needs stronger DRM in their media delivery mechanism. What better way to shove stronger DRM down the consumers throat than by sugar coating it with higher video resolutions. Oh, did I mention they gt to raise the price of the content again?

This is a win-win-win for the content industry (if successful is forcing the adoption of a new standard) and a lose-lose-neutral for the consumer.

Have fun buying your movies over again.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: what's wrong with dvd?

I have a dvd burner. Used it thrice.

Tried downloading DVD iso’s of linux. $%^&ing things failed each time. (nothing could boot the disks, no idea why, no longer cared).

Other than that, never needed the ability to burn a dvd.

Yes, there is such a thing as the current technology meeting or exceeding current needs.

Maybe that will change in the long run, but for right now… I coudlnt care less about being able to burn 50 gb as opposed to 4.7 gb.

Since the move from CD-R to DVD-ABCDEFGHIJKL… didn’t “create the need by supplying… supply” I highly doubt there will be a demand for more.

Now… Maybe if it was also orders of magnitude FASTER and otherwise convenient, then yeah, I would think a shift to new medium was in order. But I don’t drive a mack truck to work every day cause its bigger than an F-150 and I don’t need a BLU-Ray burner cause its bigger than a DVD-R either.

Sanguine Dream says:

But...

VHS was copied no problem.

DVD can now be copied not problem.

No matter which of the new formats win (the industry will more than likely back the one with the tougher anti-copyright measures) it will be broken in less then 2 years.

I kinda see these new formats as a way for the industry to bide time until the law catches up with technology in the way of more aggressive methods of tracking and tougher penalties for people who violate those copyright laws.

No matter which format wins the industry, not consumers, will reap the true benefit.

Teilo says:

The winner will be the first one to be cracked

It’s simple. The first viable crack that does not rely upon cludges like screen captures, will establish the winning format. It’s simple economics. People will not willingly purchase a format which they know has limited use, vs. a format which they know they can use in any way they choose.

Anonymous Coward says:

DVD’s are ok, except they are obsolete. There are a number of formats available now that double the capacity of the current dual-density format and more coming that will increase it by orders of magnitude. The surface is also going to be scratch proof and as cheap as the current formats are. Scratching is a huge issue with the current formats. Sure, you can be happy with dd-dvds. Sure you can. People said the same thing about vhs.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

by Anonymous Coward on Aug 14th, 2006 @ 9:00am
DVD’s are ok, except they are obsolete. There are a number of formats available now that double the capacity of the current dual-density format and more coming that will increase it by orders of magnitude. The surface is also going to be scratch proof and as cheap as the current formats are. Scratching is a huge issue with the current formats. Sure, you can be happy with dd-dvds. Sure you can. People said the same thing about vhs.

The surface is going to be scatch proof??????????! ROFLMAOLOL!!!!!

And I recall that we were suppose to be able to live in a lunar colony by 1990! And all our autos wen’t going to have wheels by 1980! Tell me another one and pass the beer!

Seriously, when one of these HD-DVD formats is the choice for hard-copy distribution of pc games and software, then I’ll invest in the hardware.

Or if the p0rn-industry picks one, which ever comes first. Cheers.

Guard says:

Whichever format wins, we lose.

So with the restrictions their fighting over between the two formats, will the end format be limited to movies, since if we’re using these hi-capacity discs for file writing and transfer or other uses, we don’t exactly want restrictions limiting us from our own data…

Seems that we’re waiting to see how little we can do in the end with the winner.

Eric (user link) says:

Re: Whoa there

Say what you will about the morality of porn… these people know their business and know their customers. Too bad you can’t say the same for the MPAA/RIAA and such.

I’d just like to point out that the porn industry has been selling its content digitally for the last ten years without anything by way of meaningful DRM, and have even gone so far as promoting it on P2P networks.

John Q Public says:

I'm with Sanguine

I’m waiting too. Since HD will be the standard by the end of the decade, it follows that HD technology will become much more affordable. Granted, my buddy’s HD setup is pretty sweet for watching football, the $5000 price tag to do it right is annoying.

I don’t think the Porn industry cares too much about hi-def money shots, they have much more need to control the delivery and security of the format, but hey, its porn — thats the only reason I still have a VCR, so I can record it from the pay-per-view, put the tape in a shoe box, and hide it from the kids.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: what's wrong with dvd?

About that…

Of the 50 or 60 computer geeks I know, 3 or 4 of them actually burn dvds. And they ones do that to take their mpeg rips off their hdds.

Of the others, most have dvd burners, and never use them.

Of the average consumer, they dont have dvd burners. They wouldnt knwo what to do with one if they did.

Perhaps you meant that the computing consumer was supposed to be purchasing pre-burnt content. And prey tell, besides games and movies (already discussed), what content were they supposed to be purchasing on this 50 gb disk?

Oh, you just meant that bigger is better just cause its bigger? I can tell you work in marketing.

Eric (user link) says:

Re: Re: what's wrong with dvd?

Once in a blue moon I burn photos to DVD rather than CD when I actually take more than 700 mb worth in a single weekend (I shoot in RAW, which is the only reason it gets that big).

The bottom line is that there’s very little by way of data that a consumer needs 4.7 gb for, let alone 30-50.

(Although… 50 gb would be big enough to create an image of my hard drive and back it up to disc. But even then, I’m not sure it’s a great advantage over the external hard drives I use now).

Duh says:

fence sitting

Maybe the porn industry isn’t sitting on the fence. Maybe, as the write-up implies but doesn’t fully make the connection, the porn industry is once again showing the way. DVDHD vs Blu-Ray is a red herring, the real next step is direct downloads, and once again porn is right there on the cutting edge. This supposed standards battle is not like Beta vs VHS, it’s like vynl vs 8-track. One of them may lose worse, but neither of them will win long term.

HDFury says:

RE: What's wrong with dvd?

I would have to say that other than backing up your porn collection there really isn’t a need for a disc (that whether you want to believe it or not is not going to be “scratch proof”) that is 30 gigs or more. IT uses tapes, we have for a long time and they work. I can use a tape a lot before it’s done……..how many times can you re-burn a DVD or HD-DVD or even Blu-Ray? People don’t even know what to do with the space that is available to them now.

Sanguine Dream says:

Is that much space needed?

For I while I was thinking of building my next PC with a DVD burner so I could back up my files with fewer discs than traditional 700mb CDs. Well over the last few weeks I’ve been looking up external harddives. Sure 2x400gb externals cost more but they will last MUCH longer (and take less space) than any burned DVD or CD.

Lay Person says:

Why???

Why pay?

Porn is porn…it’s all over the internet for free!

Perhaps I’m missing the point. Maybe there is better porn than others but isn’t porn about having sex, exhibitionism, and more sex?

How far can anyone put a twist on porn and make it something more than what I’ve stated?

If there is a variant of porn I’m unaware of…what is it?

It’s all over the internet people and it’s free. No matter what you do with it, all you need watch is about 10 minutes worth to notice a difference.

Charles Bailey - filmmaker says:

Porn in the age of HD

Maybe I’m running a bit late to the punch on this topic, but I have to say, as one of the leading producers of adult films on the east coast, I really dont think our buyers are seriously interested in Porn being on HDDVD or Blu-Ray.

In reality, most of our buyers don’t care about seeing some of the garbage being produced on HD.

Ryan says:

maybe you dont

I have probably burned well over 1500 dvds in the time i have owned a burner. in this day and age how can anyone live without one. with the increasing size of data on hard drives, the growing speed of the internet to deliver high speed information,it simply makes sense from a pc standpoint to go bigger. for example- an entire season of F1 racing including qualifying in digital format downloaded from the internet totals over 30 gigs. in order to put that on disk i have to span it across multiple dvds, where as next gen disk could all be on one disk.

is the need general? probably not, but there is need. these comments make it sound like no one burns dvds. but there are in fact many many people who do burn them, and could definitely use the higher capacity.

i agree that the movie industry and such are only pushing the format for anti-piracy and money, and the dvd will be around for a long long time, but it would be nice for us power users to have a bigger medium for data storage.

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