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Had a splendid slap up lunch with my porno pal Terry (OEJ) Stephens on Thursday. We discussed various porno matters, including the imminent new video format - Hi-Definition (HDTV).



I was just wondering whether anyone else was aware of it and if anyone had any plans to incorporate into their porno workflow? The AV industry is abuzz with talk of Hi-Def at the moment, as SKY TV have announced they will be launching a HDTV service in 2006, at which point Hi-Def DVD players will be available. I haven?t seen it working yet but those who have indicate that the quality is quite staggering, and liken the difference between Hi-Def and standard Def as great as the difference between B/W TV and colour.

It?s porno that traditionally leads the charge in utilizing new formats and mediums, like - VHS, DVD, and the Internet, and true to form one of the first Hi-Def DVD?s to be released is an adult title ?Island Fever 3? from Digital Playground.



You might be thinking that Hi-def is all very well but you would probably need a George Lucas sized budget for the cameras and postproduction. Not so. Sony has announced the first serious semi-pro Hi-Def camera for about ?2,500.00 and it uses standard DV tapes. Pro editing application like Final Cut Pro already partially support High Def and are sure to embrace it fully at the next upgrade.



Those with an eye to the future should start shooting in Hi-def very soon ? so that they have a library of content for when the format starts to gain momentum in a year or two. Which is what the BBC and many independent program makers are doing right now.



Officer Dibble ? You heard it here first

High Def is superb. I often see the results of work shot HighDef and played back on proper monitors. It looks so real. It really does make a difference.

My colleague had a look at Sony's ?2500 consumer High Def camcorder. That's results from that were apparently staggering.

HD DivX for the next generation on the net try the samples they will blow the socks off you. Check out Shark Tale the graphics are outstanding. DivX licensed players now on the market at under ?50.00.

But! before you rush out and start re encoding all your movies look into the time aspect. It takes two passes to create HD DivX and one hell of a lot of CPU power to get to real time encoding speed. Our new systems are being built now for off the time line direct encode but need to be dedicated if you plan to be productive doing them.

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But just before all the producers shell out on new kit just look at those 7 words "will be available in two competing formats". Betamax anyone? Although it will certainly future-proof productions for re-release.

And also bear in mind that consumer pockets are not bottomless. I've still got to move through widescreen, LCD tv, dvd-r and associated hard drive recorder and set-top boxes for all the portables in the house before I'd even consider HDTV. Still by then I'll know which format won out.