14 DAY TRIAL // Vivid Entertainment founder Steven Hirsh recently said some interesting things regarding the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray war. Vivid Entertainment is the first adult movie company that will launch one of its movies on both formats. Hirsh stated that "the quality of the two releases should be the same. We believe, however, that Vivid is not only the first to offer a movie in both HD DVD and Blu-ray formats, but also the first to offer in these formats with multiple angle options."
What is really interesting about the comments made by Hirsh is that: "Sony is not giving any assistance in the authoring or replication of adult content on Blu-ray. Sony is somehow trying to keep away such material from the format, which I think is a mistake." So without Sony's own authoring and replication facilities, companies like Vivid can do two things: either they launch a Blu-Ray disk and then replicate it using their own facilities or they skip the BR part and go straight to HD-DVD. "There are very few replicators right now," says Hirsh when referring to BR disks.
Many companies such as Digital Playground and Bangbros have already adopted the HD-DVD as their next-gen format and will probably never switch to DVD although the mass release of PS3 should even the things on the player segment. Regarding Sony's ban over the adult content, Marty Gordon, Vice Chair of the Blu-ray Disc Association said: "There is not a prohibition against adult content. The BDA is an open organization that welcomes the participation of all companies interested in using and supporting the format, including those that represent the full spectrum of genres in the content industry."
Japan has already edged ahead the U.S. with adult titles already available on Blu-Ray since 2006, but it seems that BR still lags behind HD-DVD. VHS won the war with Betamax mainly due to the adult movies replicated on such tapes and the same thing might happen with HD-DVD. What will actually happen is hard to tell but the picture is brighter on the HD-DVD camp. At least for now.