macworld.com — 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.
May 3, 2006 View in Crawl 4
mcloseMay 3, 2006
Sorry for the long post in advance, but being an A/V and Technophile I feel the need to comment. I never really have thought about porn as pushing the limits of technology, but I must digress now that I do think about it the porn industry really has helped to push technology forwards. That being said I believe they will have little to do with this format war; as the internet affords persons the ability to watch porn without interacting with other people unless they choose to do so, and even of they want to they can. I also believe that there is another factor that many people are discounting in this format war... COMPUTERS. I sincerely believe that computers will play a huge part in this format war obviously the Blu-ray camp has a one up right now with larger storage capacities, always good in the world of computing. However if the DRM is too ridiculous on Blu-ray I believe that this may hurt them. Case-in-point DIVX. Personally I think an extremely strict DRM package may be analogous to DIVX (not the codec DivX;)/DivX, but the attempt by Circuit City to form a sort of DVD rental service). This was an example of more extreme DRM at the time (although I think it was cracked). DIVX was phased out due to its lack of features such as not releasing movies in wide screen formats, and omitting bonus features. This may be comparable to not being able to put that awesome new Blu-ray on your portable multimedia player because of the strict DRM, but if you owned it on HD-DVD you could, but you can’t because Sony owns the picture. Hypothetical situation, for all I know both camps could charge you $9.99 to do this, maybe not a concern now as you can buy the film on DVD and do it, but a few years down the road it may be. Now every time I hear Bill Gates give any sort of talk he always seems to stroke the media center edition of Windows as the future of home entertainment (perhaps rightfully so). A DRM that is too strict will be a huge disadvantage if this vision is realized and more portable multimedia players make their way into the market and they will/are, especially if Microsoft backs a less extreme DRM option that lets you put a copy on a portable device. That being said (a lot of info/ personal opinion… I know) it will be interesting to see which format will win out, but again I think porn will have a negligible effect in this format war still I digg this post… as you can see it made me think.
thisgeekMay 3, 2006
New media formats are always decided by porn. There are more porn movies released than any other type of movie, the world over.VHS, DVDs, The Internet.If it gives consumers easier access to teen ass then it will sell.
slydeMay 3, 2006
Am I suffering from a major bout of deja vu? Wasn't this talked about on diggnation once? Good thing I stopped taking those drugs...
mcbesqMay 3, 2006
Do you REALLY want to see pr0n stars in HD? Just a thought
swiftlyMay 3, 2006
"...increase sales and to "improve" the "user" experience..."Since when did porno have a 'user experience.'? I just sit there. I don't feel up the TV.
stokestackMay 4, 2006
WTF are you talking about? The array of supported codecs is the same for both formats. There is no "Blu-Ray codec."
j555May 4, 2006
Hah, your destiny! That's clever.. I call mine Mr. 8".