Blue Blu-ray

TopSpin writes "Early this year the meme circulated that Blu-ray might be going the way of Betamax, and for the exact same reason: Sony's unfriendliness to the porn industry. But at Japan's recent euphemistically named Adult Treasure Expo 2007, adult filmmakers said Sony has begun offering technical support, and this was later confirmed by Sony PR. The company stated that Sony would offer support to any filmmaker working on the format, no matter their industry. Apparently, Blu-ray is now the preferred medium for Japanese adult films."

Re:Any consensus?

[AuMatar]

Normal DVD- cracked DRM, and most people still don't have HD.

Re:Any consensus?

[TheRealMindChild]

Meh. To me, it comes down to:

• How much a burner costs
• How much the media costs
• How many commercial players will support burned movies of format x

Porn is irrelevant

[DrXym]

Porn is not going to decide HD formats. I don't know why this idiotic meme keeps springing up. Sure it may have had an impact on beta vs VHS where porn-friendly VHS offered an alternative to going to some sleazy porno theatre. But those days have past. Porn is readily and discretely available from thousands of internet sites, satellite, and conventional formats. The impact of some format supporting or not supporting porn is fairly low. Besides, there are Blu Ray porn titles if you really want your razor rash in HD so the whole argument is moot.

Re:Any consensus?

[C0rinthian]

Yeah, because Sony treats their consumers MUCH better than MS does, right?

Urban legends

[Anonymous Coward]

The original meme was wrong in the first place. Some people took an article that said that Sony would not press porn blu-ray disks, got confused, and announced that Sony wasn't going to allow porn on blu-ray. This was never the case. They never said they wouldn't license it for other people to press porn on blu-ray.

This was all said at the time, of course, but people were more interested in being clever and announcing blu-ray's demise than actually researching the matter.

I want storage, not HD.

[khasim]

I don't care a bit about the video capabilities.

I just want the gigabytes of storage. Inexpensive burners + inexpensive disks and I'll be happier.

Re:Difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Picture if you had to build a garage, type A only fits car A type B only fits car B - you have to make a choice. Either choose A to buy all your cars from Sony in the future, or B have the choice of every other company in the world.

It's all in the name

[Alioth]

Blu-Ray won't fail because of porn, it'll fail because of its name.

Now what will Joe Sixpack think? He'll think WTF is Blu-Ray? I'll buy HD-DVD. I know what DVD is, and HD-DVD must be better DVD. So Joe Sixpack will buy the HD-DVD system because he knows what a DVD is but hasn't the faintest clue what Blu-Ray is.

Re:Any consensus?

[cerelib]

If those are your only criteria, then regular DVD wins.

Mod Parent Insightful

[Zantetsuken]

Mod the parent insightful - even if it totally fails as a video format or for games, it would still be useful for things like data backups (if it got cheap enough), maybe even to the point that it would be worth it for the average Joe Sixpack to perform bi-annual backups of his desktop or laptop (or for the bit-torrent people, all of the Battle Star Galactica episodes they've downloaded for example).

Not really

[bjdevil66]

Call me when:

1. Decent, large wide-screen HDTVs (LCDs, Plasmas, etc.) cost about $300-$400.
2. The HD-DVD or Blu-Ray debate is settled so I'm not buying the wrong tech.
3. Shopping for above parts or components is simplified or culled down a bit (I don't have to read a dozen articles to understand every bit of the technology - 720p, 1080i, compatibility issues, etc. - I just want it to work)
4. Hooking it all up is easy enough to where I'm not reading manuals or HOWTOs (i.e. done in less than 15 minutes - why waste the time?)

Until then, my nice,

Re:It's all in the name

[noamsml]

Advertising, advertising, advertising. Do you think the DVD brand sprang out of nothing?

Re:Difference?

[masdog]

Um...in case you haven't been to a consumer electronics store in the last six months, there are more 3rd party Blu-Ray players than there are HD-DVD players total. Unlike Betamax, this isn't a Sony-only product.

Re:Am I the only one who just doesn't care about H

[garcia]

I really don't care for the HD craze, I still buy plain old DVDs. Am I really in the minority?

No, you aren't but the industry definitely wants you to believe that you are. See the most recent commercial w/the dude from the Sopranos talking about his HD-DVD player and how it makes his regular DVDs look even better...

They know that consumers are unlikely to upgrade so soon after their full conversion from VHS.

---

My feeling as to why Sony is now playing with the Porn Industry is b/c Blu-Ray has yet to be cracked and they are hoping that with HD-DVD being toast that they will get to be the winner. With the porn industry a little annoyed by the pirating of their DVDs (but not taking the steps the MPAA is), they are hoping that they will be able to be better protected with the new format.

Re:It's all in the name

[Heftklammerdosierer!]

Or Mr. Sixpack will think HD-DVD is just an incremental upgrade to regular DVD, while Blu-Ray is something new and better.

Re:Mod Parent Insightful

[misleb]

Nah, even now 50GB is probably not sufficient for a full backup for a lot of people. By the time writers become common, 50GB will be nothing.

 

Re:Any consensus?

[trolltalk.com]

Who wants H.D. pr0n? Do you really want to see cellulite, open pores, wrinkles, etc. all in high-def? You'll end up wishing porn really did make you go blind.

Hi-def makes it much harder to fulfill people's fantasies with real-life actors. Even the producers are complaining about it.

Re:Any consensus?

[Virak]

How much would you pay to see HD mosaic???

The exact same amount I pay to see SD mosaic.

Seriously, who the fuck buys porn?

Re:High-def porn? No thanks.

[desertfool]

Or it will make them realize that the inflated breast, bleach blonde actress isn't better then normal women. It may be a *good* thing for society.

Re:It's all in the name

[blhack]

Now what will Joe Sixpack think?

He will have the oppurtunity to explain to the rest of the frat that blu-ray is better because it uses a blu laser, instead of a green one like cassette tapes use.

the name blu-ray sounds futuristic...unlike hd-dvd.

Re:Porn is irrelevant

[LoverOfJoy]

Do you really think the number of people who:
1. are considering an HD player
2. are porn consumers
3. don't use the internet
is a sizeable enough number to determine which HD format will succeed?

Sure, the number of people in category 1 will rise over time but the number of people in group 3 will likely decline just as fast if not faster.

Re:Any consensus?

[Citizen of Earth]

Hi-def makes it much harder to fulfill people's fantasies with real-life actors.

I think the producers who use 18-year-old girls will do just fine with this medium. The producers who use 40-year-old women with fake tits—and plots—should go out of business anyway.

Re:Macs

[rbgaynor]

While you could use Macs to gauge when a new technology has "made it", Apple actually inflates the price of the hardware they sell and has a history of price-fixing.

So you're saying Apple conspired with itself to not undercut itself on price?

Re:Any consensus?

[Trogre]

Well, yes.

Next question?

Re:Any consensus?

[ShawnMcCool42]

Who cares if most people have whatever? The point is that there's plenty of us that do (it's not that expensive, at all) and there's a market for it.

Re:Any consensus?

[CastrTroy]

Which brings up a good question. Back in the 80s?? when the VHS-Betamax war was raging, there wasn't many ways to get porn. You could either buy magazines, which were just pictures, or you could buy video cassettes. Now we have the internet. With all the pay-for and free porn on the internet, I think that buying porn in a brick and mortar store will disappear pretty fast. I don't think that porn availability will be the deciding factor in which format wins this time around, because most of the people who are up-and-up on technology, who will be buying the new HD disc players are on the internet, and getting their porn from there.

Rock and a hard place

[crovira]

If Sony tried that "We don't fart and we don't fuck on Blue-Ray" their share-holders would carve them up and eat them raw on vinagered rice patties.

They REMEMBER the VHS-BetaMax debacle.

That is not likely to happen again.

Like Vespasian said, holding up the sesterces collected from the public toilets: "Money has no odor..."

Re:Difference?

[cyphercell]

So when I have a terabyte disk on my PC in five years, do I want to do my backups with 34 HD disks or 20 Blu-Ray disks? Do I want the whole collection of star wars on one disk or two. Honestly I think the storage space will make a difference more than anything.

Re:Mod Parent Insightful

[ucblockhead]

When I first got a digital camera, I could back up all the pictures onto one CD. Eventually, it was two. Then, higher resolution camera, and it was three, then four. About the time it got up to six, I got a DVD burner and could back up to one DVD.

Then, of course, more pictures, a higher resolution camera and I'm now up to six CDs per backup. Probably in a year, I'll get a blu-ray or hd-dvd burner and be back down to one disk.

Re:Mod Parent Insightful

[Ivan Todoroski]

Who modded this as insightful? So what if you can't fit everything on a single 50GB disc, there's still a hell of a difference between your backup taking 10 blu-ray discs or 100+ DVD-Rs.

An order of magnitude jump in optical media capacity is always welcome.

Re:Any consensus?

[Carewolf]

There are better algorithms that stretching. There is no reason a SD 50" TV shouldn't look good. Unfortunately people buy shitty DVD-players. I start grinding the axe everytime I see de-interlace artifacts, or boxy pixels on a big screen.