HD DVD and Blu-Ray on Fox News

HD usurping DVD is inevitable IMO.

DVD looks fine on today's TV that averages 30-35 inches or so but even I'm impressed by the price reduction on LCD panels. A ho-hum 37" LCD HDTV panel is $700 or so. In a couple of years we'll likely see 50" HDTV at a kilobuck.

The transition will be slow but it'll happen.

yeah I'm not to worried about HD surviving cause by 2009 the Gov will require all stations to go digital, not all HD of course, but the general public doesn't really know the difference, and they will still need to upgrade to a digital tuner, so by that time HD tvs will be lower priced and people will upgrade. Hell my mom bought an HD tv so she could hang it on the wall, doesn't care at all about HD signal

Pr0n will have no effect on the outcome of the HD format war. It is plausible it had a real effect on the VHS vs Beta conflict, but the market conditions are so different now it's not realistic to think the same results would apply.

Pre-VHS, obtaining audiovisual naughtiness had three options:

1. Going to watch the act in person
2. Going to watch at an adult movie theater
3. Buying a film projector and projecting it yourself in your home or private locale

The first two lacked enough privacy that many were reluctant to do so. The third was relatively expensive, but essentially a precursor to the VHS rental experience.

When VHS showed up, it allowed all of the people who didn't like options 1&2 for privacy reasons and couldn't afford 3 to jump into the market. This was a sizable chunk of population: enough to make the difference in purchase volumes of VHS vs Beta. Note I'm not saying it did make the difference (there were other issues at stake, like recording time), just that it is plausible it might have.

For HD disk, the business conditions are such that getting pr0n in front of your eyeballs includes:

1. Pay-Per-View
2. Adult Channels
3. DVD
4. VHS
5. The Internet

Note that in the VHS case, quality was obviously not the driver: the degradation between film and VHS doesn't really need discussion, does it? It was content and affordability... and in this case, DVD and the Internet win hands down.

Will there be a niche market for HD pr0n disks? Sure. There's a niche market for damned near anything. "Some folks juggle geese." But I assert that the only reason adult content was able to influence the VHS/Beta war (if it did at all) is that it changed the whole cultural paradigm about watching such content and therefore added tons of new "users".

It's a phenomenon that's not likely to happen again until the paradigm shifts again-- and that won't be "better resolution of hottie actresses" but more likely something like full-contact suits with spectacular VR...

... not that I'd ever, ever consider using such a thing. Ahem.

I'm not so worried about Hi-Def moving into everyones homes sooner or later, it's a natural progression and its coming, the ball has been rolling for a while now. I'm also not so sure we should fear the downloading thing just yet either, not anytime soon anyway...I mean if J6P (and he does have the biggest say in all this) is not quite ready to adopt either Blu Ray or HD-DVD today as some suggest, how the hell is he ready to start downloading ???gig Hi-Def material instead? Nah, were set for many years to come I think. =)

I keep seeing this parroted, usually by BR fans (not sure if you are one or not). To say that adult film will have "no effect" is naive. Will it have AS GREAT an effect as when VHS and Beta battled? Unlikely. But why wouldn't Adult film studios have at least as much affect as any non-adult independent studio? (emphasis on "at least").

I keep seeing posters on both sides looking forward to releases from various independent studios. Why wouldn't adult films have a similar following? Sure, people don't post about them HERE, but that doesn't mean that demand doesn't exist...

I agree with archibaeld, this is different, HD discs won't change the way porn is consumed (best word I could come up with here) I would guess a person that really wants great PQ would buy their format of choice based on mainstream movies, not porn.

I don't know how many people buy or rent adult discs but I do think many of us at some level would like to keep that option open. And hidef adult material on the Internet will likely have come originally from someone buying or renting a highdef disc somewhere along the line.

- Tom

I see the p0rn industry as the canary in the coal mine to small niche content providers.

Everything I have seen indicates that it will easier for low volume niche producers an small catalog titles to migrate to HD DVD because of cost and production capability and capacity.

I just caught the tail end of the news report. Wish I would have seen the whole report.

http://www.foxnews.com/video2/player...News&122&&&new

Here is the link on fox news to the report.

probably because independent studios are several orders of magnitude larger than porn studios. the only "pretty" porn is made by feature studios, and they've all already announced their plans to release in highdef (all 4 or 5 of the remaining feature studios!). the vast majority of studios (hundreds of 'em) are gonzo based and shoot cheap and quick. they sell in low volume but get cranked out fast enough to provide a living wage. 3000 units on dvd is the average for a movie at a better gonzo studio. if you splinter down the the 1% currently buying highdef that becomes a very small number indeed!



check out adult dvd talk. it's a marketplace for adult online retailers, as well as a discussion forum for adult content. i just did a search for various highdef phrases and didn't come up with much. the fans don't seem all that interested.