Porn Buyer's Guide
Updated May 2008
A review site is in itself a buyer's guide, but aside from the info you will find in the reviews as well as in the help pages that can be accessed from the review pages, I decided an extra page with some topics worth paying attention to when picking out the right porn sites for yourself, might not be such a bad idea afterall.
This page contains the following sections:
What Turns You On?
Video, Photos or Both?
Video Quality
DRM - The Product of an Evil Mind?
Billing and Payment Options
Cancelling a Membership
Popups and Spam
What Turns You On?
Alright, I guess this particular section is not all that necessary - most of us probably already know whether we are after blowjobs, gangbangs, anal sex or perhaps mature lesbians in latex skirts and pantyhose.
Whatever you are looking for you can be damn sure you can find it on the Internet - even if I have not gotten around to reviewing it just yet.
You will notice that almost all sites reviewed here are listed under one primary category and up to three secondary categories. Unless a site has an extremely narrow focus it is unlikely that it is easily labeled with just a single category or niche. For the sake of simplicity I have decided to make an exception with the DVD reviews though, using just one category that best applies to the theme of the entire DVD.
The "Additional Keywords" below the categories on review pages provide a further overview of what you can expect from a site.
Video, Photos or Both?
As fast broadband connections are becoming ever more common and downloading full length videos is no longer something that requires hours or even days, many porn sites are heavily slated towards video and mainly providing photo content as an afterthought or a nice little bonus.
Some, especially the ones that do not film their own content, do not even offer real photos but only still images from the videos.
When I started this review site back in December 2005, and wrote the original version of this guide, I said that when I wasn't visiting a porn site for review purposes (where I obviously have to look at all aspects) I generally didn't bother looking at photo content much at all.
That has changed in the last couple of years though, as I've started to thoroughly enjoy high quality photo content again, as I did when I was younger. Mostly this applies to solo babe and girl/girl photo content though, with a few exceptions I generally stick to videos only when it comes to hardcore porn - but not surprisingly the best looking photo content can typically also be found on babe or lesbian sites, so I guess that's a pretty natural fit.
Video Quality
Broadband is not only becoming more widespread but also increasingly faster. Where pixilated or blurry low resolution videos were usually all that could realistically be handled over the Internet just a few years ago, an increasing number of porn site owners realize that keeping up with current technology is important if they want to get and retain members.
Things are moving along so quickly now in this department, that you will notice quality scores in some of the older reviews on this site that would be several points lower if they had been done today (I do update many reviews a few times a year, but usually I stick to written explanations and additions rather than changing scores).
The two most important factors with regards to video quality are resolution and bitrate. To start with the latter it is a term used to describe how heavily compressed the video (or audio - you may very well have seen the term used with music files as well) is from the original version and it is measured in kbit (kilobit).
The general rule of thumb is the higher the bitrate the better the quality - especially noticable in the sharpness of the video. 1000 to 1500 kbit were the typical "high end" when I started reviewing sites in 2005, and coupled with a decent resolution that still often looks pretty good. With the recent move to 720p HD resolutions on an increasing number of sites, bitrates up to 4-5000 kbit or even higher are not uncommon though.
As with the resolution of a picture, video resolution indicates the dimensions of the video frame and a high resolution is especially important if you want to view the movie in full screen, either on your monitor or on a TV through a TV-out caple from your graphics card.
Below is what I think of a selection of different video resolutions. It is worth noting that a high bitrate may help a low resolution look somewhat better, but still not enough to provide a clear image when viewed in full screen.
Or to be a bit more exact, even a low resolution video can actually appear crystal clear if it has a high bitrate and is viewed in its original size. The problem is that since most people are running screen resolutions of 1024x768 or higher (sometimes much higher, prices on 20-22" widescreen LCD monitors dropped quickly in 2007, and I think 24" and higher are already following suit), a low resolution video will only appear as a small square and you will want to scale it up - possibly all the way to full screen. In that process the quality inevitably end up taking a big hit.
320x240: Here in 2008 highly unacceptable for broadband users, and fortunately you're usually only likely to find quality this low in the oldest sections of various porn sites that have been around for years. Not suitable for full screen viewing.
400x300: Combined with a 700+ kbit bitrate this is just about adequate for full screen viewing (up to 1280x1024 or so anyway), but far from great.
480x360: A bit better, and this is what I felt qualified for the lower tiers of "great quality" when I wrote the first version of this guide two and a half years ago. I probably wouldn't go that far now, but it's still suitable for full screen viewing, though it's got quite a lot of way to go before it is a match for the sharpness of a DVD movie.
720/640x480: My original words in 2005 were: "this is where it gets really good", and if you scratch "really", that pretty much still applies, if the bitrate is high enough you can even keep that word.
720x480 is the NTSC DVD resolution (640x480 is 4:3 rather than 16:9 widescreen format), so couple this with a bitrate in the 1500-2000+ kbit range and you've got a quality that is most certainly suited for fullscreen viewing.
This quality has become very common over the last year and a half or so, and that's obviously a good thing.
1280x720 (720p) and 1920x1080 (1080p) HD video: High definition porn really started to gain ground in 2007 and has continued here in 2008, with a fairly substantial number of sites beginning to release new video content in 720p HD at bitrates typically around 4000 kbit.
Needless to say this looks amazing and pretty much ultrasharp on any monitor - though my tests on a 40" HDTV show that this bitrate still isn't quite up to the task of delivering stellar results on a screen that large.
It still looks great though, and it's probably going to be at the very least another few years before Internet bandwidths can manage videos at bitrates similar to Blu-ray movies, which top out around a staggering 40,000 kbit.
Very recently a select few sites have also begun offering 1080p videos at 8000 kbit bitrates. The video files are huge of course (around 2 Gigabyte for half an hour), and unless you're watching them on a large screen (like a HDTV), you probably won't notice much of a difference over the 720p videos - and certainly not because of the resolution, though the doubled bitrate can do wonders for image clarity on large screens.
For a list of reviewed sites offering HD and DVD quality videos, visit the Technology Leaders page.
DRM - The Product of an Evil Mind?
The paragraphs below - minus two that were deleted - are what I originally wrote in December 2005. Rather than just deleting it all, I will just preface this section by saying that unlike my original expectations it seems like DRM has all but been dropped by the online adult industry (not counting streaming formats used for eg. pay-per-view).
The few sites that were using DRM on their downloadable videos have since stripped it out, usually because it "wasn't popular with members". I obviously won't rule out that there are still sites out there using it (actually I would be surprised if there isn't), but in general this is not something you should concern yourself with any longer when signing up for a porn site membership.
Original text:
If you are an experienced porn surfer you may be familiar with the dreaded acronym DRM - Digital Rights Management.
A video producer can place DRM protection on their videos (in Windows Media format - wmv) that ensures that Windows Media Player (the only player that will run these videos) will prompt you for your username and password to the site in question, either every time you watch the video or at fixed intervals (the media player may download a temporary license lasting a few days for instance).
DRM serves two purposes. The first one is to stop piracy and theft of copyrighted material (through illegal websites or p2p networks for instance), a purpose that is certainly understandable considering producing porn is not necessarily a cheap undertaking for the producer with model saleries, photographer and crew, equipment, paper work etc.
Just like the music and movie industries have been loosing a lot of revenue in recent years due to easy pirating, the same goes for porn producers - and not all of those are multi-million dollar businesses where a few hundred thousand dollars in lost profit is just a drop in a vast ocean.
The second, less commendable purpose DRM serves is to retain members. If the videos are not DRM protected they can still be played after the site membership has been cancelled, and if the member has a fast Internet connection and a large harddisk he can potentially download the entire video collection in before the first month is up.
From this point of view, paysite owners DRM protecting their content is also understandable - they make a living of their members afterall. However you could easily argue that the members get the short end of the stick here.
Billing and Payment Options
Online purchases in all areas of interest are soaring. After a fairly long period of natural hesitation and distrust from consumers an ever increasing number of people from around the globe are regularly shopping for products and services on the Internet.
Most porn sites use 3rd party billing processors, often you have the option of several, or they have their own merchant accounts (the former is the most common). The exact same case as when buying any other product on the Internet.
As with all online purchases the data you provide are secured via heavy encryption and subject to the same strict privacy rules.
If you are interested in knowing more about billing or online security I can recommend you check out the websites of two of the most commonly used 3rd party billing processors:
CCBill
Paycom
Many porn sites also offer an option to pay with online check and some have a pay by phone option as well. I also expect to see an increasing number of sites offer SMS billing in the future.
I always use my Visa card so I cannot give any details on non credit card payments options.
Important!: Always save the email receipt you get after you join, you may need the info contained in it when cancelling your membership (there are workarounds, often simple ones if you should happen to loose it though, but better safe than sorry). More about this in the section about cancelling below.
Recurring billing: It is important to notice that the vast majority of porn sites use recurring billing (which should also be clearly indicated when you join), meaning that your credit card will be billed and your membership renewed at the end of every payment period until you cancel your membership. Read more about cancelling your membership in the next section.
Multiple months discounts: Quite often you will have the option of pre paying for a number of months (eg. two, three or six), often with a pretty significant discount.
If you already know the site or are sure you will want to stay for more than a month, these options are definately worth looking into. Pay notice to whether the option you choose is also on recurring billing every x months or if it is a one time payment and your membership will expire at the end of the period.
Trials: Some sites offer a trial membership, typically three days for $1-5 after which it will be converted to a full membership and you will be billed unless you cancel before the trial runs out.
It is worth noting that in the last couple of years a number of sites have cut their trials to only offer very limited access to the content, probably because broadband connections have made it too easy for people with no intention of becoming full members to rip an entire site (a small one anyway) for content before the trial is up.
I have also seen examples of sites where trials will convert to a higher membership price than if a full month was chosen right from the start.
As I do not test trial memberships you are on your own if you decide on this option. In general my advice would be to use the reviews and your own good judgment to base a decision on and then go for a full membership.
Cancelling a Membership
As much as any paysite owner would love to keep you as a loyal paying member for all eternity, there probably comes a time when you wish to cancel your membership.
Fortunately that is usually a simple and painless process that very, very rarely causes any issues.
Admittedly, some sites are a little less forthcoming than others when it comes to placing a clear link to a page where you can cancel your membership, but even in those cases where it seems next to impossible to find such a link (sometimes there really is none - not a big plus in my book) the problem is usually quickly solved by looking at the confirmation email you got when you joined the site.
The mail will contain the necessary details to cancel your membership - typically a link to a cancellation page (usually with the 3rd party billing processor), your login details and a subscription ID.
Follow the instructions on the cancellation page and your membership should be cancelled and all rebilling stopped immediately.
So far I have run into trouble cancelling a membership using one of the above methods two or three times (out of more than a hundred sites), but emails to the support departments (I managed to find contact info on either the sites or in the confirmation email) fixed those problems within a few hours at the most.
If you should have lost the confirmation email you can usually solve the problem by just using your credit card number and the email address you used when you joined. If the email was also the only apparant clue to where you can find the cancellation page, both of the two major billing companies provide links to their cancellation pages from their main sites (links to CCBill and Paycom above).
Popups and Spam
Porn sites have a reputation for making liberal use of popup ads and email spam, and while there are still some bad apples around who abuse these annoying and intrusive marketing methods heavily, the vast majority of reputable sites either do not use these methods at all or keep them to an absolute minimum.
You may occasionally run into one or at the most two popup windows when visiting sites reviewed here (assuming you do not have a popup blocker stopping them, if it can - there are sneaky workarounds for everything), but the relatively few sites that still insist on greeting you with six, seven or eight will not be reviewed here. They simply annoy the hell out of me.
Email spam is another potential problem I have fortunately found to be nowhere near as bad as I expected when I joined my first paysite a few years ago.
I will not rule out that you may occasionally find your inbox littered with various offers of a highly graphic nature, but those will typically not be from sites you were previously a member of, but rather random spam from various sources.
Some sites will occasionally send a "we would love to get you back" mail, but those will generally arrive very infrequently - and if you liked the site while you were a member and could potentially be interesting in rejoining, you may actually welcome the mail. They occasionally contain links that give you some excellent discounts.
Another point worth noting about email spam regards the "newsletter" or "free daily porn" boxes you will find on the tour pages on some porn sites.
It probably goes without saying that if you enter your email here you are positively begging to be spammed with offers from the site in question - and the marketing bullshit will heavily outweigh the free porn samples.
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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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