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 February 1, 2005 An Early Adopter of High-Definition Video The words "adult film" bring many things to mind. In that long list, the words "technology leader" probably don’t appear. Yet, the adult-film industry is highly advanced in its use of technology for producing cutting-edge video products, and nowhere is this more obvious than the annual Adult Entertainment Expo, an event that used to be part of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) but is now held separately, although at the same time each year as CES in Las Vegas. It was there that I had a chance to sit down with Joone (the name he goes by), the founder of Digital Playground, one of the larger companies in the adult-film industry and a leader in applying emerging video technologies. There’s nothing about Joone’s appearance that makes you think "porn mogul," and there’s not much in the way he talks that makes you think that either. He’s a youngish, casually dressed, well-spoken fellow who, if he told you that he worked in just about any other industry, you’d believe him. And when he tells you the names of some of his films -- Island Fever, Forbidden Tales, and his latest, Pirates -- you don’t think "adult films" either. It’s only when he brings up some of the company’s other releases that you get a hint. A graduate of USC film school, Joone started out doing fashion photography and music-video work. He was always immersed in technology, though, and in about 1994 he developed a series of "interactive" adult films for CD-ROM. When DVD was released, it was a natural progression to move to that format. This helped Digital Playground make its mark in the adult-film industry. But while Joone is proud of the technical flair of his film catalog, you can tell by talking to him that he’s a filmmaker at heart, and it’s the company’s features that he’s most proud of. It’s here that he has led Digital Playground to the forefront with productions shot using high-definition video. In fact, one Digital Playground film has been available for some time now on HD DVD. Take that Hollywood. According to Joone, although some companies have already dabbled in high-definition production, Digital Playground is the first company to release a full high-definition feature that was shot, edited, mastered, and released on high-definition media. That’s Island Fever 3, which was filmed in Bora Bora, Tahiti. It won Best HD Production at the AVN awards, held the same weekend in Las Vegas as the Expo. Island Fever 3 is sold just one way: with an HD DVD disc enclosed, guaranteeing that buyers will be exposed to that technology, although the package also comes with a standard DVD, obviously because you’ll be hard-pressed to find a HD DVD player just yet on which to play the high-definition disc. But that will all change. Showing at CES were plenty of prototype HD DVD players and the latest, competing technology being championed by Sony, one of the original inventors of CD, called Blu-ray. (Yes, another format war will be waged, but that’s for another time and another article.) Joone says he has no preference for either format, and will simply release on whatever format there’s a market for "providing there are a certain number of players out there." We’ll see these players in North America later this year, and when they arrive, Digital Playground will not only be ready with Island Fever 3, but also Pirates, a special-effects-laden creation that is slated for release in late 2005, as well as a good chunk of his company's current catalog.
Island Fever 3 was his high-definition training ground, and it went off without a hitch. Joone said matter-of-factly, "We shot it. Afterwards, we never went back." As a result, every production Digital Playground shot in 2004 (he claims the company does four per month) was shot in HD because doing so just made sense. Even though the proliferation of high-definition players isn’t great just yet, shooting with high-definition equipment yields a superior-looking standard-definition DVD. Because Island Fever 3 was produced using high-definition equipment throughout, the DVD in the two-disc package should look better than if it was produced with standard-definition equipment. Joone also said that the production costs are only about 20% higher than those of standard-definition video, and the investment there will help make the videos more profitable in the future. "The most important thing for us is that we want a library that doesn’t get outdated," says Joone. This makes sense when you look at how adult films are marketed and distributed today, and tomorrow. While it will take some time before the number of households that have HD DVD or Blu-ray players approach the households with standard DVD players, high-definition programs are already making huge inroads in cable TV, and that market share is only going to grow over time. Another very lucrative avenue for the adult-film industry, HD in-hotel-room movies, is coming next. The posh, new Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, for example, that’s slated to open in the spring of this year is said to be putting HDTV sets in every room. "What sells better in hotel rooms in Las Vegas than adult films?" Joone asks, obviously rhetorically. Indeed. Digital Playground, a technology leader in the adult-film industry, jumped on the high-definition bandwagon early and will certainly be part of the next big video format, be it HD DVD or Blu-ray. HD with room service, anyone? ...Doug Schneider
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Joone became interested in
high-definition video well over a year ago when he bought an HDTV set. It was the
Discovery Channel that turned him on to the potential of the high-definition format --
visually there was a night-and-day difference over standard-definition TV.