I’ve been covering DVDs for Cinema Blend for several years now and one thing continues to be problematic occasionally: distribution. I mean, in order to get that DVD I have to get up, leave my house, go to the store, and face some pimply, snot-nosed teenager who doesn’t know his Kurosawa from his Boll. Plus there’s the whole “Wal-Mart factor” wherein the more interested I am in picking up a movie, the more idiots are both working and shopping at the store when I go to get it. Imagine, in the day and age of bit torrents and iTunes, being able to download a movie legally and then burn it to a DVD to watch on my home system. Well, those days are coming. But, as with a lot of progressive home entertainment technologies, it’s the porn industry paving the way.
Starting today, Vivid Entertainment is allowing the purchase of adult films through a film service called CinemaNow. The movies can be downloaded and then burned to a DVD which will then work in your home entertainment system. This is a big change from the other studios, some even mainstream studios, which recently began to allow the downloading of movies, but only allow the films to be burned onto an archive disc that isn’t compatible with home DVD players, just computers.
"The rest of Hollywood stands back and watches and lets the pornography industry work out all the bugs," states Michael Greeson, a founder of an electronic think tank in Texas. (quote found on ABC News.com)
In the mainstream studio defense, adult pictures have a lot less to lose than big budget Hollywood pictures. If something goes wrong and the files are easily shared, an adult picture budget is paltry compared to the millions a mainstream studio might lose, particularly since more and more they are becoming dependent on DVD sales to keep pictures afloat. The past two weekend box office takes are living proof that Hollywood studios will need DVD sales and can’t afford to mess that up until the technology is perfected.
Still, I expect porn to be viewed on a computer in this day and age, but I’m less accepting of having to watch Superman Returns on my 17” laptop screen when I have a 64” widescreen TV. If adult entertainment is moving this way, Hollywood had better pay attention and plan on following suite soon, even if it requires angering Wal-Mart and other DVD retailers. After all, with as many times as Wal-Mart has angered me, turnabout is only fair play.
