Device squad
Flesh pickings
Thu Oct 4 2007
For your viewing pleasure, five skin-flick aficionados call on their smut instincts to determine whether HD and Blu-ray discs are too graphic.
Ron Jeremy wasn't just a pioneer of prurience: Porn has long powered spanking-new technologies, such as the Internet and even the printing press (Gutenberg, after all, was getting his Jesus freak on). With the advent of high-definition HD DVD and Blu-ray, the porn industry is clambering on board, targeting all those consumers who have snapped up big-screen high-definition TVs. While most adult-film companies favor HD DVD (Blu-ray cocreator Sony balks at mass-producing porn), the question remains: Aren't crystal-clear close-ups of people bumping uglies, like, totally narsty? To decide, we assembled a group of anonymous pornophiles for a marathon viewing of Vivid Entertainment's first multiformat release, Debbie Does Dallas...Again. Dim the lights and keep the Kleenex nearby.
The cast
*
Paul Callingwood
Age: 25
Occupation: Web analyst
Been watching porn for: 17 years
Collection: "Hundreds of magazines and dozens of videos."
Dick Spittoon
Age: 26
Occupation: unemployed
Been watching porn for: 13 years
Collection: "Thirteen gigs on my computer, and growing."
Hairy Popper
Age: 25
Occupation: TV producer
Been watching porn for: 12 years
Collection: "I've watched about 6,000 videos on YouPorn.com."
Jerome Powerful
Age: 27
Occupation: actor
Been watching porn for: 14 years
Collection: "I've got 38 downloaded movies right now."
P.C. Whiffenpoof
Age: 30
Occupation: men's magazine editor
Been watching porn for: 20 years
Collection: "It's always changing, but I have about 30 DVDs on hand now."
*All names have been changed to porn aliases to protect the pervy.
Standard DVD, $36, at shopvivid.com
From the beginning, there was a lot of love (bad choice of words?) for the "classic" version. "When you watch sports in HD, it's like you're there," said Popper. "I'm not sure I want that for porn. I like a filter." The filter in question is the semigrainy look of adult flicks, which Debbie was almost lacking, even in the old format. "Vivid's movies are almost too quality to begin with," said Callingwood, who generally favors amateur smut. While watching the standard-definition disc, our flesh fiends couldn't help but worry about what lay ahead: "I'm already noticing some cheese on the butt," said Spittoon during a sex scene involving a cheerleader and a casket. "That's going to haunt us later."
Blu-ray disc, $63, at shopvivid.com and Sony PlayStation 3 with Blu-ray player, $500, at amazon.com
Everyone agreed that the HD DVD picture was sharper than the Blu-ray one, but that worked to Blu-ray's advantage. "For porn purposes, this is better," said Powerful. "On the HD DVD, we just saw more balls and pimples. This just looks like a better-quality DVD." Spittoon agreed, adding, "It's not more erotic if it's sharper." But the biggest strike against Blu-ray is the price, in this case $9 more than the HD DVD and nearly $30 more than the standard disc. "The benefits don't outweigh the price difference, and the benefits are debatable," said Spittoon. "I don't know if seeing a scrotum bounce is a benefit."
HD DVD, $54, at shopvivid.com and Xbox 360 with HD DVD player, $280, at xbox.com
"The biggest problem is razor burn," porn star Stormy Daniels told The New York Times in reference to her reservations about HD porn. Red welts were a prickly issue here, but the biggest problem—according to our boner brigade—was nut sacs. "It looks like elephant skin!" Popper shouted when Debbie star Evan Stone's frank and beans hit the screen. "I think I can see his vas deferens," Whiffenpoof added, not quite exaggerating. While the picture was a lot crisper in HD, it was in the close-ups of the nether regions that the change was most noticeable, and perhaps unbearable. Said Powerful, summing up everyone's thoughts: "If I wanted to see this much roast beef, I'd go to Katz's."
The verdict
There was sympathy for Blu-ray, but in the end the old-school, cheaper Debbie DVD had the majority standing at attention. Said Powerful, "The high-definition balls were the deal breaker."
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