SAN FRANCISCO — Titan Media, this week, released its latest title on standard and Blu-ray format. “Copperhead Canyon” is director Joe Gage’s first Blu-ray project for Titan, and stars Ago Viara, Antonio Milan, Bill Madison, Chad Manning, Dean Flynn, Joe Strong, Kurt Wild, Leed Scott, Luke Riley, Matthew Ford, Rick Powers and Wolf Hudson.

With rural, exterior scenes that Gage is well known for, the jailbreak action thriller is the studio’s third Blu-ray title. Titan Media Vice President Keith Webb touted the improved quality of shooting in high-def.

“The film is set in the modern day, but has a small town and rural America look and feel. No one captures the essence of this genre better then Joe Gage. There are several outdoor tracking shots that are visually stunning,” Webb told XBIZ.

“The camera shots rotate around the actors giving an almost 3-D feel and look to the scene. You feel like you can reach out and touch the performers. It’s absolutely stunning,” he added. “This is the level of quality and sophistication that our high-end customers have come to expect when paying top dollar for our product.”

“Copperhead Canyon” retails at $59 on the Titan website. The first Blu-ray offering from Titan was company founder Bruce cam’s last triple-X film, “Breakers.” The company leads the gay adult industry in releasing titles on Blu-ray, with three DVDs produced after making a major commitment to new cameras and post-production equipment, to the tune of more than $300,000.

The equipment purchased by Titan is similar to that used by straight production company Digital Playground to produce epic blockbusters like “Pirates” and “Babysitters.” Digital Playground is currently in the process of releasing all titles from its back catalog on Blu-ray.

“TitanMen films are being shot in full 1080i HD using two matching $30,000 Panasonic AJ HDX-900 cameras,” Webb explained. “These are the same HD cameras used to shoot HD content for television and indie films. The cameras are each enhanced with a $30,000 Fujinon wide-angle lens to capture every detail of the director’s vision.

“Filming is done in the broadcast standard DVC PRO-HD format, offering vastly superior color reproduction over the pro-sumer level HDV format trumpeted by other studios. Titan Media has invested in the highest-quality professional DVC PRO-HD cameras/lenses and MAC G5 HD editing/authoring suites, ensuring the very best quality high-def in the world,” he added.

Additionally, “Copperhead Canyon” and “Folsom Prison,” from Titan’s Folsom-branded fetish line, were released on standard and Blu-ray simultaneously, making Titan the only gay studio releasing on both formats on the same day.

Despite a slump in DVD sales in both the straight and gay adult industries, Webb feels that consumer response has been encouraging — encouraging enough for the studio to aggressively market Blu-ray DVDs for as long as the market is responsive or until other advanced options for hard product technology come along.

“Blu-ray sales are continuing to grow with each new title we release. Last week’s JRL charts showed that ‘Folsom Prison’ on Blu-ray was the No. 1 Best Renting gay title in the USA,” Webb said. “This is the first time a Blu-ray title had made it to No. 1, let alone made it onto the charts.

“We make a high-end gay product, so our customer base is a high-end gay consumer,” Webb added. “This customer base is the early adopters of new technologies and is on the cutting edge of technology.”

Despite a slump in DVD sales in both the straight and gay adult industries, consumer response to Titan product has been encouraging, according to Webb.

“The adoption rate of Blu-ray has already been faster than the adoption of DVD by the U.S. consumer,” he said. “This bodes extremely well for the Blu-ray market going forward. While DVD sales me be declining, Blu-ray sales will continue to grow and make up for the declining DVD market. We believe that there is a market for high-end gay Blu-ray for at least another 3-5 years.”

“Copperhead Canyon” is scheduled to street on Aug. 19, and will be followed on Aug. 26 by the simultaneous release of upcoming fetish title “Double Standard,” directed by Brian Mills.

Webb said that “Double Standard” would contain updated viewing options for end users on the Blu-ray version.

“They can chose to play and watch the standard edit version without any fetish content,” he said, “or the director’s hardcore edit version with all the fetish included. It’s a process called ‘seamless branching’ that allows us to include different versions/edits of the same film on one disk. This gives the user the option to watch it the way they want to watch it.”

For more information on “Copperhead Canyon” and other Titan titles, visit the Titan website.