The evolution of the paysite market has been challenging for all producers but a boon to fans who are benefiting from the competition and willing to pay for the increasing excellence available in their adult entertainment choices — such as 5KPorn.com.
One way that 5KPorn.com immediately stands out to visitors is through a tour that conveys the quality of the site’s content by emphasizing the fact that all preview images are actual video screen caps rather than the typical still photographs many sites use to hide the lower quality of their videos. The site features streamlined navigation that looks and works great on all devices and helps members locate the content they seek, all at an attractive price point, for a well-crafted evolution of the adult paysite experience.
Clarity doesn’t mean enhancing imperfections. With lighting, color grading/correcting and a good camera, the right things shine while the blemishes blend away.
To take a closer look at Kelly Madison Media’s newest site and future plans, XBIZ sat down with co-owner Ryan Madison to find out what led to the launch and growth of 5KPorn.com.
He revealed that after KMM mastered shooting 4K cinematic porn in recent years, he felt a strong urge to up the ante and stake a claim in an emerging field.
“I don’t start off a project just to create new challenges for myself, but it just seems to happen in my effort to not get stuck in a repetitive environment,” Madison told XBIZ. “Finding what works and sticking to it seems like a dream enterprise but I have a hard time giving myself that luxury.”
Madison confided that the KMM network is doing better than ever, but he’s really starting to see the monotony in amateur cinematic porn because “everyone is doing it.”
“Way back when we had to hack these small cameras to get the most out of them and now every kid on YouTube is color grading their overdone bokeh, way too low an f-stop, amateur videos,” Madison said. “The more I indulge in cinematography the more I see the imperfections in these small cameras and I wanted something better. Better means bigger so there goes ‘run and gun,’ and now we have to shoot on a tripod, etc. therefore killing the spontaneity and realness of the sex.”
Madison is a firm believer that male talent has a lot to do with the quality of on-camera sex and noted while the company always focused on female talent, the male has the ability to bring out the best in her.
“He can get her to show emotions and reactions that are unique to him,” Madison explained. “If we can’t just let them roll around while we capture a ‘real’ moment because of the chunkiness of the equipment, then we need to bring something else to the table. That’s where 5K quality comes in.”
Digging deeper into the notion of 5K and why 4K isn’t “good enough,” Madison emphasized that 5K and “all the Ks” simply refer to the size of the video, not its quality, but he is quick to point out that if you do it right the size can substantially boost the quality.
“People have it all wrong when they say, ‘Just what I want to see: all their pores, zits, razor burns and stretch marks, etc.’” Madison said. “Clarity doesn’t mean enhancing imperfections. With lighting, color grading/correcting and a good camera, the right things shine while the blemishes blend away. A lot of these camera sensors are built around making skin look good.”
Beyond technical image quality, other factors influence a production’s success. For example, Madison confided he’s about to sacrifice realistic feeling, raw, genuine sex for staged glamour stunt cock porn.
“Our new 5K approach will be all about the female talent, it will be very well lit, and the cameras will be stabilized,” Madison revealed. “That is nothing new in our industry, but with our new technology and faster internet speeds we can deliver a much higher quality product that showcases the beauty of our performers in a way that has never been done before.”
Another reason why 5K interests Madison is because of the ongoing proliferation of free porn, driving his need to stay competitive.
“Huge video is coming — the next big thing will be 8K — the only question is when,” Madison explained. “The majority of consumer equipment isn’t built to play big video. But when it is, why wouldn’t someone want it? If done right, it will only look better.”
Madison clarified that “big video” doesn’t mean a less appealing product, it means the exact opposite.
“If you have a decent computer you can probably play 5K at 24 fps. But I don’t want to do that,” Madison said. “All our 5K videos are shot at 60 fps. That’s two-and-a-half times more frames then a cinematic video. Now the files are getting big. An hour of 5K 60 fps RAW video is about 3TBs. After compressing the shit out of it, we give our members a 5K video that’s around 20GBs. Hopefully that size will deter the tubes for a while. The reason I am doing 60 fps is that I’m going for clarity and 60 will stop the motion blur — but 60 fps looks cheap.”
Madison revealed that to counter the dreaded 60 fps effect and keep his productions from “looking like a cheap soap opera,” the studio had to kill the background.
“Shooting on an all-black backdrop helps lessen the cheapness while making the female talent literally pop out of the screen. We still shoot in different locations to break up the monotony but that’s the gist,” Madison confided. “With good hair and makeup and my wife, who is a very talented wardrobe stylist, the combination works very well.”
In addition to these pluses, Madison said the company is also ahead of the curve with 5K 60 fps because a lot of peoples’ computers can’t play it, so 5KPorn.com solved this by offering 4K and 2K versions also.
“If you start with a great 5K file, a 4K and 2K will be relatively just as impressive,” Madison said. “So once again, if big video looks better than its predecessor and if you believe technology will eventually make enjoying big video extremely easy and reliable for the consumer, why then would 4K be good enough?”
“Right now, gamers with a robust GPU are loving the 5K content,” he added. “Even if you watch your porn on an iPad our 2K videos are superior to most 1080p files.”
As for what the next leap in “porn fidelity” will be after 5K, Madison said the future is 8K while noting, “We’re leaving a lot on the table when compressing these videos.”
“H.264 is the standard now, but H.265 or VP9 (Google) or AV1 (Open Source) will probably win over because we need a better way to preserve the quality while keeping the file size relatively small,” said Madison. “A 5K video at 20GBs looks great but you should see the same video at 500GBs. Fans would love it, especially on the new 5K monitors. Once we get a better compression format that is compatible with most devices you will be able to stream big video on a CDN network with amazing quality.”
Other technical considerations are required for producing and fully enjoying 5K as opposed to 4K or high-definition, with Madison noting, “5K hasn’t been the easiest thing to make. When we first started there were a bunch of limitations.”
“For one, a lot of compression programs didn’t support H.264 resolutions above 4K so we had to write our own program to make them bigger. That wasn’t too long ago, but the software has now already embraced up to 8K, so things are moving quickly,” Madison revealed. “Another challenge working with rendering, exporting and compressing these big files is Apple.”
While he never believed he would say this, Madison advised producers considering big video to go PC.
“You can build a PC computer to the specs you want while Apple seems to constantly have limitations,” Madison explained. “In general it’s good to go down a path with lots of challenges because it keeps the competition away.”
According to Madison, another way to stay ahead of the pack is to maintain a robust update schedule, with 5KPorn.com currently featuring around 30 models and planned updates every five days (that’s if the company’s computers don’t crash at night!).
“We work on $10,000+ computers and it still takes three to four days to render, export and compress one scene,” Madison confided. “Regardless of the challenges, 5KPorn.com is doing extremely well and we do believe it will have its place in the always-developing porn universe, so we will be expanding with the launch of 5KTeens.com in the near future.”
With KMM currently running four paysites: PornFidelity.com, TeenFidelity.com, KellyMadison.com, 5KPorn.com and coming soon, 5KTeens.com, Madison counters skeptics of the profitability of paysites.
“The sites are doing better than ever because we are constantly trying to push our creative limits and our fans appreciate that,” Madison said. “People say paysites are dead and in some cases they might be right but fortunately for us, we already developed a big, loyal fan base expanding over the last 20 years.”
Madison said the name of the game today is traffic and he would hate to have to start from square one.
“Companies that already have control of exorbitant amounts of traffic can fuel their new products/sites from their existing platforms, but if you have to start from scratch it might feel like paysites are dead,” Madison added. “We don’t take this for granted and we always make decisions based off quality and demand and not immediate profit.”
On the topic of starting from scratch, Madison has a few tips based on his proven strategies for success — including how pricing plays a significant role in the traffic equation:
“You might get forced into cutting your membership costs,” Madison said, “but consider that it might be easier to attain 1,000 members at $30 than 2,000 members at $15.”
“Cutting your prices in half will not double your members,” Madison added, noting that having additional payment options doesn’t seem to be the answer either. “Gift cards don’t have recurring billing so you’re shooting yourself in the foot there. Crypto, for the time being, is dead and even PayPal is not what it’s cracked up to be. All these additional payment methods aren’t necessarily attracting new members — it’s just giving people that are already going to join different options that are less profitable for you.”
He also advises site operators to consider putting trailers on their tours for all new updates, asking, “Why would someone keep coming back if your tour is static?”
“Even though tube sites are taking members from us, the sheer number of eyeballs they have can be extremely beneficial for branding and traffic,” Madison said. “It’s hard to understand but their conversion ratios are also quite good, so I wouldn’t be afraid to use them to grow your platform.”
As for what the future holds for 5KPorn.com, Madison told XBIZ he is going down the big video path.
“There’s a lot to learn and experiment with, especially when it comes to color. It is one of my favorite parts of post-production,” Madison revealed, noting that every day he feels the studio’s 5K product gets better and better. “So, when the internet becomes faster, devices get more robust, cloud prices drop and companies like Apple, Adobe, Google, etc. work together instead of trying to be so proprietary (wishful thinking), we will be here at 5KPorn.com with a shit-ton of high quality, beautiful ‘big video!’”
Affiliates can get their share of the 5K porn market at 5KBucks.com or by emailing ryan@5kvids.com, while fans can experience the next generation of porn by joining 5KPorn.com.
“We are offering free memberships to all our traffic because there are no gimmicks here,” Madison concluded. “If you’re tired of iPhone porn or wannabe cinematic porn and are looking for higher quality content, come check us out — for now, you are not going to find 5K 60 fps video anywhere else but at 5KPorn.com.”
It is an offer that many carnal connoisseurs may find irresistible.
