HD DVD takes early lead in European market

[superklye]

Not exactly breaking news as this had been somewhat well-known for a little while now, but there are lots of good details in here for WHY it is (apart from the PS3 having just been released a few weeks ago in Europe).

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...an-market.html

Production costs are also of importance to smaller studios which may not be willing to purchase entirely new equipment in order to press Blu-ray discs, or incur substantially higher costs to produce them. French replication company Qol CEO Laurent Villaume told FT that the risk involved in producing Blu-ray disks isn't comparable to that of HD DVD: "An HD DVD replication line costs about €800,000 and you can make 40,000 discs a day on it. A Blu-Ray replication line costs €1.7m or €1.8m and you can make 10,000 to 15,000 discs a day."

"The expense is prohibitive," said DS DVD CEO Alex Ponti to FT. "Additional capacity will be needed when we produce additional content but that is years away," he added. The HD DVD standard requires players to have an Ethernet jack and European studios feel that they could take advantage of this to offer extra content to HD DVD players over the Internet rather than on the discs themselves.

Hmm...looks like the insane cost to produce Blu-ray Discs DOES matter.

[mullet]

I also read that when the porn industry all moves to HD-DVD its over BLEW-Ray will be no more.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?ali...modsrc=reuters

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - In the battle over next generation DVDs, pornography could prove to be the XXX factor that helps determine a winner.

Thirty years ago, VHS toppled Betamax in part because of the adult film industry, and now some see blue movies playing a key role again as backers of HD-DVD and Blu-ray maneuver to make their formats the standard.

The stakes are high. As prices of high-definition televisions and DVD players fall, backers of the rival -- and incompatible -- formats are looking to tap a home and rental DVD market approaching $25 billion.

Yet so far, neither next-generation format has been able to land a knock-out blow.

James McQuivey, a principal analyst at technology research firm Forrester, said in the VHS-versus-Betamax war, porn provided a significant boost for the winning format.

He also noted the adult entertainment industry has often paved the way with new uses of technology -- such as streaming video on the Internet -- and said porn could help tip the scales in the current DVD format battle.

"If the porn industry wanted to break the logjam of HD-DVD and Blu-ray, it could," McQuivey said. "If they said 'We are going to go with HD-DVD' you would see a few million homes immediately go out and buy HD-DVD players. They have that power."

It is a potential weapon that one side, at least, has ignored. Instead, Blu-ray backer Sony Corp.<6758.T> blocked manufacturers from producing porn DVDs in that format -- a move that some say has pushed adult film studios into the camp of HD-DVD camp led by Toshiba Corp. <6502.T>

Steven Hirsch, founder of Vivid Entertainment Group, said Walt Disney Co. <DIS.N> also refuses to use DVD makers -- known as replicators -- that press porn titles.

This makes finding a Blu-ray replicator willing to alienate Sony and Disney almost impossible for porn studios because the format requires costly new equipment and there are only a handful of replicators able to make such DVDs.

That isn't a problem for HD-DVD because that technology is based on previous-generation standards, which makes it far simpler and cheaper for companies to hire replicators to press their DVDs.

Hirsch said that Vivid -- home to adult film stars such as Jenna Jameson, Tera Patrick and Briana Banks -- found a willing manufacturer to press "Debbie Does Dallas ... Again," which the company plans to issue in April.

But the cost and difficulty of doing so for the sequel to the 1978 adult film classic "Debbie Does Dallas" clouds whether more adult films in Blu-ray will follow, said Hirsch, who declined to provide details on who is pressing the movie.

"We have been able to find a replication facility to do our title but it wasn't easy and it has deterred us for the most part from releasing titles on Blu-ray," Hirsch said. "That can be potentially problematic for Blu-ray."

Studios like Vivid say they have been shooting films in high-definition for years to build up a library, but so far the number of titles is only a trickle as the industry weighs the advantages of each format.

HD-DVD machines are cheaper but Blu-ray has backing of a majority of the mainstream studios and an advantage in that the format is compatible with the PlayStation 3, the latest version of Sony's popular series of video game consoles.

The founder of adult studio Digital Playground -- whose films include "Island Fever 3" and "Pirates" -- believes Blu-ray backers are erring in not embracing porn as they fight over billions of dollars in royalties.

"The reason they should want to work with us is that they are in a war with HD-DVD and in a war you would want as many people in your corner," said Joone, the Digital Playground founder who goes by one name.

Joone said in an ideal world Digital Playground would offer films in both formats. Instead, he sees Sony and other Blu-ray backers pushing the adult entertainment industry toward HD-DVD, whose supporters he said have welcomed porn producers.

"In general we need to have one format because it cuts down the confusion in the marketplace for the consumer," Joone said. "HD-DVD has helped us tremendously to get titles out."

[superklye]

I've said this countless times already but I guess I can again:

Porn is a help, sure. But porn today != porn of the early 80s when VHS/Betamax were going at it. Before then, getting porn into the household had pretty much no other avenue. Today, we've got VHS, DVD and the internet, and HD porn is readily available on the internet.

Besides that, DVD is just as good for porn...most people watching a porn aren't watching it for the detail and for how good the audio sounds.

HD DVD isn't going to be saved by porn, but it certainly will help. Price of players and availability of (non-porn) titles is far more important.

[mullet]

Good point. Plus im not really sure I want to see some of those porn queens in HD, they look better blurred.

[superklye]

hahahaha exactly.