Citing the much-talked about death of Betamax and the porn-fueled rise of VHS, technology analyst follow the moves of adult companies closely when it comes to shifts in technology. As it turns out, so do mainstream content producers like E! Entertainment Television.
Ron Wagner, director of IT operations for E! said that his company has opted for Blu-ray because buzz among porn industry insiders at last year’s National Association of Broadcasters conference seemed to suggest a preference for that technology.
“If you look at the VHS vs. Beta standards, you see the much higher-quality standard dying because of [the porn industry’s support of VHS],” Wagner said. “The mass volume of tapes in the porn market at the time went out on VHS.”
While companies like Digital Playground have helped fuel the buzz about Blu-ray by making the format its choice for high-definition content, the decision wasn’t made in a vacuum, according to the article, which attributed some of the choice to Sony selecting Blu-ray for its PlayStation 3 gaming console.
“PlayStation 3 is going to be the Trojan horse that will get a lot of numbers into the home theater systems, the living rooms,” Joone, owner of Digital Playground, said. “Technology-wise we’ve chosen Blu-ray, which doesn’t mean we won’t support both formats.”
Paul O’Donovan, a technology analyst with Gartner, is cited in the article as saying that the porn industry’s impact will be a “strong factor” in determining the winner, but that moves by giants like Sony are more critical.
Still, Vivid owner Steve Hirsh disagrees.
“The adult industry has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to technology,” Hirsch said. “It was the adult industry which jumped right in and released movies on both VHS and Beta. We pushed the actual technology more than anyone else.”
But founder Steve Duplessie, who founded the research firm Enterprise Strategy Group, chalks up some of the enthusiasm over adult’s influence on technology to hype.
“I love the whole pornography concept,” Duplessie said. “But I don’t believe the porn industry will drive the format. Like any other industry, it will supply what the consumer wants.”
