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.

I'd rather my porn NOT be in high definition.

And how.

Wow, look at how red the head is on the herpe sore!

I wouldn't take what this guy is saying as gospel. I noticed two glaring errors in factual data, as well as atrocious grammer in that sentence about the trek through... Never heard of the guy, but he's probably just some hack with a blog.

Blu-Ray has been getting terrible reviews in the industry mags and sites for months. Once again, like Betamax, it's Too expensive, too fragile to produce efficiently, and Sony's trying to fuck anyone who wants the right to it's use with a 25 inch cactus shaped dildo in the wallet.

True, so true. As usual--Great concept, horrible execution. It is a much better format, and Apple is behind it for now, but Sony should have learned from Betamax.

so basically, much like with the PS3, Sony is pricing themselves out of the market? Again?

This is kind of the nail in the argument right there. Presuming that Sony is putting quality over anything these days is quite the folly.