The adult industry, always looking for a way to make some noise, is now jumping head-first into 4K porn distribution. While shooting porn in 4K is actually nothing new (the RED ONE has been used a bit), a new company called Huccio is claiming to be the first in porn to actually master and distribute their content in 4K. Regardless of your opinion on this -- and judging by No Film School demographics you probably have a strong one -- it could have very real effects not only for porn, but for the entire movie industry.

Huccio Mastering and Releasing Porn in 4K

Huccio has only soft-launched the site, and it appears to have imploded under a recent spike in traffic thanks to being picked up by Gizmodo. Right now on Vimeo they've got a sample of the 4K-mastered video, but full 4K samples are available on their website (NSFW). You can watch the obviously NSFW clip by clicking the image below:

It's somewhat of an urban legend that porn played a role in the VHS and Betamax battle (and it was likely not even a blip on the radar for HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray), but 4% of all websites are pornographic in nature and 14% of searches are porn-related. Those numbers are pretty significant, but it's difficult to get perfect numbers on that sort of thing for obvious reasons.

As mentioned above this isn't the first time material like this has been shot in 4K, but apparently it hasn't been distributed in 4K or UHD until now. Gizmodo had some interesting words with one of the creators, Toni Tsai:

There seems to be some backlash online about how "gross" porn would look at 4k, but we big to differ. =)

I will say that more care needs to be taken during the shooting and post process as you will inevitably see more details. Details do mean more flaws exposed but when done right, as we hope you see in our content, it can look amazing.

4K is Coming (Not Just in Porn, Obviously)

4K is coming sooner or later -- whatever the medium -- and the issue mentioned above is a very real one for filmmakers. More care needs to be taken with specific elements, like production design and makeup, so that they don't distract the audience from watching the story. It might sound a little gimmicky right now, but for anyone who has watched 4K content on 4K screens for a long enough period of time, the high-resolution material looks almost 3D. As a viewer there is so much more you can pick up on in a well-composed 4K frame, as small details can really pop.

Tsai also talked about the adoption of 4K:

As 4k cameras become cheaper, I think the porn industry will definitely crossover and 4k will become the norm sooner than most people think. Case example, the new Galaxy Note can shoot 4k! Of course ,there will be varying qualities of 4k, so our goal is to provide the best visually. Because we had an head start in shooting exclusively and mastering our content in 4k, our goal is create the biggest ultra hd 4k erotica porn library for our subscribers.

They are releasing the videos in H.264 right now (and probably H.265 in the future), but it's an interesting case study for what might work for filmmakers. 4K theater distribution is out of the question for most filmmakers, but besides releasing full-quality videos on a website or uploading to YouTube, the only other options at this point are Sony's 4K player (that only works with Sony TVs) and RED's REDRAY playback device combined with the ODEMAX distribution service. No other services or devices are working in ultra high-res just yet, but with Sony's Playstation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One both capable of 4K playback, and 4K/UHD TVs now hitting price points around $1,000, a lot more 4K content is potentially on the horizon.

I don't really see pornography alone pushing the sale of 4K displays, but seeing how this situation plays out could benefit indie filmmakers who are looking for more ways to get their content seen in an increasingly media-saturated environment. In some ways, adult entertainment and independent filmmaking are sort of kindred spirits, sometimes pushing boundaries but always doing anything and everything to get more eyeballs to their content. The adult industry has often been forward thinking as it relates to marketing and production -- as we saw this year with the first Google Glass adult video -- so indie filmmakers might actually learn a thing or two from a place they least expected to.

Porn shot and displayed in 4K may not have been what you were asking for, but it's coming. The same is true for movies. The only question remaining is how fast the format will be adopted for both acquisition and distribution, and whether regular audiences will even care in the first place.

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