The project was supposed to generate a healthy revenue stream to support the company in tough economic times. A few months later, however, the project has been canceled and the site closed, as the company focuses on other ways of satisfying its users.

“Over the past six months, we prioritized our projects to focus development on features that were gaining significant traction with our community. As part of this prioritization, StudioHD was closed in November,” a spokesman at Vuze told TorrentFreak.

Although Vuze officially claims that the closure of StudioHD is a matter of changed priorities, we assume that it was not as profitable as the company had projected. This is not really a big surprise, as even the ‘free’ adult torrent sites are having trouble keeping up with the increasing popularity of adult video streaming sites.

The Vuze spokesman told TorrentFreak that the company will instead focus on integrating devices and torrent search capabilities into its client.

“Almost half our active community use Vuze Device integrations to watch their media on screens other than their computers (iPhone, iPod, PS3, Xbox 360 etc). They’ve successfully transferred more than 50m files to other screens since launch last March.”

In addition to the successful device integration, the built-in search capabilities using existing torrent sites such as isoHunt and BTjunkie, has gained in use significantly. Three quarter of all Vuze users are searching for torrents using the feature, compared to 55% a year ago.

Ironically, this integrated search allows users to find thousands of adult torrents that can be downloaded for free. No paid subscription needed. Could that be one of the reasons why the StudioHD subscription service was canceled?

Source: Vuze BitTorrent Client Closes Porn Torrent Site

StudioHD is owned and operated by Vuze Inc. and was silently integrated into one of the latest releases. Its network currently offers over 250 videos that can be downloaded with BitTorrent once the user has signed up for a subscription.

The current rates are $24.99 for a month or $149.99 annually and there’s a three day trial available for $3.99. In comparison, The Pirate Bay’s section dedicated to similar HD videos lists 600 titles that can be downloaded for free – even with Vuze.

BitTorrent and adult entertainment go hand in hand, so to speak. When Bram Cohen, the inventor of the protocol wanted to test his application in the wild, he used adult content to do so. Even today, a pretty significant portion of all BitTorrent transfers are porn related, although streaming sites have taken over a fair chunk of this part of the market.

Vuze’s porn section fully integrates with the regular BitTorrent client and offers videos from MC-Nudes, Mac & Bumble, Xisty, Walter Bosque, David Nudes, LSG, Digital Desire, to name just a few model agencies. They promise to add fresh content to the network regularly.

Judging from the advertisements on some BitTorrent sites, and MediaDefender’s porn marketing experience, there is money to be made in this particular area. Some will argue it’s one of the reasons the Internet was invented.

Source: Vuze Cashing in on Porn BitTorrent Users