Toshiba announced in a press conference today that they would be dropping the HD-DVD format, thus ending the High Def format war. Sony’s format, Blue-Ray, appears to have won. The mainstream media had predicted that the adult industry would determine the winner in the format war, much like adult had with Beta and VHS. Several companies have come out with HD-DVD titles, including there being a big push of HD-DVD titles showcased at this year’s AEE Expo.
I’ve been told HD-DVD is a slightly more expensive format, however Sony was initially non supportive of any adult movies being released on Blu-Ray. It wasn’t until the Japanese adult video companies (JAV) began releasing their titles on Blu-Ray that Sony backed away from content control. Sony initially told replicators not to replicate adult or Sony would not authorize them.
Though Sony lost the Betamax war (Betamax was a Sony format) they have won the High Def format without the help of adult. If anything it was the mainstream studio’s backing of the format that brought it to a quick victory. Another factor is Sony’s forsight in shipping Blu-Ray players with all Playstation 3’s.
How much of a loss did companies take now that HD-DVD is dead? The cost of replicating both formats is highly expensive. How many companies will actually embrace the High Def market? Is it something the consumer really wants to see?
It would appear to me that the mainstream press got it all wrong. The issue wasn’t HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray. The real issue is physical media versus digital files. I would think physical media is a dying format and porn’s continued future is online and VOD.
A reader posts in the comments of this article the following:
Most mainstream publications were correct about porn not being a factor in the format wars, a few even quoting me in the process, so the claim that they were clueless is strange at best.
I have read countless articles on how porn would decide the format. Here are but a small amount:
http://www.macworld.com/article/50627/2006/05/pornhd.html
Just as in the 1980s, when the Betamax and VHS video formats were battling it out for supremacy, the pornography industry will likely play a big role in determining which of the two blue-laser DVD formats — Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD — will be the winner in the battle to replace DVDs for high-definition content.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=11108
Even CBS News made the suggestion that Porn would choose the high def war.
Like it or not, in the next few years, you’re probably going to be following the lead of the porn industry. I’m not talking about wearing high heels to bed or making noises like a wounded rhino. I’m talking about video technology.
Also in terms of the connection between the High Def war and how the JAV Market (Japanese Adult Video) helped thaw Sony’s content restrictions:
TechSpot: According to reports, Sony has begun offering technical assistance to adult film studios in Japan, something that’s been lacking in the US, where HD DVD has already won over adult film industry through its lower costs and ease-of-use.
From PSU: Sony has finally bowed to the porn industry in Japan, at least in an offhand kind of way. Though Sony still will not "press" Blu-ray discs containing adult content, they have sold a machine to a new Taiwanese company, which has already made an agreement to manufacture adult Blu-ray movies. In addition, Sony has promised to give technical support to any Blu-ray manufacture, regardless of the intended content.
This latest news comes from the Adult Treasure Expo 2007 in Japan. Currently there are 10 adult Blu-ray titles available to Japanese. Yoshimasa Nozu, a producer at Total Media Agency, promises that they will begin to output at least 1 new title a month alongside the new announcement.
Most mainstream publications were correct about porn not being a factor in the format wars, a few even quoting me in the process, so the claim that they were clueless is strange at best. HD-DVD is also cheaper than Blu-Ray to replicate and master (not even counting Sony’s “$2000 tax”) for each title.
As far as the Japanese porn companies making it happen, I’d like to see a credible source for the claim; the mainstream sources at the CES suggesting that Sony came around due to the bad press they were getting from adult producers and wanting more leverage against Toshiba than they had at the time.
As far as the losses for the HD-DVD format, consider that there are over a million consumers in the USA alone with HD-DVD players. To break even on such titles, the percentage of sales needed is minimal (HD being just another potential revenue stream). Only one company embraced the format in any meaningful manner, Digital Playground, and they are on record as saying they will continue making such titles as long as the additional sales justify it. I suspect they’ll be backing Blu-Ray exclusively within weeks but unlike the other companies that dabbled in the format, they have had titles turn a profit already, just a few months into the major number of releases they started.
Physical media will always have a place in the porn world but the biggest issue with VOD is that most of it is being done illegally so without any money coming in, it’s difficult to justify the format. 😉
Don from http://www.xcritic.com
PS: The people with all the fancy HD gear are the ones that are still willing to spend money on physical media so there is a market but not for generic crap all too common in the industry.
In response to the updated article:
1) The articles you are bringing up are from 2006 and even then there was no consensus, as you suggested, that porn would determine the outcome of the format war. You say you “read countless articles” but I suggest your ability to count must be pretty limited if this is the case Fake Luke.
2) Sony was still actively against American porn companies using the format well past the date of the JAV source but you left out part of the original quote too: “Sony says it has not changed its policy of forbidding its replicating company, Sony DADC, to make copies of adult films.” The wave of pixelated Japanese titles coming out in the summer of 2007 were well after Vivid’s Debbie Does Dallas Again (the first USA title on the fully compatible Blu-Ray disc format with the home burnt Jenna Haze Oil Orgy lacking compatibility but coming out first) too. What “helped” Sony see the light was it’s need for leverage after Toshiba paid ~$180 million to Paramount/Universal to go HD-DVD exclusive; an event that happened well after the summer of 2007 by the way.
A major issue going forward for the adult industry is going to be conflicts with replicators. There are several Blu-Ray replicators out there who do work for Disney and as a result refuse to replicate porn.
Packaged media is important. It may not ultimately be the dominate media delivery system, and the adult industry shouldn’t count out offering their products on Blu-Ray (if they can get it replicated)
You guys can say what but this is bottom line:
If HD-DVD would have had burners for home computers for less then $300 and if blank HD-DVD would have cost under a dollar each then every small time pornographer and main stream movie maker would have jumped on the HD-DVD bandwagon and Toshiba would have kicked Sony in the fucking teeth.
Sony is a pain in the ass to deal with. So many people are glad that they dont have to put up with Sonys lockdown on the BetaSP format which meant $30k video decks and $50k cameras.
Toshiba completely dropped the ball by not getting the price down and the recorders and blank media to market. I went to Target the other day and a blank Blueray disk was $18.
No small producer can sell BlueRay porn that they burn on their own disks if the blank costs almost as much as the final product.
Alot of porn is made and sold by small website operators who dont need or can afford replication. To make a glass master is around $1500 not including the replication or production run.
VOD and HD Porn arent competing yet. Most VOD is in standard format to keep the bandwidth down. Its too early to see how things pan out.
I’m not getting a blueray burner or player. Sony can kiss my puckered asshole.
It’s Blu-Ray … not BlueRay.
To echo some comments, I totally agree that porn future is in ephemeral media. There’s probably another few years left for the upper end of the business to produce DVDs profitably, and I imagine a good chunk of that profit will come from home theater enthusiasts who want the quality upgrades. But once you get into downloading content, it’s so fast and easy, it hardly seems worth bothering to mess with clumsy plastic packaging and storage. Ultimately, though, Blu-Ray only forestalls the inevitable.
BDD: “If HD-DVD would have had burners for home computers for less then $300 and if blank HD-DVD would have cost under a dollar each then every small time pornographer and main stream movie maker would have jumped on the HD-DVD bandwagon and Toshiba would have kicked Sony in the fucking teeth.”
If Toshiba had this in place, even paying off Paramount & Universal wouldn’t have kept ANY mainstream companies on their side. The ability to easily copy/steal SD movies is what is driving the other companies to the HD formats more than sales. How long does it take to download a true high definition movie in Blu-Ray on most high speed internet connections available to generic consumers?
Its two mules fighting over a turnip VOD plain and simple it isnt the future…it’s the current. BRD only won because every PS3 came with it, but PS3s are also very capable media servers that can play H.264 content. are extendable, storage wise, and have internet connectivity built in.
Porn companies that can’t adapt won’t survive.
Houstondon,
Mainstream companies such as Apple and now BMG and others who are on Itunes that recently became DRM free understand that its impossible to prevent coping. The issue is that content is king. If you dont have content on your format it dies. If Toshiba would have had an army of small time porn producers and mainstream filmmakers using their format they would have won. It doesnt matter what format you are on, someone will break it. The key is to make sure you have enough content to keep the masses happy.
BBD, you have a point but consider that the internet companies have been making unprecedented forays into releasing physical media in the last couple of years too. Sales may be “down” on porn DVDs but they still amount to a whole lot of dollars/yen/marks/pounds and other currencies across the world. Toshiba placed all of it’s eggs in one basket and lost the war; porn need not follow suit. 🙂
If production companies were to follow most current VOD schemes as another suggested, they would find the “pennies on the dollar” dynamic to leave them in the hole even faster in most cases.
The reality is that porn DVDs and pay sites are becoming relics of the past. Today, VOD and clip sales are potential ways to generate revenue for a porn producer, but their profit is not significant. AEBN and Hot Movies, the major players in the VOD market only pay %20 comission to producers, which truely is pennies on dollars. Robert Black of Extreme Associates recently announced he will no longer release his new titles on DVD, he will exclusively release his material on Hot Movies. He used to fuck with people and bounce their checks back when the industry was in it’s hey days. I’d love to see how is he going to manage now. On the other hand, niether porn production companies afford to release several titles on Hi-Def format each month, nor the average porn consumers are willing to to pay $30.00 for a DVD each time they want to jerk off to something. Unlike mainstream movies, porn has no collectibility value, people will spend $60.00 on The Godfather DVD Collection to have a ciniematic masterpiece in their DVD library for years, but will they spend $30.00 every time they want to jerk off to some drug junkie slut ass fucking a Joe Schmo? No, they won’t. Porn is the junk food of the entertainment industry: low quality, cheap, and disposable; and that’s why making a profit in today’s porn industry becomes much more complicated. The bottom line is that at least for the time being, no matter how bad DVD sales get, we still need that market in order to cover our costs and stay in business; but ultimately no viable solution is in sight.
Colonel, if you keep making posts like this you will find yourself promoted Brigadier General. My only qualm is that you compared porn to The Godfather DVD Collection which is not realistic. The Godfather had one of the most memorable soundtracks known to man, most porn now days doesnt even have a soundtrack. Most porn producers dont even use boom mics. They use the pathetic mics on their consumer DV cameras. No one puts any money into their porn videos anymore. The few that do get great reviews:
http://jettastjames.com/?p=10
Keep up the good work Colonel but lets get into the gritty details when you can.
BDD, I agree with you. We must get into the dark, gritty details and disturbing realities of porn: we must talk about those girls who run away from their abusive families and depraved homes in small towns and take the ground hound bus to LA with dreams of becoming the next Jenna Jameson, and end up in the hands of manipulative pimps who hook them on drugs and fuck them out of their money and leave them in the streets to rot or commit suicide, those disgusting, degenerate ugly men who inject their decks so they can fuck girls as young as their daughters on film for $200.00 a pop, guys who don’t even bother to take a shower or wash their mouth before showing up for a shoot, those videographers who have no idea how to white balance the camera and adjust the angles, directors who instead of supervising the shoot, set in a corner and jerk off, producers who set up the camera on tripod in their shitty apartments and pretend to make a movie so they can fuck some hookers, distributers who sell people’s product behind their back for as low as $1.00 per unit so they can pay for their drug habits and bullshit expenses, and last but not least, 30 something year old fanboys who live on their parent’s social security checks, set behind their PCs all day long and jerk off to stolen porn they download. Not a pretty picture, not exactly what AVN and HBO are shoving down the people’s throat. Perhabs there was a time when porn industry was a part of the American dream, but that dream is now gone. Broken. Buried. It’s time to wake up screaming.
“Perhabs there was a time when porn industry was a part of the American dream, but that dream is now gone. Broken. Buried. It’s time to wake up screaming.”
The horror, the horror!