Ever since 8-track tapes and the long-playing record album went the way of the dodo bird—and audiocassettes were replaced by the still-reigning compact disc—people have been both anticipating and dreading the latest in technological developments. This is especially true in the fast-paced world of video, which certainly has seen its fair share of hits (the DVD) and misses (Beta and laser disc). With the advent of high-definition video and television, another monkey wrench has been tossed into the mix.
Indeed, the buzz surrounding high-definition video has been nearly overwhelming—even if it leaves many consumers perplexed. "Everyone is familiar with HD, but no one is quite sure what exactly it is. They just know it's better than standard definition and they want to see it," said Steve J., the marketing and special projects manager for Python Productions, owners of the affiliate program PythonPays.com. Python decided to get into the HD market after it acquired from Danni.com several films shot in HD. In fact, Steve J. said, "There's so much mainstream buzz with HD that, logically, there is going to be carryover in all markets. Five years from now, there won't be such a thing as standard definition. Any content that's not in HD will be irrelevant."
Such a prediction may sound incredible—even shocking—to some, but Steve J.'s assessment of HD's appeal in various markets already is valid to some extent. Several adult industry players have jumped on the HD bandwagon, with well-known production studios like Wicked (the first company to release a hi-def DVD, Camp Cuddly Pines Power Tool Massacre, earlier this year), Vivid, and Digital Playground already having released, or announcing plans to release, HD titles on DVD. The move to filming adult content in HD, however, began nearly two years ago, when a handful of adult sites started offering HD versions of their material.
Technology and the lure of HD
There are several Internet-based companies that have entered into the HD business. For many webmasters, the reasons for getting on board with HD content vary.
"We didn't want to be 'yet another ordinary porn program,'" said Mike Strouse, aka Mayor, who in 2006 began shooting in high definition for the re-launch of his affiliate program MayorsMoney.com. "I wanted to make sure when we launched [that] we were unique in as many ways as possible, and I wanted customers to have the best experience, quality, and quantity of content humanly possible."
"We saw a niche market that was untapped," said SilverCash Albert, sales director for SilverCash, which launched several HD sites in November. "For one thing, we noticed that the emergence of [next-generation] content really follows pop culture. There's a massive marketing campaign [for HD] going on. You can see this push for HD content."
Indeed, Thomas Funk said he started his site, Hi-DefXXX.com, specifically to coincide with the increasingly buzz-worthy technology. "I saw that it was the up-and-coming thing," he told AVN Online, adding that he saw using the adult industry as "a good way to push the technology forward."
With the battle for dominance in hi-def video still being played out between Toshiba's HD-DVD and Sony's Blu-ray (see sidebar), the adult industry has jumped on the opportunity to release HD content on the Internet. "I think the physical media is still way too green," Steven J. offered. "There just isn't the market yet. Right now there's more opportunity to make money on the Web than there is through distributing your product on the HD-DVD and Blu-ray formats."
For several webmasters and adult producers, HD represents an opportunity to take advantage of exciting new technology. The adult industry is well known for the role it played in helping the VHS videocassette beat out Sony's Betamax tape as the dominant form of video replication in the early '80s. "I just think it's important to use all of the newest technology that's out there, so we can make the best movies possible with the best technical quality possible," stated Steve Hirsch, president of Vivid Video, which began shooting in HD "a few years" ago, although its first HD release was March's Debbie Does Dallas…Again. "We're always looking to take advantage of new technology."
Of course, in addition to creating a longer shelf life for the physical product, HD also offers superior quality—which surely accounts for webmaster interest. "If you look at a hi-def clip versus [a clip shot in standard definition], the quality is just that much better," Funk declared. "It's clarity."
SilverCash Albert concurred. "I think that even when you look at your high-end glamour—or even gonzo and reality—content, people are embracing the higher-level quality of content," he said. "People are looking for a cleaner, crisper, and better picture, and they'll do everything it takes to maximize that."
As far as Strouse is concerned, consumers deserve the best product possible. "You're charging customers monthly [for memberships to adult sites] as much as it costs for their Internet or basic cable packages. You should offer them as much quality and entertainment [as you can] for that price, or your product has no real value."
A view too real?
There's no denying high-definition video has its merits, but the technology also has its detractors. In fact, earlier this year, adult starlet Stormy Daniels was quoted in a New York Times piece in which she questioned "why anyone would want to see their porn in HD," given the technology's tendency to reveal every single flaw on the human body.
"I just think HD porn is ugly," stated Channel 1 Releasing's Chi Chi LaRue. "A beautiful ocean with gorgeous waves and dolphins looks amazing in HD; but if you've got something you don't want someone to see [when you're naked], HD is not the way to go. You can see every line, every wrinkle, every hair out of place. There's no mystery."
LaRue also dismissed high definition as "just a way to sell new television sets," although he added he may consider shooting in HD in the future. "Who knows what I'll think in a year from now? It might be the way to go—if they perfect it," he said. "But, if they can't make Vanessa Williams—who's one of the most beautiful women in the world—look beautiful on Ugly Betty in HD, then something is wrong."
A few starlets already have admitted to having cosmetic surgery to beat HD at its own game. (Jesse Jane told the New York Times she was having her breasts redone because her breast implants from a previous surgery were noticeable in HD.) Others have taken to using tanning sprays and getting creative with makeup to hide stretch marks and other blemishes. Hirsch, who dismissed the notion that HD reveals too much, pointed out that producers can employ other techniques during production and post-production to allow the digital softening of models' skin tones.
"I think, initially, when people started shooting on high def, [people looking bad] was a concern," he said. "But, we have been doing it for a few years now, and what we have found is if people spend the time to properly light the sets, apply makeup with HD in mind, and use filters on the camera to [soften the imperfections], that's not an issue. All of our girls have been shot in high def. They've seen what they look like, and we haven't had any complaints."
For some, such emphases on the limitations of the human body may even benefit the industry. "Yes, HD does reveal a lot, but it's real," Steve J. argued, dismissing the comments of HD's detractors as the result of "fear and ignorance. Maybe [HD] will weed out the crap in the adult industry, because there's a lot of horribly produced content out there. Maybe now we'll have to start catching up with the rest of the film industry and have quality lighting and quality sound and quality makeup—and not just let any girl on the street take her clothes off on camera. I think it's going to raise the bar of quality."
But it's just so big!
Perhaps what is more daunting than zits and wrinkles on a model's body is the technological limitations of high-definition content on the Internet, specifically in terms of its delivery. "True high definition is video content of 720 lines of resolution or higher," said Chip White, owner of Boyfunk.com, which recently began shooting HD content to be launched online at a later date. "I doubt anyone is delivering true high def over the Web, because the bandwidth usage—even with heavy compression—would be insane."
By most standards, high definition is defined by two density and frame-rate sizes: 720 progressive and 1,080 interlaced, both delivered at 60 frames per second (instead of the previous 30 fps). However, because of the already prohibitively large file sizes of content shot in 1,080i (as well as some differences between the way the two formats are rendered on screen), 720p has become the most-effective and commonly used resolution for Web delivery of HD content. Still—although several companies shoot content using high-definition cameras—because of its size, true HD content has not yet become available on the Internet. "As of two years ago, 20 million people had computers fast enough to watch HD content online, but the issue is that it has to download," Funk pointed out. "If [people] take the time to download it, computers can handle [playback of the] HD format."
In order to make HD content available on the Web, adult companies have taken to "down-resing"—or reducing video resolution so it can be transmitted in a reasonable amount of time. Although some may think such a practice compromises the integrity of an image, most argue that, because the content was shot on an HD camera, this is not the case. "Because we're so far behind on technology, your typical Windows Media and QuickTime players are not HD compatible; but when you film in HD and put it up online against [standard-def] content, you can still see a major difference," SilverCash Albert claimed. "Is the HD format being seen at its highest level of usage online? No. But, is the quality of that content superior to typically produced content out there? Yes, and I'm very confident to say that's the case."
"Whether you're delivering via the Internet or delivering via disc, the production of HD doesn't change. It's more about the encoding," Funk said. "The real thing comes down to post-production workflow—understanding compression, understanding re-sampling, things like that. Keep it as uncompressed as possible, render it in as high a bit-space as possible, don't transcode more than absolutely necessary…. Those are some considerations to take into account when producing HD."
With such practices available, say most producers, there's really no reason not to make the switch to shooting in HD. "You can always 'down-res' it," Funk added. "You don't have to keep it in high definition, so not shooting in high def at this point in time is kind of silly."
Resetting the standard
There's no doubt high-definition content is on the rise—or that many in the adult community are championing its use. And, although Stormy Daniels also told the New York Times the push to introduce HD to the adult industry was little more than the result of a bunch of boys showing off their cool, new tech toys ("They're willing to sacrifice our vanity and imperfections to beat each other," she commented), others point to a different reason entirely for getting behind the technology: "With the proliferation of high-speed Internet and the standards of broadcast increasing, people have already begun demanding it," Strouse claimed.
While none of the men interviewed for this story could say exactly how prevalent consumer demand for the product is, the results gleaned from statistics for their HD sites indicate a desire for high-quality porn. "It was risky [switching to HD], because technology is technology; it moves so quickly and dynamically. But, looking at our retention and conversion ratios: Our numbers are higher than ever," SilverCash Albert boasted. "You only find longer retention with some of the niched-out sites or within the gay market, but we're head over heels with how happy we are as far as the retention. And, we're very confident that it comes back to the HD content."
Still, affiliate program owners obviously are the ones gunning for the HD phenomenon to take off. "Adult content providers weren't the ones moving into high def in the beginning," Steve J. noted. "It wasn't so much that we had content producers coming to us and saying 'I've got HD content—why don't you buy it?' It came from us demanding the content from them." But, what if consumers aren't exactly begging for high def right now? No sweat, he added. "I think it's going to be more that the consumer is going to be taken along for the ride. I don't think the average consumer understands what HD is technically, but in a few years, the consumer won't have a choice. They're going to have to adapt. To me, it's like color TV and black-and-white TV. Everyone has a color TV now. It's just better."
It may seem like shooting in high def is the "in thing" to do; however, some say it's simply a matter of keeping up with the times. "As time goes on, shooting in high def is not going to be a 'trend' at all; it's going to become the standard for the way that everybody shoots," said Hirsch. "There was a time that everybody shot on quarter-inch tape, and then they went to Beta tape—and it wasn't some sort of revolution; it was just taking advantage of new technology."
Still, lest one think that means standard-def content is dying a quick death, think again. "I think there will be a long life for standard def," posited White, who predicts webmasters will find ways of circumventing the shooting in HD. "I do think we'll continue to see a trend with Web-based providers going to larger-, higher-bandwidth video [such as 720-by-480, full-resolution digital video] as a competitive thing. I think we'll see more of that for a while before people start going to high def."
"Standard def will still be an inexpensive way to maintain a members' area," SilverCash Albert said. "Feeds will be around for a while, and there will always be a need for still images and animated videos."
Funk added, "I think we're in the absolute infancy of HD right now. I wouldn't say that standard def was been affected quite yet, but I think over the next year, we will see that slightly change."
"There are still people who use dial-up," Steve J. pointed out. "Until high-speed broadband has 100-percent penetration, there will always be a market for less bandwidth-intensive products. So, to offer a members area that is strictly HD could have a negative impact."
For some, shooting in HD simply comes down to planning.
"We made the move to shoot in high def because we felt that eventually there will be demand for the content, even though there seems to be neither demand for it at present nor an effective means of delivering it," White offered. "We view it as an investment for the future rather than something for immediate use."
For some, such pre-emptive strategizing could prove very profitable—which, in the end, is what matters the most to many adult players. "We made a conscious realization that we had to move into HD," Steve J. said. "This puts us a step ahead so that when a company that has no experience with producing HD wants to jump in there, we'll have the experience and the money we've made on our side. You can't take that knowledge and that [success] away from us."
