Ryan Anderson dot ca

Much ado has been made by the next-gen DVD format wars recently, with Toshiba going head-to-head with Sony for who will control the future of high-definition home movies. While I have been leaning strongly in Toshiba’s direction in my predictions as to which format will prevail, a story on the Wired blog today may be the decision-maker.

The story was that the adult industry is practically unanimous in its adoption of Toshiba’s HD-DVD standard, due in no small part to the fact that Sony refused to license its Blu-ray technology to at least one porn distributor, striking a major blow (pun intended) against the standard.

If it doesn’t seem like a big deal, you haven’t been paying attention. Historically, the porn industry has been key in driving the growth in technology of almost every major medium. It has been instrumental in establishing online commerce technology, download-on-demand technology, and most industry experts agree that in addition to Sony hoarding the technology, the adult industry was key in securing the success of VHS over the superior betamax format for home use.

In this case, adult studios are choosing HD DVD because it’s cheaper to produce, and there are more units already in the market, thanks in no small part to the XBOX 360.

All biases aside, the reality of the format wars now looks like this:

1. HD-DVD is cheaper to produce
2. There are currently more HD-DVD players in the market
3. Sony is counting heavily on the PS3 to boost the number of Blu-ray players in homes, but sales so far have been poor.
4. Average consumers understand HD and DVD, and therefore HD-DVD
5. Early adopters and evangelists (AKA bloggers) have very little good will left for Sony after the rootkit debacle.
6. Sony is denying licenses to specific types of content

To Sony’s credit, it appears that the Blu-ray format is technically superior, but that will not be enough to win the day. Although many major studios have chosen Blu-ray, the largest of those have chosen to release both formats.

The future doesn’t look good for Blu-ray as far as I can see. Combine that with the fact that the adult industry is going HD-DVD only and the fact that Sony has lost every format war in its history (beta, minidisc, laserdisc, and UMDs are not selling at all) I don’t think it’s premature to declare HD-DVD the clear leader. Unless Sony pulls out some major stops, it’s a pretty safe the Blu-ray discs on the market now will end up in the junkyard beside the giant pile of laserdiscs.