Picking high-def partners
By Marcy Magiera -- Video Business, 1/26/2007
JAN. 26 | There’s really nothing sexy about a format war, but you wouldn’t have known it last week.
Rival high-def DVD formats HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc got some of the most intense press of their short lives as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, BBC radio and others covered their impact on adult entertainment with “will they or won’t they” stories about each format’s potential for porn.
VB’s Laurence Lerman reported Jan. 19 on www.videobusiness.com that Vivid Entertainment would be the first adult supplier to release a film on Blu-ray. Its Debbie Does Dallas … Again is due on both high-def formats March 28.
Adult film marketers, like numerous mainstream product suppliers, have an eye for Blu-ray because of its ample capacity and compatibility with Sony’s PlayStation 3 game console, currently in hot demand among young men.
Vivid’s Blu-ray announcement followed lots of scuttlebutt at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo tradeshow that ran overlapping the Consumer Electronics Show in January that Sony and the rest of the Blu-ray camp wouldn’t let replicators stamp adult titles. Sony’s own replicator, Sony DADC, does not manufacture adult titles, but since Vivid is releasing in the format, others apparently do.
Vivid’s Blu-ray first aside, HD DVD does appear to have more support among adult suppliers.
Digital Playground will issue a quartet of HD DVD titles over the next couple of weeks, including Island Fever 3, Island Fever 4, Teen America and the studio’s biggest hit to date, Pirates. The first high-def adult title was Wicked Pictures’ HD DVD release Camp Cuddly Pines Power Tool Massacre, issued on Dec. 22.
Although it’s understandable that a company like Sony doesn’t want to publicly embrace porn, the adult entertainment industry has a long history of helping new formats get off the ground. While it remains to be seen if adult is as influential a force for new packaged media in the age of Internet delivery, for strategic reasons, I’d still want adult marketers on my format’s side. I suspect that many studio execs feel the same way, whether or not they would acknowledge it.
The press coverage of the last week alone surely brought high-def DVD to the consciousness of many more Americans.
