| Review of Video Hub:
Videohub.com is yet another DVD Archive site that aims to compete with established sites such as videobox.com, videosz.com and pornaccess.com. There are more out there but this site does not try to be another face in the crowd it wants to compete. Now with a DVD archive site we have pretty much come to expect the exact same content on the sites, meaning it would make no sense to be a member of any two at the same time or even switch to another site if you are content with the way things work. So for a new site to break through it would have to sweeten the deal with new DVD content and offer something new. Videohub.com aims to do both.
First thing I noticed of course when I was browsing around out side the members area were the DVD titles available for download. I realized fairly quickly that none of the titles were that familiar to me. Usually the sites advertise the same titles from Red Light District, Zero Tolerance, Angel studios etc.. This one doesn't actually have any titles from either of these studios and I matched the studio list up against two of the biggest archive sites and I found that over half the titles available on videohub were not on any of the other sites. This of course means they bring some "new" DVD online content to the table albeit that the titles are not always the latest of the latest, still I enjoyed a new selection myself.
If these new titles are for the better is really up to you the surfer to decide. It really is just more general hardcore porn made available. I am very much interested in knowing if there will be a more specific update schedule or not. As it is they do advertise that they are going to add new ‘add-ons' on a weekly basis, exactly when or how much remains a mystery so far. I would prefer the updates to be regular otherwise an enormous site like this become stale and you stop logging in after having gone over it a few times and downloaded the scenes that appeal to you.
Here comes something out of the ordinary for any video site, but especially for a DVD archive site, this site does not use segments at all. When you want to download a scene you can choose to either download it as DivX encoded or WMV file and that's it. Now in my eyes with a big broadband connected, of course I think this is a great idea, lose the segments, who needs ‘em? Well some do actually, and I have to say that with 100 mb being just about the minimum file size you can find for a scene, low band users have no place on this site unless they have an immense amount of patience.
Having said that, the real joker up this site's sleeve is not the new material or a big selection it's the Full Downloads. Now since we already know that you can only download a scene as one complete file what does "full downloads" mean? Well it's something I haven't seen before it's CD sized files (700 mb). A complete DVD title can therefore be downloaded in just 2 files in the DivX or WMV format. To me this is a small revolution, one that I have been waiting for, for a while so that I can download a DVD to fit CD's and easily back them up. We are getting closer to that ultimate step where we download a DVD image, it's coming trust me, we are just a few years away.
I can not put a finger on the quality here, the DivX files are done very well and they have been a joy to watch on my computer and TV. Considering the WMV files are almost just 1/3 of the DivX the quality is also quite good here but I guess we should label them as High (divx) – Low (wmv) for lack of better words and since the site does not do it. Another thing that annoyed me a little was that the file sizes were not specified for the WMV scene downloads. It seems to be a glitch that will be corrected right away.
Navigation
Navigating this site is both simple and easy to figure out, but also a bit lacking in it's features. You navigate the site whether you are a member or not so try it out yourself if you want to. I have made some good and bad points about navigating through this dvd collection:
Good:
- High resolution back and front covers for each DVD
- The Favorites wallet for a DVD title
- Extremely simple layout with absolutely no fuzz
Bad:
- Favorites can only hold a DVD title, not a scene. This would have been a great tool if you could tag scenes that you were going to download later.
- When searching for "brunettes" for example you see the results listed as DVD titles that a brunette would appear in (there might be a blonde girl on the cover). It is a poor decision in my eyes to not search by a scene as this way all the brunette scenes could be listed right there.
- There was a gay movie that kept appearing as related DVD… Are they trying to tell me something?
Conclusion:
I like this site because of the new selection of DVDs, the very high quality DivX files and the large CD sized files, these points all make this site rock. However I did get annoyed with trying to find great scenes because they only index their content as a whole DVD. Giving tags to each scene is of course a lot of work but it would make it possible to give the users faster access to what they are looking for, and also the ability to add scenes to favorites would be a plus to many. I am also worried about the vague update "schedule" that states only "new add-ons every week". This could mean a new DVD a day or one a week, it's really hard to say.
What it comes down to however is that his is a good DVD archive with it's own twist in the shape of large video files and some new studios. I would recommend anyone to swing by and check it out because they offer you a complete overview of what you get before you sign up so it's hard to feel cheated after signing up. I think the site needs some work to compete with the really big boys, but it's off to a nice start.
Prices:
1 month: 19.95€ (notice Euro priced)
Billing by cgbilling.com
2006-06-19
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