First off, don’t worry, all the links in this article are safe for work. It’s been a busy few days in the HD format war, it all started with the Financial Times reporting that Paramount was poised to switch from HD DVD to Blu-Ray, and that Paramount has a clause in their contract that allows them to do so in the event that WB did(which they did).

Paramount for its part denied the report that it will drop HD DVD. I was talking about this format war with some people in a chat room yesterday, and someone brought up an interesting point. The felt that the porn industry would be the ultimate decided in the HD format war. Their argument was that in the format war of Betamax versus VHS, the porn industry was instrumental. Their argument is not completely without merit, and I’ve found an article from all the way back in May of 2006 from Macworld that makes the very same assertion.

So then, its useful to see just who the porn industry is backing, after all, its multi billion a year industry that is a quick adopter of new technology.

If the porn industry is taken into account, Blu-Ray still wins, Digital Playground, a large producer of HD porn has chosen Blu-Ray and has reported recently that sales of the Blu-Ray version of its porn “Pirates” has sales through the roof. This despite the fact that many are reluctant about high definition porn because lets face it, who wants to see every imperfection on videos that are supposed to be fantasies.

It is this perceived reluctance for HD porn that led many to say that the porn industry would not be as big in influence in the HD format war as it was in the Beta/VHS format war. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Sony also doesn’t seem especially reluctant to license the technology as it was purported to do in the days of Betamax/VHS(although Playboy did have movies in Betamax format). Although some reports say, it did initially refuse to license its technology to the porn industry, it denies this. The Blu-Ray disc Association in fact has stated there is no ban against adult movie content. And while Sony hasn’t been exactly helpful to the porn industry, they haven’t been adverse either.

So, if HD DVD supporters were looking for the porn industry to be their salvation, and rescue them from the sinking ship, they are sadly out of luck, while some studios did initially support HD DVD, others supported Blu-Ray, if HD DVD was counting on the porn industry, they would have certainly needed an undivided front in the war, and not the at best divided one(and arguably Blu-Ray led) they are left with.

This all may end up being a non-issue, however, especially with Comcast’s recent announcement of Project Infinity, “its vision to give consumers the ability to watch any movie, television show, user generated content or other video that a producer wants to
make available On Demand.” and the prevalence of online sources for media, increasingly in HD. Although, consumers will still need HD media if they want to view their content regardless of location.

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