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| Content Quantity: |
18/20 |
Content Quality: |
16/20 |
Updates: |
10/10 |
| Entertainment: |
15/15 |
Navigation & Design: |
9/10 |
Download: |
4/5 |
| Value for Money: |
15/15 |
Reviewer's Tilt: |
4/5 |
Total: |
91/100 |
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Site info help
Site info valid on date of review
| Pictures: |
1,584 photosets (approx. 20-80 per set)
1024 px resolution
Additionally 60 full magazine scans (pdf and jpg downloads available) |
| Video: |
270 DVDs/1,584 scenes
Windows Media (wmv) and Streaming Flash available
Highest quality: wmv 640x480/360, 1400 kbit
No DRM protection |
| Other: |
Forum, blog |
| Pricing: |
1 month recurring: $/€29.95
3 months recurring: $/€59.85
1 year non-recurring: $/€149.95 |
Pros
+ Many of the first hardcore porn magazines, and later movies, I managed to get my eager hands on as a teen 15-20 years ago, were from Private. In more recent years I've also watched a bunch of their movies when I've come across them on various pay-per-view or other DVD sites, and when it comes to Private movies from the late nineties and early... what are we calling them? Zeroes?... it's generally been a bit of a mixed experience.
The models were, and still are, almost always hot (often exceptionally hot, it's mostly those Eastern European babes again), but in my opion Private often made a few too many experiements with their filming style and various "artistic" elements (weird lighting and sound, horrible blur filters, assorted more or less outrageous customes), turning potentially great hardcore scenes into a bit of an annoying mess. It did work now and then, but all too often I really didn't care much for the result.
The Private site appears to mostly feature more recent movies though (my estimate would be, with a few exceptions, from the last eight years or so, with many movies from the last few), and it seems like they've dialed back on the potentially annoying elements quite a bit. They still regularly make plentiful use of outdoor scenes and occasionally lavish customes and background settings, but without those blur filters and strange lighting, those elements actually mostly work in their favour now, rather than against them.
Or in fewer words, there's a hell of a lot of great hardcore porn here, with a long list of gorgeous, sexy and very willing models.
+ Said models include a long list of girls that Eurobabe fans such as myself are already extremely familiar with from various other sites and studios. To name some, Angelika Black, Lucy Belle, Aletta Ocean, Silvia Saint, Monica Sweetheart, Claudia Rossi, Lucy Lee, Simony Diamond, Angel Dark, Cherry Jul, Katy Caro, Judith Fox, Jasmine Rouge, Cindy Hope, Tarra White, Madison Parker, Jessica Moore and many, many others.
You will find some non-Eastern European girls as well (Bobbi Starr, Katja Kassin, Amber Rayne, Michelle B., Shy Love, Rebeca Linares and numerous others), but they are definitely in the minority, and typically only have a couple of scenes each at the most.
+ Large video collection (for a one studio DVD site), currently 1,584 scenes from 270 Private DVDs. And it's growing quickly with one to three new scenes a day (looks like it's a steady pattern of three a day Monday through Friday, one on Saturdays and Sundays).
+ You get a usually fairly small photoset with every scene (larger photosets appear with certain scenes I recognize from 21Sextury, it seems like they may have been shooting a few movies for Private the last couple of years). Generally not particularly interesting, and stuck with an outdated 1024 px resolultion, but a decent addition to the site anyway.
+ Aside from photosets accompanying videos, there's an entire section with magazine scans. Unfortunately it's not nearly as well stocked as a first glance at the "browse by year" menu in the sidebar would have you believe. Rather than going all the way back to the company's start in 1965 as the menu suggests, you'll only find magazines from 2003-10 (with the majority of them from the last three years), and currently the total number only amounts to 60.
A very nice and unexpected touch in this section is the option to download magazines in PDF format, which not only gives it (slightly) more of a magazine feel, but also higher resolution than the 1024 px jpg option.
A few posts on the forum last month suggests that access to the entire archive of Private magazines will be added "soon", so let's hope that will indeed be the case, because this section is in my opinion a lot more interesting than the regular photo content. I'm particularly looking forward to seeing if I might recognize some of those magazines that got me hooked on porn more than 15 years ago.
+ The site interface is clean and inviting and apparently recently redesigned, with plenty of well selected preview images and integrated Flash player alongside video download options.
Model, scene and movie archives are present as expected, and the search box seems to do a good job with specific searches, just as every model name or scene category are linked to other relevant results whereever they appear.
I did however on several occasions, particularly during my first hour or two with the site, find myself wishing it was possible to sort scenes, movies or models by popularity or member rating or number of scenes available, which could certainly be helpful on such a large site, and which are pretty common features these days (the models actually have a star rating, but unless I missed something, alphabetically was the only way to view the model archive).
Cons
- The 640x360 (widescreen) or 640x480 (4:3), 1400 kbit "high" video quality would have been great three or four years ago. In 2010, not so much.
However, I have been watching a bunch of these videos on my 40" 1080p HDTV, and it actually surprises me that such a low video quality can be scaled up to still look pretty decent even on such a fairly large screen. Viewed from a reasonable distance away (ie. not with your nose pressed against your PC monitor) you won't be looking at a pixelated or horribly blurry mess, merely videos that are lacking in sharpness and fine defail.
I've been informed that the plan is to start adding HD videos to the site in a couple of months, but while I didn't get an answer to this, I'm assuming it will be for future releases only (and obviously many of the scenes on the site were probably filmed several years before they started shooting in HD anyway).
- Some scenes here and there aren't listed on the model pages, so if you want to be sure to locate all the scenes with your favourite models, you better try their names in the search field as well.
- There are some repeat scenes detracting from the total number. It looks like eg. compilation DVDs are added without paying attention to whether some of the individual scenes might already be on the site. Based on my site browsing I'll say that it does look like a fairly minor and infrequent problem though.
- While this is a great site in its current state, I don't care for the greatly exaggerated claims on the tour page with regards to the volume of both video and magazine scans content, even if they do plan on delivering on at least the latter soon. And leaving out the signup prices on the join page (you see them after inputting chosen login name and email address), even though they are perfectly in line with other adult sites, also seems like an entirely unnecessary move that I really can't see doing anything but hurting trust these days.
(Member area screenshots)
Click here to visit Private
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95+ Excellent
85-94 Very Good
75-84 Good
65-74 Acceptable
-64 Don't Bother
Full rating info here
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