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March 2007: PAUL SMITH’S DEVIANT’S DIARY - Slipped Discs - The future of adult film distribution.
Progress is often more of a point of view than an absolute, as anyone who replaced their entire collection of VHS tapes with DVDs will tell you. However the developing format fracas between HD-DVD and Blu-ray should be viewed as an opportunity for the adult industry rather than as a threat. So says our resident propeller head, Paul Smith.
The need for a replacement for DVD may not, at first look, be obvious. DVD films look great, sound great and have an ease-of-use other formats can only dream of. So why is there a move to change at all?
The simple answer is High Definition Television - HDTV. Twenty years ago a 24" TV was a big set. Now you're no one if you don't have 32" widescreen and surround sound. As screens get bigger, the picture gets blockier but while sizes were limited by the technology of the Cathode Ray Tube, this wasn't really an issue. Then came flat screens. While traditional CRT TVs need finer and finer shadow masks which are then apt to fall apart under their own weight (plus have you ever seen a 46" television? You could sell your house and move into it) Plasma and LCD panels have no similar technological upper limit to size or resolution.
Freed from the shackles of scanning electron beams and coloured phosphor dots, the prospect of higher definition broadcasting with sharper images for bigger screens became a reality in recent years. We've grown up in a world of PAL with its 625 lines (some of which are invisible and used for teletext/ceefax), which was launched across the UK in 1967. Before then British TV used 405 lines. In turn it's now being replaced with 576i, which is the digital version of PAL. It uses 576 visible lines, which is the same as DVDs and digital camcorders use. The i bit means it's interlaced, so that 288 lines are scanned, and then an alternate 288 lines are, on the next cycle. At 50Hz, this gives the 25 frames per second we're used to in the UK. It also gives the weird banding you sometimes see on screen grabs of moving images.
Anyway, back to HDTV. Various formats exist, but the popular ones are called 1080i and 1080p. The 1080 bit again relates to the number of horizontal lines or pixels which make up the picture (by 1920 pixels horizontally) and the i still means interlaced. The p is for progressive scan, where you get a whole picture each cycle, but at the cost of frame-rate, which is halved. 50Hz still gets you 25fps though.
With around twice the resolution of HDTV over PAL, you get a picture about four-times sharper because resolution works horizontally across the screen as well as vertically. You also need four times as much bandwidth to transmit the information. Here's where another technological leap was needed. Analogue TV signals need a lot more of the radio spectrum per channel than digital ones do, so while you could have analogue HDTV, you could only fit a couple of dozen channels across the radio frequency range TV transmitters work well at. Digital HDTV uses a fraction of the radio bandwidth per channel, so hundreds of channels can be broadcast in the same area, and/or over the same transmitter or satellite.
As HDTV requires more information per frame, you need a HD storage medium if you want to record it, or view pre-recorded material. In theory you could still use a DVD disc to store HD video, but because of the much higher bit-rate (the amount of digital information needed per second) you'd only get 30-45 minutes of video on an 8.5Gb one. No good for feature films! You could get around this by having DVDs the size of vinyl albums, but the physical similarity to Laser Discs, a format that appeared in 1981 and vanished soon afterwards, would be too much for many. Also, you'd need to spin it faster and…
Anyway, if DVDs couldn't go up in size to handle HDTV's requirements, it'd have to be the data-density instead. By using blue laser light rather than red, much finer pits on the recording surface of the disc can be read, adding many more tracks of information and increasing the storage capacity of the media. In the same way you can think of a DVD as a Super CD, HD discs can be thought of as Super DVDs. Although the discs all look very similar they represent significant advances in technology, and that means a lot of new players and recorders being sold. Which would be great for the world's AV manufacturers if they could just agree exactly what that technology needs to do.
The two combatants in this Battle Royale are the reassuringly named HD DVD, championed by Intel, Toshiba, NEC and Microsoft, and backed by Universal, New Line and Paramount (who are on the fence) amongst others, and Sony's more hardcore-sounding Blu-ray. This second format has found favour with Apple, Dell, Hitachi, Panasonic, Disney, MGM, Fox and Warner Bros. (another business with a foot in each camp) as well as Sony themselves.
The pro's and con's of both formats are mostly down to their technical specifications, and production costs. DVD is included for comparison.
DVD HD DVD Blu-Ray Capacity: 4.7Gb/8.5Gb dual layer 15Gb/30Gb dual layer 25Gb/50Gb dual layer HD playback: N/A 5.4 hours (dual layer) 9 hours (dual layer) Max data-rate: 10.08 Mbits/s 36.55 Mbits/s 54.0 Mbits/s Max video-rate: 9.8 Mbits/s 29.4 Mbits/s 40.0 Mbits/s Price per disc: 'Pence' $8.99 (Netwegg) $11.99 (Netwegg) Protective coat: Optional Optional Required
Players which can handle the new formats will also play DVDs, so consumers' current film collections are safe. Most will also 'upscale' normal DVDs, which is a interpolation technique used to fake HD from standard definition recordings. Essentially, upscaling best-guesses what each 'missing' line and alternate horizontal pixel would contain. It does a fair job, but it's no substitute for the real HD thing. As you can imagine, I'm a big hit at parties, so I'll get on with the 'what it means to you' stuff.
In recent weeks the first HD-DVD adult films were released (notably Digital Playground's Pirates) and Blue-ray porn is about to appear, plus players are starting to arrive in shops. March 23rd will be a big day for Blu-ray, as that's when Sony's PlayStation3 is launched in Europe after several delays. The PS3 is fitted with a Blu-ray drive which represents a good chunk of the 60Gb HDD version's £425 retail price tag.
Expect another surge in HD disc demand between 2010 and 2012 as analogue TV is phased out and people naturally replace their older tellies with shiny new digital ones and spend a little extra to get a HD model. Their Playstation4 or equivalent will already have a HD disc player built in and if they're not games players, stand-alone HD players won't be much dearer than DVD players are now. I imagine HD recorders to still be a bit fierce though.
As DVD has replaced VHS through the last decade, so will the next generation of media replace DVD. This time, your DVD collection is safely backwards compatible so the process will be even more evolutionary than the last media change was, with disc and player prices finding parity in only a few years. When DVD players are no cheaper than their HD replacement, you'll not be surprised to see them vanish fairly quickly. The only thing retailers should be worrying about at this point is when you'll need to change your signage from 'We stock DVDs' to '…DVDs and HD-DVDs' - Or Blu-ray, or both. Now is the time to think about stocking the new discs though, especially after March the 23rd's PS3 release. Producers need to be looking at switching to recording in HD if they can afford it, with an eye on creating relationships with next-gen authoring and duplication people - easier said than done at this stage, but if the Americans can do it, so can we. With the particular issues around Blu-ray discs being expensive to author and replicate (see the news feature on Vivid Pictures' Blu-ray experiment on this month's Technology News pages) it seems likely British-made HD porn will appear on the simpler HD-DVD format earlier and as a larger numbers of titles - at least initially. Ultimately there isn't room for both formats as they share so much in common but it's the installed user base which will settle the argument, despite dual-format discs (double-layer Blu-ray on one side, double-layer HD-DVD on the other) and dual-format players. It is too soon to say which will win out, and anyone who tells you otherwise is likely in the pay of Sony, or their competitors.
The benefits if greater storage capacities for the adult market are essentially the same as they are for mainstream studios. Quite apart from clearer pictures with more dynamic colour, there's more room for multi-channel audio, more audio tracks (languages, commentaries, isolated music tracks) and more documentary or game extras. There's been some concern from adult performers about the clarity of HD, including Wicked Pictures' Stormy Daniels, who told the New York Times, "The biggest problem is razor burn. I am not 100 per cent sure why anyone would want to see their porn in HD." I read the following quote of a forum which might explain the allure. The spelling and grammar is the poster's own: "blu-ray, hd, whats the difference? either way we get to see milkducts in 1080p. i dont know what that means, but i want it." Or, if milk ducts aren't your thing, perhaps that's not the allure. Either way, now you know how DVDs are growing up, and why. Use the knowledge wisely, for it is surely the future of physical movie media.
Clouds on the horizon
What has the potential to make all of the above a bit irrelevant for the adult industry is the expected growth of VOD/PPV and Streaming/IPTV services. For the sake of clarity, I'll be calling these collectively 'Internet Video'. There are two schools of thought here. On the one hand are people who say consumers will always want to physically own their entertainment outright. These people still buy CDs and then take the time to rip (copy and compress) them on the computer to listen to on their MP3 players. Group two just buy their music online, download it to their PC or Mac, copy it to their player and go. The smart ones also backup their downloaded albums onto CD - and thus the circle is complete. Which method has a future, only time will tell. There are probably enough people in both camps to keep record shops and Internet music sites open. The parallels for adult film distribution are clear. Will producers want to pay the BBFC for classification if they don't need to, by putting their films exclusively online? Will manufactures go to the expense of buying cases, disc duplication, printing, sleeve artwork and assembling all these elements into a product to be driven in a big lorry half way across the country (it's not Green, is it?) and popped onto a shelf? Well yes, if there's a public demand for it. But being able to select an adult title online from the discreet comfort and convenience of their sofa (or home-office swivel chair if Internet Video doesn't reach the lounge) is going to appeal to many consumers. Particularly those who aren't typical sex shop shoppers, such as women, poorly-served gay customers and small-town Catholic priests. As fast broadband connections can handle a DVD bit-rate stream, the experience for the consumer is going to be as good as it would be via a DVD player under their telly - and they'll have more choice on an Internet Video site than any shop, with its expensive licence, is going to be able to offer them. Something else to consider is piracy. While people can take a £30 DVD, run twenty (a hundred?) copies off and sell them for £8 each, they will. Right up to the moment their box of photocopied sleeves and DVD-Rs are taken off them and they're sent to prison. Now a streaming film can be 'rented' online for a week for less money, it takes a lot of the fun out of dealing with a bloke who doesn't speak English. Or wash. Apparently buying pirated films also funds terrorism, which is naughty.
What might prove very advantageous for producers and convenient for consumers, could do for adult movie retail what VHS and latterly the R18 classification have done for the licensed adult cinema industry. Which is virtually killed it. One hope for adult retailers is to look at renting out DVDs, to attack VOD on its own territory. Improving the retail browsing experience and expanding their range away from DVDs towards toys and clothing could guard against obsolescence too. Perhaps the best hope comes from the fact broadband can't compete with the quality of HD discs, and probably never will as there are a lot of bottlenecks in the telephone network. Newer fibre-optic bits were designed to handle high-speed data but the rest is copper, and was designed for you to talk to your Nan. Being a couple of miles away from your local exchange can crush bandwidth too. Thus the biggest prospect for salvation for sex shops is that a HD standard gets established quickly, and that R18 content doesn't find its way onto satellites, terrestrial broadcast networks or into cable companies who can transmit a HD signal. I suppose how much adult film retailers should worry would depend on when they last bought a CD or mainstream DVD, or downloaded a tune or rented a DVD from Blockbuster or OdeonDirect.co.uk. I know that's a lot of ors, but they're still better than ifs. Heaven knows there are already enough of those associated with predicting what's going to happen as DVD mutates.