Blue Blu-ray 396
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."
Any consensus? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Any consensus? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Any consensus? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Any consensus? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Any consensus? (Score:5, Interesting)
It has nothing to do with extreme detail, it has to do with making giant TVs look just as sharp as your 20" TV... stretching a picture made for a small TV (SD) onto a large TV (HD) looks like shit.
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Rock and a hard place (Score:3, Insightful)
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..."
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Back the in VHS/BetaMAX days, the Internet wasn't available to every joe lunchbox with a $300 Nascar computer from Wal-Mart. There is so much free porn out there that people don't need to rent/buy it.
Blu-ray has all the major studios except Universal and HD-DVD has less than that.
Not that I really care. They'll both be cheap enough very soon that you'll be able to buy both formats.
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Betamax held an early lead in the format war, offering some technical advantages. By 1980, VHS was gaining marketshare due to its longer tape time (3 hours maximum, compared to just 1 hour for Betamax in USA) and JVC's less strict licensing program. The longer tape time is sometimes cited as the defining factor in the format war, allowing consumers to record entire programs unattended
Re:Any consensus? (Score:5, Funny)
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Normal DVD- cracked DRM,
Hasn't HD-DVD and Blu-Ray already been cracked repeatedly, with BD+ protection as yet untested in the market?
and most people still don't have HD.
You can get VGA monitors with better than HD resolution. My 21" screen is driven at 2048x1536 (QXGA), more than enough for 1920x1080p, and at less than half the price of most dual-link DVI displays (WQXGA: 2560×1600).
Still being compatible with my KVM switch and the legacy machines on it is a plus.
Re:Any consensus? (Score:4, Interesting)
That is changing very rapidly.
30% of American households have HDTV.
44% of these households receive HD programming.
The "home theater" movie and gaming experience can be more important to buyers than HD programming
>it's easy to forget that this will often be a buyer's first experience with large screen, wide screen, projection, flat panel displays,etc.
>which is good news in the long run for Sony and Blu-Ray.
2/3 get their HD programming by cable TV. 1/4-1/3 by satellite.
30% of U.S. Households Have an HDTV: CEA [blogspot.com]
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Happen to live on th far east coast where ma and p
Re:Any consensus? (Score:5, Funny)
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Something tells me that if it is the adult video industry that is going to drive a global HD format choice, it probably won't be those from Japan that do it.
I feel a little sorry for a customer buying Japanese HD adult content not knowing that in Japan all genitalia must be covered with mosaic.
How much would you pay to see HD mosaic???
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Seriously, who the fuck buys porn?
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Re:Any consensus? (Score:5, Insightful)
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But then, Sony's Blu-Ray burner is also still too damn expensive.
Re:Any consensus? (Score:5, Insightful)
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This article is about format xxx, you insensitive clod!
Re:Any consensus? (Score:5, Funny)
Hybrid (Score:5, Funny)
It may cost a bit more, I don't have to worry about choosing the wrong format.
Yes. Broadband (Score:2)
Why spend up on players etc that might go obsolete?
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Internet stuff tends to be formatted to prevent personal retention unlike physical media which only prevents extraction.
However, all three include a network connection to report back what you're watching.
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h264 HD w/o DRM
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Both of 'em still look damn nice. And BTW, Betamax lacked one critical advancement VHS had: longer record time. VHS soon made up the quality difference.
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Me? I use DVD. I'm not going to replace my nice 5 disc DVD player with a 1 disc player for one of the HD formats while paying $600+ for the privilege. I'm waiting for prices to drop.
Apple is Blu-Ray? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Next question?
Blu-kake (Score:5, Funny)
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The Swing Content (Score:5, Funny)
Blu-Ray Job (Score:2, Funny)
Za eentaenetto eesu foru porun (Score:2, Funny)
Difference? (Score:4, Interesting)
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think more like the porsche and the toureg. Both essentially luxury class suvs, one costs more than the other, but essentially still just a sporty suv.
The difference really is space. compare say
I believe hd-dvd is on the order of 15-20gb, where a blu-ray disc is 50-60gb. So the blu-ray disc can hold the same length movie
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But realistically, you can compress a full length 720p HD movie to about 5 GB without much compression artifacts, with the right codec. So either format is enough for HD.
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Re:Difference? (Score:5, Informative)
HD DVD is 15GB (I have no idea what a gb is) per layer. Blu-Ray is 25GB per layer. Both can come in dual layer formats and so HD DVD can have up to 30GB and Blu-Ray 50GB. Both support exactly the same video and audio codecs and also AACS DRM although Blu-Ray has an additional layer of encryption which HD DVD lacks although it hasn't be used yet. Blu-Ray is also region encoded whereas HD DVD isn't so you can buy your discs from anywhere in the world if you buy them on HD DVD but you can only buy them within your own region if you buy Blu-Ray.
Picture quality wise there is nothing in it. In all the tests so far, HD DVD has been equal or better where the film is available on both formats. Truth is, a 1080p HD signal can easily fit into 30GB using VC-1. A number of Blu-Ray discs are still using MPEG2 which is less efficient and is why they don't look as good as the HD DVD VC-1 equivalent.
In the end, the technical differences are small enough not to make the slightest difference. Physically, the discs are the same dimensions and a combi drive is practical so there is no reason to believe that a cheap multiformat player won't exist. Samsung is supposed to be releasing their DVD/HD DVD/Blu-Ray combi player in europe for 400 shortly and it will support all formats fully.
Personally, I bought an HD DVD drive for my Xbox 360 so I would have some HD material for my HD TV and HD projector. For the money I would have been daft not to and there were enough films on the format to get me started. Even today, there is little to choose between HD DVD and Blu-Ray when it comes to choice of films. Compared with DVD, HD DVD is definitely clearer and has richer colours and deeper blacks. I have an upscaling HDMI DVD player which helps make DVD look very good, but HD DVD is definitely better. When the combi player becomes available I will buy one and use that instead of my Xbox 360 and also have the option of Blu-Ray.
Re:Difference? (Score:5, Interesting)
You should definitely look into getting an antenna hooked up to pull down some over-the-air HD programming. I thought I'd need some mega-huge antenna to get a signal because I live in a rural area, but I was able to use a powered rabbit ear antenna and I can get the five or six stations that broadcast near me. It looks really good, too. Saturday baseball on Fox is a highlight of the week for me now, because of the increased clarity and the wide screen view. You can see a lot more of the action. You might already know about OTA reception, but I'm surprised how many of my friends bought really nice HDTVs and are just using analog cable or analog broadcast TV.
Re:Difference? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Difference?..... (Score:2)
So take your analogy and reverse it and swap Microsoft for Sony, because it is HD-DVD that has less studio's releasing for it, not Sony.
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The difference is that nobody has any idea what the difference is between DVD-R and DVD+R. Blue-Ray and HD-DVD, however allow for differing amounts of data storage.
Re:Difference? (Score:5, Funny)
Who cares (Score:2)
Until there's an affordable HDDVD/BluRay hybrid player, I couldn't care less what format has what movies (or what kind of movies, for that matter).
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The bigger war is still coming - Blu-ray vs. DVD. Most people won't need, or want, Blu-Ray for a couple of years, especially
Am I the only one who just doesn't care about HD? (Score:5, Interesting)
I want storage, not HD. (Score:5, Insightful)
I just want the gigabytes of storage. Inexpensive burners + inexpensive disks and I'll be happier.
Mod Parent Insightful (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mod Parent Insightful (Score:4, Insightful)
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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.
the rest of us download (Score:2)
Yeah, the rest of us download our movies.
Re:Am I the only one who just doesn't care about H (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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My feeling as to why Sony is now playing with the Porn Industry is b/c Blu-Ray has yet to be crac
Re:Am I the only one who just doesn't care about H (Score:4, Interesting)
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I recently went through the BBC Planet Earth site and downloaded all the HD clips they have. I believe they're only 720p as well (just checked, they are) and so i've been playing them on my 19" PC monitor which does 1440x900. People forget that standard PC displays can often play HD content! The video is just amazing, the details on some of the footage such as the Angel Falls. Any UK resident (or s
All hail (Score:4, Funny)
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Why bother (Score:2, Funny)
Licensing killed Betamax (Score:2)
If sony had been a bit more receptive to licensing to 3rd parties like JVC did, BetaMax would have survied as it was the better technology at the time.
WHich is why Blu-Ray is winning (Score:5, Interesting)
On the Blu-Ray side, you have players from Sony and Panasonic and Samsung and others (soon to be Funai players as well, the producer of the dirt-cheap DVD players for WalMart).
Sony learned well the lessons of betamax (also including have the format with more storage, and more studio backing). It's a shame the HD-DVD backers didn't bother to examine history to see where they were headed.
Porn is irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
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(Links please!)
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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.
Urban legends (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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You're new to slashdot or something? That's always true. Even in this post.
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The original meme was wrong in the first place.
That may be the case. Just FYI; as submitted my story had no reference to the previous /. story. The assertion the Betamax failed due to lack of porn is (possibly well informed) opinion at best, and myth at worst. It's plausible I suppose. I may even believe it. However, I made no such allusions in the story I submitted. The fact that Sony has managed to weasel past Japanese law (by outsourcing Blu-ray porn replication to Taiwan) and set aside the (hypothesized) concerns of their own corporate govern
It's all in the name (Score:2, Insightful)
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:It's all in the name (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:It's all in the name (Score:4, Insightful)
the name blu-ray sounds futuristic...unlike hd-dvd.
Not really (Score:2, Insightful)
Call me when:
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Two comments come to mind. (Score:2)
and
Do we really want high def porn?
No preferred media for me. (Score:3, Interesting)
I am not looking to continue buying movies on plastic discs. Having movies sent through the mail or having to drive to a store should be unnecessary now. There are already a few internet on demand services for movies, and plenty of cable/satellite on demand services. Ownership services ala iTunes is probably around the corner. DRM-free would be ideal, so really whichever gets around to that first wins in my opinion. Not happening any time soon, but really not an issue in the debate. HD, Blueray, and iTunes all have it. With regards to pornography, I expect the industry will continue moving into the online direction. I suspect they will continue to be pioneers in the area actually.
8 years ago I purged floppies from my life, ripping them out of every device I had, and saving all of that data to newer disc. Around 2 years ago I pretty much purged CD/DVD from everything, sans a single portable USB DVD-RW drive I can use for anything. Magnetic and optical medium had its time. Flash drives/cards, solid state disk drives, and networks should be everything. Of course, the transition is slow, but that's why I took a stand. I don't buy software, I install new OS' from the network or an existing partition. The DVDRW drive is a read once and rip solution for music CDs, and periodic DVD backup aside from rsync. Movies I use cable on demand services, DVR, and theaters.
About the only reason why I would care for any next-generation disc medium would be for a viable backup solution. Not many available, nor cost effective at the moment. This is a pretty geeky view of everything, but I think that the general consumer trend will follow it. Most likely, both BlueRay and HD-DVD will slowly replace DVDs, but only when the cost is comparable for both the movies and for combination devices. The *real* next-generation media is when there is no media at all.
Re:No preferred media for me. (Score:5, Interesting)
A better codec will shrink that down, but you aren't going to cut it down by more than half without losing picture quality. I really love how HD movies look, 1080p movies on a 1080p large projected screen is exceedingly nice. I'm not going to like anything that's bitrate starved to save on bandwidth. Disney's Pirates of the Carribean regularly exceeded 20Mbps, and that was with H.264 AVC.
The *real* next-generation media is when there is no media at all.
I think "next" generation kind of falls apart here, it really applies to both HD discs and internet downloads, though I Internet movies to be the final victor in the long run. I expect that there will be DVD, HD disc and internet streaming & downloads (with several formats within that) to coexist for some time.
Blu-ray for blue movies. (Score:3, Funny)
Porn never mattered in this war (Score:5, Interesting)
But nowadays any kind of porn you can imagine, and many kinds you would rather not, are all online. Porn media sales are nothing now compared with total video sales. So even though Blu-Ray is getting more and more backing from adult studios, it will not really have any effect.
On a side note though Japan and the US are in the same region with Blu-Ray, so Anime or other titles (such as this adult studio stuff) can all be imported directly. I'm just hoping most anime comes with English subtitles even just for Japanese release...
Same about the PS3. (Score:4, Funny)
Oh well maybe these blue blu-rays are comparable with Bluedildonics [wikipedia.org]? At least the PS3 has bluetooth.
(Yes I know that things other than PS3's can play the blu-ray).
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BS revisionist history (Score:3, Informative)
The common belief is that porn made the VCR desired in households. The porn producers were smart enough to set a low price point.
Those are 2 very different things.
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Blue Laws of the Colony of Connecticut (Score:5, Informative)
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Can anyone imagine what it must be like to be sitting at home with:
I actually wouldn't mind having a hybrid DiVX/DVD player. It would be something obscure to hack.
I also wish I had a Laserdisc player, and that I could get my old Videodisc player working (bought-from-eBay Christmas gift from my brother, suspect dead motor).
Right now I have more HD-DVD disks than Blu-Ray, but that'll equalize once I send in my rebate. In future releases, I've only spotted one title I want that's only on one HD format: Heroes Season 1 on HD-DVD.
And I have the XBOX 360 HD-DVD drive, but no
Re:High-def porn? No thanks. (Score:4, Insightful)
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