(Originally composed for an online 'zine submittal, but I missed my deadline while apartment hunting. Decided to finish it [albeit at about half its originally intended size] and journal it.)
It's a widely-upheld notion that porn drives the industry. In the war against VHS vs Betamax, where did the porn go? VHS as it was cheaper to produce on. Perhaps not-so-coincidentally Betamax, despite offering a higher quality of video and sound, was quickly pushed from the market.
When software was offered on both 3.5" disks and CDs, often the only advantage to purchasing a CD version of software was to not have to deal with the annoyance disk-swapping. Porn was one of the first to capitalize on short video clips wrapped ostensibly in a "game." That's right. Porn was the forerunner to the game "Myst." And you thought it was "Zork."
In the days of dial-in BBSes, the most successful ones--the ones that could truly enforce upload ratios--were those that offered downloads of an adult nature. Granted, it took all night for a handful of pictures, but what a, ahem, handful such downloads offered.
Then came the Internet, where larger libraries were available through Archie, Usenet and finally, the World Wide Web. Shortly thereafter high-speed Internet access became available. Because with all that porn available to us, a 56k modem just wouldn't cut it anymore. Finally, videos became available.
Nothing has been able to top the Internet for our porn access. Nothing. Believe me, I've looked and I've looked hard. ("Hard" pun intended.)
Even as I type this two new technologies are battling for the dominion of entertainment. For superior-resolution video the challengers are the wonderfully generic HD-DVD and Sony's Blu-Ray. Debate is rife amongst A/V Clubs through the states as to which will be champion.
Many argue that Blu-Ray will topple its more generic competitor because it has the licenses...
(Originally composed for an online 'zine submittal, but I missed my deadline while apartment hunting. Decided to finish it [albeit at about half its originally intended size] and journal it.)
It's a widely-upheld notion that porn drives the industry. In the war against VHS vs Betamax, where did the porn go? VHS as it was cheaper to produce on. Perhaps not-so-coincidentally Betamax, despite offering a higher quality of video and sound, was quickly pushed from the market.
When software was offered on both 3.5" disks and CDs, often the only advantage to purchasing a CD version of software was to not have to deal with the annoyance disk-swapping. Porn was one of the first to capitalize on short video clips wrapped ostensibly in a "game." That's right. Porn was the forerunner to the game "Myst." And you thought it was "Zork."
In the days of dial-in BBSes, the most successful ones--the ones that could truly enforce upload ratios--were those that offered downloads of an adult nature. Granted, it took all night for a handful of pictures, but what a, ahem, handful such downloads offered.
Then came the Internet, where larger libraries were available through Archie, Usenet and finally, the World Wide Web. Shortly thereafter high-speed Internet access became available. Because with all that porn available to us, a 56k modem just wouldn't cut it anymore. Finally, videos became available.
Nothing has been able to top the Internet for our porn access. Nothing. Believe me, I've looked and I've looked hard. ("Hard" pun intended.)
Even as I type this two new technologies are battling for the dominion of entertainment. For superior-resolution video the challengers are the wonderfully generic HD-DVD and Sony's Blu-Ray. Debate is rife amongst A/V Clubs through the states as to which will be champion.
Many argue that Blu-Ray will topple its more generic competitor because it has the licenses behind it. Disney is exclusively Blu-Ray, as is 20th Century Fox; and Sony itself has a library of films. Also, the PS3 has a dandy Blu-Ray player in it, so gamers can take a break from preparing for the upcoming "Rock Band" game by watching, say, "Brother Bear 2" in high definition.
Porn pundits propose that despite the overwhelming number of popular titles already locked under the Blu-Ray belt HD-DVD will win. Why? Because it's cheaper to produce movies on HD-DVD and, more importantly, Sony had purportedly placed porn moratorium on the X-rated Blu-Ray. This was later revealed to be incorrect, but the retraction was not largely published. HD-DVD has already garnered support from Playboy Enterprises, Bang Bros, Wicked Pictures, and other adult entertainment film producers, however.
Meanwhile porn giant Vivid entertainment had declared it will support both formats. So no matter who wins, while the war is occurring you can still pick up "Debbie Does Dallas...Again."
Really, though, does it all matter? Is high definition really that much more amazing? For porn? Most of it is recorded in lower definition anyway, so wether you're at home watching an Asia Carrera flick or "Goodfellas" there's no quality difference between HD-DVD, Blu-Ray or your current DVD.
Also, as mentioned previously, nothing beats the Internet for porn. It has a larger library than your local adult entertainment store--trust me, I've counted. This doesn't even include video-on-demand websites which offer entire movies at near-DVD quality.
For the first time--perhaps in all of history--the argument that porn drives technology may be moot. Partially because high definition DVDs are more of an evolution of a technology, but largely because the Internet has changed everything--ostensibly for more things than just porn.
The fight between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will be a video medium fight previously unexperienced in the industry. I don't think they'll go the way of the laser disk, but until newer, interactive mediums are developed DVD may remain the movie champion even amongst its high-quality brothers while the Internet has become the mogul of porn my mother always feared it would be.
It's a widely-upheld notion that porn drives the industry. In the war against VHS vs Betamax, where did the porn go? VHS as it was cheaper to produce on. Perhaps not-so-coincidentally Betamax, despite offering a higher quality of video and sound, was quickly pushed from the market.
When software was offered on both 3.5" disks and CDs, often the only advantage to purchasing a CD version of software was to not have to deal with the annoyance disk-swapping. Porn was one of the first to capitalize on short video clips wrapped ostensibly in a "game." That's right. Porn was the forerunner to the game "Myst." And you thought it was "Zork."
In the days of dial-in BBSes, the most successful ones--the ones that could truly enforce upload ratios--were those that offered downloads of an adult nature. Granted, it took all night for a handful of pictures, but what a, ahem, handful such downloads offered.
Then came the Internet, where larger libraries were available through Archie, Usenet and finally, the World Wide Web. Shortly thereafter high-speed Internet access became available. Because with all that porn available to us, a 56k modem just wouldn't cut it anymore. Finally, videos became available.
Nothing has been able to top the Internet for our porn access. Nothing. Believe me, I've looked and I've looked hard. ("Hard" pun intended.)
Even as I type this two new technologies are battling for the dominion of entertainment. For superior-resolution video the challengers are the wonderfully generic HD-DVD and Sony's Blu-Ray. Debate is rife amongst A/V Clubs through the states as to which will be champion.
Many argue that Blu-Ray will topple its more generic competitor because it has the licenses...