The VideoBox Blog

Hey VideoBoxers,

As you may have seen in John’s recent post, we have been playing with AirPlay a little bit. Well, with a couple of days somewhat open at the start of this week, I decided to see what it would take to get HTML5 playback happening on iPad, iPhone and Android. I’m pleased to tell you that this afternoon we put an alpha version of this functionality up on VB3!

See the instructions for using it below, but first let me offer a few caveats:

1) This is an alpha test, which means “not even a beta test yet.” I threw it up there for you guys to try out, and I will be busy on other stuff for the next few weeks. Therefore, expect bugs and odd behavior, and you won’t be disappointed.

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Hey VideoBoxers,

Today we invite you to try out VideoBox 3.0, or VB3 as we like to call it. This new VB experience is still under development, but we want you, our members, to have early access so you can play around a little and then tell us what you think. Before you do, though, here are some things we think it’s important for you to know:

• Only users with “Meta-Billing.com” or “CCBill” as their biller will be able to gain access. We apologize for this and will be working on the other billers as we go; we’ll let you know when we have an update on this.
• VB3 does not conform to a number of well-established porn site conventions. This is by design: we see VB3 as a new platform for adult entertainment, and more like an application to be used in many ways on many devices, rather than as a re-skinned porn site. That said, there are some aspects of the experience that are not yet complete but will be added, such as the ability to navigate with the browser’s “Back” button without losing the filtering you have established.
• We have posted the first of several quick tutorials that show you how to use certain aspects of the site. Please start with this, as it will greatly assist with your enjoyment of VB3: vb3.videobox.com/tutorials.seam?mkt=1 (Note: after you view the tutorial, you will need to log in to the new site at vb3.videobox.com/login.seam, even if you are already logged in to VideoBox.)
• Internet Explorer 6 & 7 are not supported. Please upgrade to IE8 or download a different browser such as Chrome or Firefox. The site should also work in Safari and Opera. Mobile and other devices are not yet fully supported.
• This is a beta project and that means it is still under development, so don’t be surprised if you see bugs. Please report them to us if you find any! We have disabled comments on this blog post so we can direct you to the official VB3 feedback forum at vb3forum.videobox.com. We recommend you start your forum experience by reading the Known Issues and Announcements section, which lists some of the things that are not yet working.
• With regard to feedback, please keep in mind that the more specific and constructive you are, the easier it will be for us to take action on your feedback. If you flame us without offering any suggestions for ways to improve things for you, you won’t be giving us the kind of information we need in order to help you out. So, keep it constructive, and try to avoid cursing our family members.
• Last but not least: VB3 includes two new premium content channels in addition to the Evil Angel and Vivid channels we currently offer: Kink.com, and a well-known reality porn provider so secret that we can’t tell you about it on this public blog. You can add these new channels to your membership from VB3 only, so go hit the new site to check them out!

Enjoy,
Bob

Hello Videoboxers,

As we continue to work aggressively on refining our website, improving its layout and providing functionality that gives you better-than-ever access to content that interests you, we want to proactively advise those of you still using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 that we are joining many high-profile technology companies in phasing out support for that browser.

We ask that you take a moment and update your browser to the current version of Internet Explorer, or — even better — download and install one of the other excellent, modern browsers currently available at no cost to you.

I’ve provided some links to downloads of these browsers at the bottom of this post.

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Greetings, Videoboxers!

Quick Preview Back From the Dead

First off in our feature round-up, I want to point out — in case you haven’t already noticed — that we have resurrected “Quick Preview” on the DVD and Original Custom Clip pages. We may add the new scrubbing UI to those pages as well, but currently we are not planning to use that as a replacement for the Quick Preview or to do away with the Quick Preview completely. I’m hopeful that this news is making a few people out there happy.

Scrubbing Everywhere

And speaking of the scrubbing UI, with today’s release we have rolled it out to pretty much every scene thumbnail sitewide — with the exception of the aforementioned DVD and Custom Clip pages, and the smaller “recently viewed” thumbnails. Please note, you can still avoid hitting the Flash player page, even after scrubbing a scene’s thumbnail, if you click the scene title link below that thumbnail. You can also right-click on the thumb to open a new tab or window and start the scene there, or right-click the link to open the Original Custom Clip page in a new tab or window.

Clips Continue To Grow Up

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Hey, VideoBoxers!

This is Bob, the user interface engineer here at VideoBox, and I’m so excited about one of the cool new features we rolled out today that I jumped at the chance to update the blog with a rundown on it. Before I do that, though, let me say that I am an avid reader of this blog, and I am thrilled that we have such a vocal group of users offering up feedback, questions and tons of good suggestions. I see it as my job to provide the best possible user experience for all of us (I’m a VideoBox user too, of course!), and I look forward to every chance we get to present a feature and get your take on it.

On to the goods: we call this new feature our scene scrubbing UI (UI = User Interface, for those of you outside the web development world).

If you’re like me (and given that you’re reading the blog on a porn site, it’s safe to say we have some interests in common), you probably find that there are big portions of many scenes that don’t interest you at all. Sure, you could click on one of the later screencaps on the DVD details page, but then you might need to move the filmstrip back a little to check what you missed. With this new feature, you can skip the stuff you don’t want to watch and zero right in on the place you want to start, without missing a thing. Here’s how it works:

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