The VideoBox Blog

Hi everyone, thanks for all the great feedback everyone has provided so far about the roku app we’re working on. In the week since I announced the alpha version of the app, we got over 300 testers who installed it on their roku! In the spirit of yesterday’s fantastic news that daily HD updates have finally come to VB, I added an “HD Scenes” channel to the roku app. For those of you who already installed the VB Roku app, don’t worry, the HD channel will simply show up in your interface, no need to re-install. And for those of you who haven’t, now’s the time! All the same “don’t blame me, this is alpha” disclaimers apply, but please feel free to give it a shot and let me know what you think. And while you’re at it, let me know how the HD content looks on your big screen TVs. — zapp@videobox.com

Greetings, fellow lovers of porn. As a side project, I put together a roku private channel for Videobox. I’d like to invite you or anyone you may know who’s got a roku to try it out and let me know what you think. In its current form, using your roku.com account you can add the channel to your roku (it can take up to 24 hours to actually show up on your roku), then you can browse new and popular straight content, and you can link your roku to your VB account. If you do this, all your favorite scenes will show up in the player interface as well as your recommended scenes, so you’ll be able to watch your favorite scenes on your TV!

To add the private channel to your roku, simply visit this url: https://owner.roku.com/add/videobox , sign in with your roku.com credentials, and click “Yes, Add Channel”. Then, to link your account, on the home screen of the app (where it says “SCENES”), click the info button your remote (it’s the one with the asterisk on it). If you don’t have an info button (the older remotes don’t), you can also hit the play/pause button. Then just follow the instructions on the screen. After you link your account, you’ll need to exit the app (ie. hit the “home” button on your remote) and re-enter it.

Again, and I can’t stress this enough, this is in alpha testing mode, so I apologize in advance for any issues you may encounter. This is still a work in progress; I’ve been hacking away at it in my free time as a labor of love, but if you guys like it, we could dedicate more resources to it. So please, don’t be shy, and let me know what you think — zapp@videobox.com

UPDATE! We have synced around 99% of member’s favorites! If your favorites haven’t been synced by the end of the day, simply post a comment with your username and we will take care of it. Thanks!

Some members may have noticed that their saved favorites have been a little screwy lately, this is an issue we are aware of and I can assure you, that your favorites will be restored!

A fix is in the works and we hope to have it pushed shortly. Resolving this problem is our top priority!

Here’s a note from our engineer who is working on this:

“Hi folks. I want to assure everyone that their favorites data has not been deleted. We are in the process of restoring all favorites back to the way they were before we made a code change. We have a lot of future plans ahead involving favorites and that has caused some complications with maintaining compatibility between VB2 and VB3.


To explain in more detail, the way that VB2 stored “video” favorites was a bit messy. It allowed the user to store both DVDs and Scenes in the same list. Moving forward, we found that it was advantageous to separate these lists.

Unfortunately, I underestimated the activity and personal investment people had in their favorites on VB2. And I agree with the sentiment that we should have had VB2 favorites synced up with VB3 stashes long before we launched VB3. That didn’t happen and this is where we are now. But we’re fixing it. As of this moment, we have restored a few hundred accounts and we are in the process of confirming that it works 100% of the time. If all goes well, we will begin running the restore scripts over the entire user base.

Again, we apologize for this mistake and we are committed to fixing it as fast and accurately as we can.

–b
.”

We will update this post once we confirm a fix is in place.

Thanks again for your patience!

One of the most featured technologies at CES this year was 3D video. All the major manufacturers had their best stuff on display for demoing. Panasonic was showing off their first-to-market consumer-level 3D camcorder (see below for specific details). Here’s a video showing the demo they had set up. In the background, you can here the Panasonic rep describe the basic technology. In summary, the camera simultaneously records two images from slightly different perspectives, then interlaces them in a way that can be deciphered by the glasses, and displayed to the appropriate eye.



Needless to say, seeing this sort of thing already on the market and at such an attractive price point has very interesting implications for video watching in general, but more specifically, adult video. The question becomes, if you had the ability to download a file off the internet that could give you an immersive 3d experience but required special glasses, would you do it? Is existing 3D technology good enough to give you that extra *umph* in your video watching experience? Perhaps time will tell.

Incidentally, we’ve purchased one of these cameras for the Videobox Lab, and will be able to offer a much more comprehensive demo in the coming weeks

Vendor: Panasonic
Model: HDC-SDT750K
URL: [_]
MSRP: $1400
Available: Q4 2010 (currently)

As cool as that is, I was blown away by LG’s 3D TVs. They really hit the ball out of the park this year, and had me reeling from the dealing. Their glasses-based 3d tech was by a wide margin the best I’ve seen outside an IMAX theater, and they had an actual working demo of a 3D TV that didn’t require glasses of any kind!



Even in this picture, you can almost see Garfield yearning to break free from his rectangular bounds. Now replace Garfield with Shyla Stylez, and you’ve got yourself a marketable product



Here are some people looking at what LG is calling the largest 3D TV on the market. At a whopping 84 inches with a 480Hz refresh rate, this 3D TV will set the standard for high-end TVs in the coming year.



This picture shows about 1% of the TV’s LG had at CES, and LG’s close attenton to detail in the fine art of booth babes.

One of the big announcements at CES this year was Intel’s official release of the Sandy Bridge architecture. Anticipation for this has been thick in the tech space for a couple weeks now, partly because of the architectural changes, focusing more on an integrated chip design, lowering price and increasing performance, but largely because of Intel’s bow to Hollywood with the agreement to implement DRM software directly into their chips. The idea is this will make it easier for movie-makers to protect movies they distribute digitally.

Intel calls this new technology “Intel Insider”. On their blog they describe it as “an armoured truck carrying the movie from the Internet to your display, it keeps the data safe from pirates, but still lets you enjoy your legally acquired movie in the best possible quality.” Priceless.

So what does this mean to the average video user?

This will only have an impact on new content delivered digitally with special data injected to support Intel Insider. If you have content without this data, you will still be able to play it, regardless of if your computer has this technology or not. It’s unclear how much content will be available with this technology implemented. Presumably the target market will be supplementary digital copies of movies that come with the blu-ray, but this could definitely also include paid-for downloads. If you have one of these files and don’t have the latest tech from Intel, you won’t be able to play the file.

Videobox does not implement any DRM in our video files.

The porn may have been flowing at the Sands Expo Center, but a few blocks away the nerd factor was through the roof at the Consumer Electronics Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center. In addition to the Adult Entertainment Expo, Videobox spent a couple days at CES, soaking in some upcoming gadgets we’ll be seeing more of in 2011.

There are a variety of products coming out that could improve the way you consume video. To name a few, some vendors focused on:

• New 3d technologies, including 3d TV with no glasses and prosumer-level 3d camcorders
• pocket-sized laser display projectors
• kinect-style remoteless navigation
• HDMI-over-IP
• Fancy new tablets
• Amazing new advances in TV tech, including big-screen OLED displays

The list of interesting new tech is immense. Over the next couple days I’ll be showcasing some of the interesting products I saw at CES, and how they could aide your porn viewing experience.

Stay tuned!

Here at Videobox we have a friendly war going on between the VB3 team and the Content-Ops team. While all of Content-Ops was in Vegas this year for the AEE Convention, the VB3 team saran wrapped our entire section!! Every single thing in our area (from post-it notes to garbage cans) is literally covered in layers upon layers of saran wrap. I honestly have to hand it to them, they got us pretty good. but this shit is seriously on!!! VB3 better start sleeping with one eye open, because this is definitely NOT OVER!!

This is David, and I’m one of the two founders of VideoBox (Josh is the other). As the CEO of the company, I personally made the recent decision to change our DVD release schedule.

First and foremost, I want you all to know that I hear your complaints and that every member of our team cares about what you have to say. The uproar over the release schedule change and what to do about it has been the talk of the office for the past two days, and it’s prompted this posting—something that I’ve never done before.

Because of your concerns, starting today, we’ve changed the release time of the five daily DVDs from 7 PM to 5 AM (PDT), this way you don’t have to wait around for each day’s new releases. Also, although we planned to make the release schedule change permanent, because of the response, our new plan is to collect data over the next month and then make a decision about our future policies.

To put things in context, the reason that we made this change is so that we can collect better streaming/download information to use for purchasing content that you’ll like better. In particular, releasing all the day’s content at once allows users to choose what content to view; in essence, we’ve given you the ability to directly cast a vote for what you like more, as opposed to watching a movie just because it’s the only new update, or just happens to be the most recent one, or is displayed front and center on the site.

Nevertheless, I apologize for breaking the routine of those of you who check the site every few hours for the latest update. I assure you that we didn’t make this change to cause you distress, but rather as an effort to make every update on VideoBox—regardless of when it happens—of a higher quality and more in tune with your desires and preferences.

Though not directly related to the release schedule, I also want to address concerns on our content quality. My vision is to have the best content available on VideoBox at the absolute lowest price, and we’re in the process of making several changes that I hope will make everyone happier:

1) We spent more money on content licensing in 2010 than in the history of the company, and we’ve increased our content budget for the coming year by 15 percent. In 2011, our annual licensing budget will surpass two million dollars. We’re well aware that the quality of content varies by the day. However, taking a longer term view, it’s clear that our content quality has dramatically improved in the past several years (does anyone remember the days of the pink Cherry Box releases?). On average, every new DVD released onto the site cost members a dime. For the cost of a McDonald’s extra value meal, you get seventy-five new movies—I think that this is an incredible value, and we hope you agree.

2) We’ve changed the way we license content for 2011. In the past, we’ve had issues with receiving DVDs in giant batches from studios and subsequently releasing them onto the site in clumps. In 2011, releases from studios will be more evenly spaced and less grouped together, offering you more variety each day.

3) We’re getting ready to introduce HD titles, so each day will have one new HD update. We’ll be the only site where some studios’ content is available in HD, as we get source files (not DVDs, since they aren’t HD) from the studios. This content will be from some of our best studios, and will be at no extra cost.

4) We’ve signed on two new channel partners, Reality Kings and Kink. Both are recognized leaders in their niches, and VideoBox is the only place on the web where this content is available (other than the RK and Kink sites). While this does cost extra, it’s at a discounted price compared to their normal offers.

These and other changes are being made as a direct result of feedback from users. Again, I want to stress that I—and everyone else at the company—values your feedback and appreciates your business. Our goal has always been to build the best adult site on the web, and we’re constantly striving to achieve this.

Please feel free to email me at david@videobox.com if you have questions, concerns, or comments. I’m also currently moderating the VB3 forum at http://vb3forum.videobox.com and welcome your feedback about our new site, too.

Hey Videoboxers,

I just wanted to let you guys know that we are aware that Teen Euro #4 (released 12-09-10 at 5:00am) is a duplicate release. To make up for this we will be releasing an additional title at noon today. We apologize for the inconvenience, sit tight and we’ll have another title up for you guys shortly!

- Phil

Hey Videoboxers,

Phil here with a quick update about WMV files with no audio. I’m happy to report that we’ve found a solution to this issue, and all known files affected by this are currently being re-encoded. We traced this problem down to a new codec pack that we’ve installed on our encoding hosts, which started causing the issue with WMV. Fortunately, H.264 files are not affected. We expect the re-encode to be completed in the next couple of days. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for reporting these issues to Customer Support.


- Phil