Porn studios quietly courted

[ericl]

It's all hush-hush as backers of HD DVD and Blu-ray formats vie for the industry's attention.

As the opposing camps pushing the next generation of DVDs try to win audiences, they are furtively pursuing the affections of the multibillion-dollar porn industry.

Besides the porn stuff, there's lots of interesting info here.

[squeegy200]

Much credit is indirectly given to the porn industry for the development and maturization of the VHS industries and later the broadband industries.

I once worked for a bank in the San Fernando valley. Roughly 1/3 of our customers were from the porn industry centered around Chatsworth California.

It was not unusual for paying individual clients to rack up $50k+ of credit card expenses PER MONTH!

[Dusty Chalk]

Besides the porn stuff, there's lots of interesting info here.

Where?

[Woochifer]

In the end, I doubt that this will matter much. Newsweek posted an article about the sales slump that has impacted the porn industry. Simply put, supply has exploded thanks to the internet, and demand is not following suit. Apparently, consumers are buying fewer discs because so much free/cheap porn is available online.

Also, Bill Hunt from the Digital Bits had this to say about porn's impact on the format war. Conversations that he's had with the porn producers indicate that they would prefer to bypass the HD disc formats altogether, and move straight to HD downloading. I posted the rest of his commentary about the status of the HD-DVD/Blu-ray format war in the Blu-ray Already Declaring Victory thread

Meanwhile, Newsweek magazine has posted an interesting story recently that has relevance to the HD format war. The piece indicates that the adult film industry is in the middle of its worst software sales slump in years, in part impacted by the sheer volume of free adult content available online. That would stand in sharp contrast to the notion that the adult industry is powerful enough to influence the HD-DVD/Blu-ray format war. In fact, despite the free content that's already online, industry analysts see the most profitable part of the porn market moving from DVD directly to the Internet... bypassing HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc entirely. Several adult producers have told us here at The Bits that the ultimate goal is to deliver high-definition adult content directly to computers and DVRs via broadband, without any physical media involved.

[Groundbeef]

Apparently, consumers are buying fewer discs because so much free/cheap porn is available online.

Porn on the internet? For free? Whaaa?