Filmstalker: Adult Industry adopts download to own DVD's

As we all know the Adult Film Industry has driven the channels of delivery that the mainstream Film Industry have followed. If you don't know they adopted cinema, VHS, DVD, Internet and DVD Extras well before the mainstream Film Industry did. It's not to say that they were the force behind the mainstream industry's decision, but they certainly helped pioneer that direction and prove the Business model.

Now, not only are they adopting High Definition early but they've just started a full Internet model of download, burn and own movies. Interestingly the sway within the Adult Film Industry also seems to be towards Blu-Ray over HD-DVD. Analysts agree that both directions are the way the whole Film Industry is heading.

Starting Monday, Vivid Entertainment says it will sell its adult films through the online movie service CinemaNow, allowing buyers to burn DVDs that will play on any screen, not just a computer...
...Ron Wagner, director of IT operations at E! Entertainment Television said his company has already chosen the Blu-ray Disc format, in large part because of talk in the porn industry preferring it to HD-DVD.

There's some interesting points raised in the two articles, but the overall message is that the Adult Film Industry is heading towards Blu-Ray and the mainstream Film Industry is keeping a close eye on them with some studios starting to follow.

The download to own model is now live and running, and the word from analysts is that the mainstream Film Industry is going to watch them iron out the bugs and see how the model works before taking more steps in that direction from the traditional delivery method.

The download system from Vivid and CinemaNow won't be using the CSS protection system that the mainstream industry are waiting on. Instead they are using a proprietary system that ensures that the burned DVD cannot be copied again, this means that the DVD can be played on any devices, not just the PC it was burnt on.

For me this is a much more attractive model than the mainstream Industry is going after, I don't want to be restricted to watching a film on the PC I downloaded it on. The issue here that the mainstream Studios are forgetting is that it is still far more attractive for people to download pirated material, I can burn that to a DVD and watch it anywhere. For them to truly make a dent in the pirate Industry they need to offer the same service to the end user, download something and watch it anywhere. The Adult Industry have realised this and are charging $19.95 a download, cut to DVD and watch in any DVD player.

Yet the Studios are far from adopting this model as they have a whole retailer chain tie in that they continue to honour. From Yahoo News:

...But the real goal, analysts say, is to pipe major Hollywood movies and TV shows over the Internet directly to TV sets, bypassing DVDs altogether...
...Hollywood is moving slowly in that direction but must first devise ways to placate retailers, broadcast affiliate partners, movie theaters and others with bottom lines threatened by the move.

"The more they champion Internet distribution directly to the consumer, the more it seems they're turning their back on their old media partners, which they can't afford to do," [Michael] Greeson [founder of The Diffusion Group, a consumer electronics think tank in Plano, Texas] said

On the HD front, it seems the move of the Adult Industry is influencing some major mainstream players already. From MacWorld comes the story of how E! Entertainment Television has adopted Blu-Ray over HD largely because of the Adult Industry take on:

Wagner said that while attending last year’s National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference, more than one panel discussed "several major players in the porn industry going the Blu-ray route.” He said the Blu-ray versus HD-DVD rivalry was also the buzz around NAB 2006 last month...If you look at the VHS vs. Beta standards, you see the much higher-quality standard dying because of [the porn industry’s support of VHS],” he said. “The mass volume of tapes in the porn market at the time went out on VHS."
...The television network...has more than 85 million subscribers to its celebrity gossip and entertainment news...

Within the Adult Industry it's quite clear why they're supporting Blu-Ray, and it's a factor that all mainstream Studio's will be considering too:

...Adult movie studio Digital Playground, which claims to have produced the largest number of high definition movies in the industry over the past three years, said it is choosing Blu-ray Disc for all of its 'interactive' films because of its greater capacity. It also selected Blue-ray because Sony chose the format for its PlayStation 3 (PS3) box, due out in November...
..."PlayStation 3 is going to be the Trojan horse that will get a lot of numbers into the home theatre systems - the living rooms," said Joone [co-founder of Digital Playground], who is also a movie director. "Technology-wise we’ve chosen Blu-ray, which doesn’t mean we won’t support both formats but as far as having really cool technology and a lot of storage for future proof, Blu-ray is a good format."...

...Steve Hirsch, head of the adult film studio Vivid Entertainment, said he’s currently using the HD-DVD format because it was the first to come out, but his studio will begin burning to the Blu-ray format as soon as it’s available.

"The adult industry has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to technology. We don’t have any theatrical distribution issues nor do we have big box retailers, like Wal-Mart and Blockbuster, to cater to. We’re forced to find distribution wherever we can,"

It's interesting that they say they will be supporting both formats but adopting Blu-Ray. I'm actually confused as to what that will mean practically. Dual format discs?

Gartner agrees that the Adult Industry is a strong factor in the winner of the HD battle, but there's a bigger factor...

Gartner analyst Paul O’Donovan believes the industry’s support of either DVD format will be a “strong factor” toward general acceptance of the technology by the general marketplace, but even more critical is Sony’s adoption of the technology.
O’Donovan said even though initially the Blu-ray format will be more expensive and will come after that of HD-DVD, the sheer support it is receiving from the entertainment industry, including pornography studios, will catapult it to a victory within a range of 18 months to five years.

So the near future is Blu-Ray, but it hardly matters if the further future is a full download to own model because why would be need any type of storage in our homes other than a Media Centre? With mega-fast wireless around the corner and high-end PC's so cheap, is all we need some wireless connections for our home cinema?

Comments

What an article.
The main question seems to be the one you pose last.

Will the "physical product" die with the advent of it's digital counterpart.

If you wanna set precedent, the we can look at the music industry as an applicable case study..........

Music is an arguably more common, but obviously lower yield product than film as it is less expensive and easier to manufacture/create. The music industry is certainly more prolific in terms of product output and consumption but is still on the same development curve as cinematic film, albeit a few steps ahead.

The simple example is that people cried over the impending death of CD's/Records with the inception of iTunes for Windows. And granted, we still haven't felt it's full effects yet, and won't until we reach total market saturation of MP3 player sales.

But the CD is still here. The 12" is still here. Even when an alternative product which may be perceived by many as "better" is offered in direct competition to it, and given ample time to execute it's termination of the previous market leading format.

For God's sake cinema survived when people were introduced to this new fangled TellyVision thing which spat out the very same product for free!

The reason these things are still here is because they have not been destroyed by the introduction of their alternatives, but augmented by them. We now have more choice on how we want our product. But people will still always have an affinity to what they know, love and accept; and for some people the experience of going to the movies is what they enjoy in addition to the new mediums.

People still buy records because they like collecting records, and likewise people will still buy DVDs because they like collecting DVDs.

If you love watching movies then you will of course welcome an easier way to do that, but if you love to collect movies then nothing can replace that. People will always favour a tangible product, it appeals to our basic senses, greed and undying pursuit of materialism.

As for the format wars, it looks like Sony hold the swing vote as they did with DVD. The adult industry deems Blu-Ray the most efficient means of delivering their product and are pushing ahead. What's gonna make the movie industry think differently?

Posted by: Rynndar | May 15, 2006 7:47 PM

Great article indeed and followed by another brill post!

I see what you mean here. I just got an iPod Nano recently that can hold 1,000 songs, I dont have that much CDs to put in it and now that I have uploaded all my music in my iTunes library, what do I need the CDs for? I was thinking of buying the new Pearl Jam album on digital, as it costs cheaper than a CD but I wanted to feel the cover, and have the lyric sheet. Rynndar is right in saying that as long as people remain collecting, either DVDs, CDs or what-have-you, there will always be a way to do it, until we reach total market saturation, and who knows when that will be.

Posted by: Simone | May 15, 2006 10:29 PM

Its true to a degree what you are saying but its gonna be a long time, take the VHS tape, dead and burried you say, well thats not exactly true, 80 % people aged over 50 still use the VCR only and thats a big sector of the market, where do they buy them ? well it is a declinng shop front for them, so they get copies off freind etc ...and the same with DVDs, and you may well say that you can burn a download onto a DVD, but its the same thing isn't it, all you are doing is moving the place where the dvd is burned, and so the DVD will live on because that 80% that i was talking about earlier dont use PCs and the majority will not learn to use a pc and so if they want to watch a film whether it is an adult one or not they will watch it on a DVD or VHS, and these people, with luck on their side could live for upto another 40 years.

Download may be on the increase but I beleive it will stalemate like the VHS for may years lerking in the background.

P.S if you are not too sure about how popular the VHS is still ask the CEO of Dixons UK why they decided not to scrap the VHS from their range.

I get some of mine here - slagged.co.uk

all the best

Matt

Posted by: Matt | October 8, 2008 11:45 PM