Digital Playground Chooses Blu-ray Format

[mmmhome]

Digital Playground has a marketshare of 40 % of adult dvds

VAN NUYS, Calif. — While the battle is far from over between Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD in the next-generation formatting wars, Digital Playground announced today it will release its products on Blu-ray Disc, making it the first adult studio to take a firm stand on the issue.
“Companies selling PlayStation 3 will have Blu-ray built in, which will make it into homes faster,” Digital Playground co-founder Joone told XBiz. “The security features of Blu-ray also are really good for copyright protection.”

PS3 is scheduled to hit stores during the first quarter of 2006, which has motivated Digital Playground to act quickly, though the company has planned for this move for almost three years. The company’s first releases in Blu-ray formatting will follow the release of PS3, most likely beginning with “Fever Island 3” and “Pirates.”

Joone added that Blu-ray possesses a larger storage capacity than HD-DVD, by about 10 gigabytes. Rewritable Blu-ray discs can store up to 27 gigabytes of data on a single-sided, single-layer disc. In contrast, HD-DVDs house only about 15GB of data but are claimed to require fewer modifications to existing DVD production equipment, making them less expensive to create and more affordable for consumers..

“They’re pretty similar in every other way,” Joone said. “We went with Blu-ray because storage and security are the main issues for us.”

Blu-ray, backed by Sony, and HD-DVD, backed by Toshiba, are competing video and storage formats for succeeding DVDs. Both use a blue-laser-based format, enable more content per optical disk and are backward-compatible with current DVDs, which use a red-laser-based technology format.

The two technology camps failed to reach a unified technological front last summer, setting the stage this year for a format war similar to the costly VCR and Betamax battle of the 1980s.

"We are frustrated," Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson said. "We are going to wind up with some number of consumers probably buying a format that dies, and we are probably going to wind up having to sell it to them. They are not going to be happy with us."

Both Blu-ray and HD-DVD backers hope to spark the sagging home video market with new high-definition DVD players and discs, offering greater capacity and interactive features.

But the situation is problematic for sellers, who are seeking a huge penetration into homes as quickly as possible.

"Customers clearly have an appetite for high-quality content,” Circuit City Chief Executive Alan McCollough added. “The shame is it is going to take longer than we need it to.”

Legal agreements, intellectual property issues and technological pride may keep the two camps backing incompatible next-generation technologies from coming together in the near future.

"Until everyone agrees to check their egos at the door and help the consumer, there is nothing we can do about a universal product," Peter Weedfald, a senior vice president of marketing at Samsung North America, said. "The conundrum is that you've got two different camps. You've got licensing issues, you've got trademarks, you've got copyrights. You can't just be on the Blu-ray side and say, 'We will put HD-DVD in there,' and the reverse is true."

Currently, Blu-ray is supported by Sony, Dell, LG, Panasonic, Samsung and a host of other CE and computer companies, in addition to a number of Hollywood studios. HD-DVD is supported by Toshiba, NEC, Sanyo and the DVD-Forum. Warner Brothers and Paramount are committed solely to HD-DVD as well.

Specifically, Warner Home Video, Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Pictures, HBO Video and New Line Home Entertainment announced they will release more than 150 HD-DVD titles by the end of 2006. Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Lionsgate, Sony Pictures, Sony BMG, Buena Vista Home Entertainment and MGM also have announced they will release Blu-ray titles during 2006.

“On the mainstream side of things, there are a lot of big players behind Blu-ray,” Joone told XBiz. “We see PlayStation 3 as the Trojan horse that will lead the way and Blu-ray as the format that will be around longer – and we can do more interesting things with it.”

Toshiba has already had to delay its December 2005 launch, announcing it will ship HD-DVD products in March. Blu-ray has announced it will ship players beginning in April.

Various companies also have expressed surprise at the lower-than-expected price of both the HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc players, which are being priced at $499 and $1,000, respectively.

http://www.xbiz.com/news_piece.php?id=12735

[zombie]

Porn in HD! Woo-hoo! Really not too interested but reading that Digital Playground is responsible for 40% of adult DVDs makes this great news for BD. No doubt this will only help in BD's success.

[thunderhawk]

Lol, the porn industry pushed DVD to the top so...

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by thunderhawk

Lol, the porn industry pushed DVD to the top so...

I'm not sure that's the story in the US. Porn definitely helped VHS beat Betamax but porn DVD didn't seem to have the same impact and I believe Porn will have even less of an impact to the nextgen formats because the Internet offers a far better distribution method unencumbered by rigid state laws and physical media.

[iceman]

Great news for BD... and <3 hmurchison

[thunderhawk]

Ah yeah, the porn industry will have less impact nowadays on consumer electronics. But then again, the more content, the better

[hmurchison]

Hey I'm just glad I'm not the only one watching Pr0n

You all are BUSTED!

[Alex Pallas]

i hope there's some Vivid reissues on the way

[thunderhawk]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

Pr0n

Hehe, pr0n, you feel like home in the 'underground' of the internet

[Knight-Errant]

hehe the feds will never work out what we're talking about if we type pr0n!

[Marwin]

Adult Film Maker Digital Playground Picks Blu-ray

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. adult film maker Digital Playground on Thursday said it will throw its support behind Sony Corp's high definition Blu-ray format, adding spice to the multibillion-dollar standards war raging in Hollywood.

"We feel that of the two formats, it's the one that's more future-proofed," said Digital Playground's president and founder, who identifies himself as "Joone."

Sony's Blu-ray competes with the HD DVD format championed by Toshiba Corp. and appears to have amassed more allies in the next-generation DVD format war -- including Apple Computer Inc., Panasonic and the majority of movie studios.

Digital Playground is the company behind the movie "Pirates," which has won honors from the porn industry that calls Southern California's San Fernando Valley home and is estimated to have had 2005 sales of $12.6 billion, according to Adult Video News.

But while Digital Playground, known as an innovator for bringing porn to personal computers, is endorsing Blu-ray, it has not yet found a company prepared to mass-produce its films in the new high-definition format.

Joone said companies who replicate DVDs are hesitant about embracing the porn industry and are committed in putting mainstream Hollywood's movies onto the new discs.

Nevertheless, a spokesman for Blu-ray said the endorsement underscored the format's wide appeal.

"It shows that Blu-ray is appealing to film genres of many types," said Andy Parsons, a spokesman for Blu-ray and a senior vice president at Pioneer Electronics, a unit of Pioneer Corp.

Ted Schadler, an analyst at Forrester Research, also called Digital Playground's decision a "vote of confidence in the format."

Failure of the Blu-ray and HD DVD camps to reach a unified standard has set the stage for a war akin to the VHS vs. Betamax battle of the 1980s. Each side hopes to reignite the sagging $24 billion home video market with new players and discs that offer greater capacity and interactive features.

But analysts said the adult film vote does not appear to have as much impact now as it had in past format matches.

Aditya Kishore, director of the media practice at the Yankee Group, said adult content providers in the past played a big role in boosting new video technology -- particularly the adoption of video tape and online content distribution.

"The adult industry tends to be open to new technology standards," said Kishore, but noted that mainstream entertainment this time will likely play a bigger role in determining the winner of the standards war.

[Alex Pallas]

Originally Posted by Knight-Errant

hehe the feds will never work out what we're talking about if we type pr0n!

last time i checked talking about porn isn't illegal, i think we're still two republican elections away from that.

[zombie]

Originally Posted by Alex Pallas

last time i checked talking about porn isn't illegal, i think we're still two republican elections away from that.

LOL! And if they got their way they wouldn't stop there.