Forget Blu-ray, blue movies are behind the latest DVD revolution, says christopher goodwin |
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Who will win the coming technology battle over competing formats for new high-definition DVD discs and players? Hi-def offers considerably more realistic images, better sound and more extras than current DVDs. Whoever wins will make hundreds of billions of dollars.
Yet industry analysts believe the outcome will be determined not by the two multinational conglomerates making the running - Sony, which is behind the Blu-ray format, and Microsoft, which is backing the HD DVD format - but by the producers of hardcore pornography.
The insatiable appetite for porn, and the ability to watch it in the privacy of one's own home, has fuelled some of the most important technological innovations of recent years: the home video revolution of the 1980s, DVD in the 1990s and, of course,
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| The insatiable appetite for porn has fuelled some of the most important technological innovations of recent years |
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the internet. Historians of technology know porn was the reason that the VHS video format won out over the competing Betamax format in the 1980s, even though Betamax was technologically superior and came from technology pioneer Sony.
In the early days, porn tapes like Debbie Does Dallas were just about all that could be bought in video stores because the major Hollywood studios initially tried to kill the new technology. Because VHS tapes sold for less than Betamax tapes, the porn industry went with VHS and the rest is history.
"We pushed the technology more than anyone else," says Steven Hirsch, head of Vivid Video, which was founded in 1984 and, with stars like Jenna Jameson on contract, is the world's largest producer of pornography. "The adult industry has always been ahead when it comes to technology." More than 7,000 porn DVDs were released in the US last year, worth some $3.6bn.
Last summer, industry analysts were ready to call Blu-ray the early hi-def victor. Like Betamax, Blu-ray is owned by Sony and 
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