VOD Sites, why do they miss the obvious?

[Steve]

VOD (Video On Demands) seems to be a very popular format to show porn flicks. More and more porn supplier sites are now offering a VOD alternative (and sometimes at almost the same price as the DVD!).

However, they are missing something really important that I find quite odd. Apart from the usually dire low quality stream they offer they never offer the backstage material or bonus scenes. In fact, most clip sites like 21st Sextury or Perfect Gonzo rarely add a lot of the backstage material although there is a massive demand for this.

When I edited and ran the Victoria Swinger site we used to put on a ton of backstage stuff and the download figures showed that they were as popular as the main scenes.

So, why do VOD sites fail to do this and does anyone know of any sites other than www.strictlybroadband.com that actually shows the backstage footage from DVD's.

VOD is still poor to be fair. On many sites you can buy the DVD for 10 Euro or so, whereas the VOD stream costs 7-8 Euro. With the DVD you get a full movie, with backstage and photos rendered at 8mbps (i.e. good quality). With VOD you typically get a 1mb stream that is poor quality, has no backstage or photoshoots and is protected content that you have to keep renewing licenses.

Its time that a VOD site appeared offering HQ downloads, with no protection and all the backstage (okay, the same price as the DVD would be acceptable). Ztod does something similar for all their scenes, but it needs to happen more.

AEBN and Hotstream who seem to provide the content to most VOD sites should either upgrade or quit. Their technology is so old that its unreal.

So, anyone know of any good quality VOD sites that offer backstage stuff.

[Steve]

Oh, note about DDF and their HD format.

I am impressed with this. I think that their HD is usually very good. I know that some of the scenes are not actually HD but just re-edits they have made of non HD material which they have pumped the bit rate and resolution, but even that is acceptable.

Just for the record for those not sure what HD is. HD is a format where the typical set resolutions for PAL or NTSC were surpassed. PAL generally uses 720x576 with 25fps and NTSC is 720x480 with 29.97fps. HD codecs such as 1080p took the limit up to 1920x1080. These codecs are called x264 and can hit magical limits like 1080p60 which only the most powerful PC's in the world could play (my Quad Core Extreme can play this quality, but my Standard Dual Core could not.). You can also pump the quality to 50mbps although no-one does... lol (i.e. 6 times more data being passed than a DVD uses).

As I mentioned previously, DDF claim to use HD and indeed their movies are good quality. However, they do not employ a 480p x264 HD codec, but they use DivX (DivX is not HD). Still damn nice looking scenes though.

Most porn producers use a Sony CCD HD camera which although it sounds like its a HD compatiable cam, its not. It might be able to just hit the 480p mark, but thats its limit. They generally use a panasonic or sony branded DV codec. To hit the 720p or 1080p HD quality, the resolution is far higher than these cameras can manage. The Sony CCD HD cam can hit natively 720x576/480. 720p is 1280x720 and 1080p is 1920x1080.

Also, a real HD stream that lasts 20 mins would be 6gb in size.

I wonder who will be the first porn producer in Europe to actually use a true HD codec and produce some of the most breathtaking scenes ever made.

For the record, yes, I love this stuff... lol. I render all my fun scenes using an emulated DV codec and can churn it out at true 480p and yes... its bloody awesome

[Frigo]

Steve, you know I am with you. I also love the BTS stuff and thats always the first part that I check when getting new dvds!

[Steve]

Its great stuff and gives a fun insight to what happened on the shooting. I just wish it was easier to obtain.

[gapeman]

...and V.O.D. always released the movies more or less 1 month latter than the DVD relese date