Apparently there’s a growing market
for failed, antique technology: last week
on eBay, a Betamax Player was on sale for
about $1300. That same day, there were
absolutely no adult fi lms available for
Betamax on eBay. The reason for this?
No such fi lms exist.
As few people know, the adult fi lm
industry has had, among other things,
a hand in deciding the accepted trend
in format rivalries like the famous clash
between Video Home System (VHS) and
Betamax. This sway comes solely from
the industry’s output. In 2005, adult fi lm
sales and rentals amounted to a $4.28 billion
revenue. In that same year, the total
US motion picture box offi ce gross was
less than $1.5 billion.
In order to understand the adult fi lm
industry’s importance to DVDs, let’s
consider the late 70s when home video
was just becoming a reality.
It was then that a “format war”
erupted between competitors VHS and
Betamax for supremacy in home media
distribution. Sony pitched Betamax by
touting its ability to record from one
television station while the screen actually
showed another.
The battle even resulted in a landmark
Supreme Court case, Sony Corp. v.
Universal City Studios. The latter party,
along with several other major studios,
claimed that Betamax’s recording technology
violated copyright laws. The Supreme
Court ruled in favor of legal home
recording, setting an important precedent
that helps protect more modern
technologies like digital video recording.
VHS is dead now, though, and its optical
replacement, the DVD, lies on the
doorstep of electronic obscurity thanks
to the rise of high-defi nition video formats.
Sony’s Blu-ray DVD and Toshiba’s
HD-DVD formats recently waged a battle
to inherit the home theater.
Sony announced in January 2007 that
it would prohibit U.S. adult fi lms from
being distributed in Blu-ray. Yet despite
the popularity of porn, Toshiba lost the
most recent format war when it announced
on Feb. 19 that it would cease
production of HD-DVD.
Blu-ray’s website is now something
of an Arc de Triomphe, announcing the
recent conquests of nearly every production
company and partnerships with retailers
like Wal-Mart and Best Buy.
What does this mean for porn? Well,
adult fi lm may need to fi nd some more
attractive “actors.” The higher visual
quality of Blu-ray DVDs doesn’t really
behoove the adult fi lm industry, which
has never exactly prided itself on high
production values. New technology may
make for prettier explosions in big-budget
action movies, but it also gives us a
better view of the natural human deformities
that mar even the most beautiful
specimens. Paul Gauguin’s paintings of
Tahitian women are seductive precisely
because they leave details to the imagination.
But will high defi nition really add
anything to a poorly-lit money shot that
was fi lmed using decrepit equipment?
And what about highbrow cinema? Will
“Casablanca”—a visually gorgeous movie
that was made without the benefi t of
modern technology—be improved by
Blu-ray technology?
Michael Curtiz’s directing, Ingrid
Bergman’s vulnerability, Bogey’s worldweary
one-liners—these were what made
“Casablanca” great, not a pedantic obsession
with visual detail. The profi t motive
was what fueled the creation of the Bluray
format. While this new format may
end up working out better for porn than
Betamax, it also needs to address artistic
concerns. Otherwise, HD-DVD players
may someday bring in a pretty penny on
eBay.
—Columnist Andrew F. Nunnelly can be
reached at nunnelly@fas.harvard.edu.
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