The VideoBox Blog

Update: We are officially out of shirts.

We have had a few t-shirts left over from a convention in Amsterdam this year (10 to be exact) and I’d like to offer them to the first ten people to respond in the comments of this post. There are 5 XLs and 5 XXLs, but they’re American Apparel shirts and sizes tend to run small.

So, if you’d like one of these snazzy shirts (I wear mine all the time), post your size preference (XL or XXL) in the comments section. Be sure to use your real email address in the form so I can contact you to get your mailing address.

Here’s what they look like:

Click the image for a larger view

Update: We are officially out of shirts.

The nominees for the 2009 AVN Awards were published last week and I’m very proud to announce that VideoBox has been nominated for Best Adult Website!

This is the first time we’ve been nominated for an AVN award and everyone here is very happy. The AVN website says that the judging “will be based on content quality, quantity and originality, site design, usability and features.”

I think we do well on most of those criteria, but I’m probably biased. I guess we’ll see if the judges agree with me next month. The award show is happening on January 10th at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas.

This post is to let you know that the site will be going into maintenance mode for approximately 90 minutes at some point in the next 2 days. This outage is currently scheduled for 1:00 pm PST. It may be delayed, so check the blog for any updates to this schedule.

Update: The outage will not happen at 1:00 pm as planned. We will know within 90 minutes whether it will happen today or tomorrow.

Update: The outage has been rescheduled for Friday at 10:00 am PST.

Final Update: The outage will begin at approximately 11:00 am PST today.

VideoBox releases 5 DVDs a day (at 12:12, 5:00, 9:48, 2:36 and 7:24, PST at the moment). On Saturday, November 1st, we’ll be uploading an extra DVD because of daylight saving time.

The schedule will be: one at 12:12, 4:00, 8:48, 1:36, 6:24 and 11:12. It will also push the release schedule back one hour going forward (until it’s time to spring ahead).

Enjoy!

The blog has really helped the folks at VideoBox get a better understanding of our members and we’re always curious to know more (especially because a lot of us are porn fans ourselves).

So…tell me about your porn library. How large is it (how many files you have, how many gigs they take up)? What makes a video worth downloading and saving instead of just streaming it from the site? Do you ever re-watch scenes you’ve downloaded?

Hi everybody, Content Dude here. Buying content that satisfies a user base of diverse tastes and interests is no easy task, but we do track your comments and read all of the content suggestions members send in.

Most of the time, I think we do a pretty good job at getting you stuff you like, but sometimes we fall short. Every now and then, DVDs I think will go over pretty well get ripped apart. And sure, you can blame me for the plague of Audrey.

People usually ask for particular DVDs or stars as opposed to studios. So what I am asking is for you to tell me what studios you feel we are either missing or have gap in coverage in.

Think of this as a to-do/wish list for me. The sky is the limit, but I can’t make any promises.

I’m sure many of you have already noticed that the new Flash player went live this week. I just wanted to open the comments for any feedback you guys have on it. It’s really important to us that 1) you like it and 2) it works correctly. So post your thoughts, positive, negative or mixed in the comments.

Congratulations to VideoBox member miketheman2008 for correctly naming 18 of the 25 girls on our new warning page! He’s won a free month of VideoBox service for his effort.

For those of you who are still wondering who’s who on the warning page, here’s the complete list:

1. Christina Aguchi
2. Charlotte Stokely
3. Jeneveve Jolie
4. Sarah Jane Ceylon
5. Lana Croft
6. Mia Smiles
7. Mika Tan
8. Agatha Cristine
9. Eva Angelina
10. Mysti May
11. Felony
12. Hillary Scott
13. Emma Red
14. Victoria
15. Sophie Dee
16. Hillary Scott
17. Jenna Brooks
18. Lyla Lei
19. Tia Tanaka
20. Tia Tanaka
21. Aaralyn Barra
22. Gwen Diamond
23. Jeaveve Jolie
24. Rebecca Love
25. Lexxi Tyler

For reference, the numbers correspond to the ones on this graphic.

Click image to enlarge

Many of you have noticed that VideoBox launched a new warning page last week. Most of the folks who’ve mentioned it were wondering about the identities of a few of the girls. I could just tell you who they are, but what’s the fun in that?

Instead, I’m offering a free month of VideoBox membership to the first person to name each girl numbered below.

Click image to enlarge


Submit your entries to contest@videobox.com with the subject line “Warning Page Contest” by 5pm PST on September 2nd. The winner will be announced on September 3rd. If no one accurately identifies all of the girls, the entry with the most correct answers will win. Good luck!

Hint: three girls appear more than once.

Have you ever been watching a scene and said to yourself, “Man, I bet so-and-so would like this”? If so, we’ve got a new feature you’re going to like. You can now email a scene to anyone (over 18) whether they’re a member or not and even have it start at a particular time in the video.

So let’s say you’re watching Filthy Talkin’ Cocksuckers #2, scene 1 and you crack up at the ridiculous cumshot at the end. You’d click the Share This Video link under the download buttons:

click image to enlarge

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As some of you have probably noticed, the site is quickly approaching its 5,000th update. The big post goes up Thursday at 2:36pm PST. We’ve been planning this for a while and you’re in for a surprise. Can you feel the excitement?!

I’ve been meaning to write a blog entry for a while, but I hadn’t quite gotten around to it when we ran into this iPhone issue. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to introduce myself and talk about the issue at the same time

Who Am I?
I’m the Tech Guy, and my team and I are responsible for keeping the site up and running. We implement new features on the site, maintain and monitor our systems to ensure that the videos keep streaming, and build toolsets for our internal teams to use for encoding and labelling content. In short, we’re responsible for everything from networking to storage, from servers to systems, and from code to video codecs. Now that I’ve introduced myself, let me talk about the issue we’ve run into.

The iPhone 3g / 2.0 Problem
Recently the iPhone 3g was released, and like most tech geeks we were really excited. Quite a few of us have iPhones, and we couldn’t wait to see what the new one could do. Unfortunately, when we got our hands on an iPhone 3g we immediately saw a problem - iPod resolution files from VideoBox wouldn’t play. We saw a “This Movie Format Not Supported” message when we tried to play these files on the new iPhone. The problem got worse quickly, when we realized that older iPhones that were updated to the iPhone 2.0 firmware suffered from the same problem.

Now this was surprising, as Apple had said that there were no video related changes coming in the 3g or the 2.0 firmware. But we’re not the only ones who’ve been bitten by this issue - you can see more here

The good news is that we’re on top of it. Our H.264 resolution files can still be played on iPhones of all types. And we’ve found an encoding configuration that is compatible with the iPhone, compatible with older iPods and other devices that play these files, and still maintains the quality of video we expect.

What We’re Doing About It
We’re currently in the process of reencoding all the files in this resolution. We expect to be finished with this reencode process in about three weeks. These updated files will appear on the site as they are produced, so fewer and fewer scenes will have this problem as time goes on.

I’ll be checking back on this blog post over the next few days, and I’ll try to answer any questions you may have about this or any other tech issue in the comments. I’m also planning on posting more frequently - once a month or so - about technology issues that might be interesting to our users.

One of the folks on the content team sent me this little poll because he’s really curious to “know more about how the dedicated VB fans operate.”

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We just signed a deal today for a ton of new movies from Ethnicity Films, Fusxion and Loaded Digital. Just a few of the movies we’ll be getting are:





Look for the poll to decide which goes first in a couple of weeks!

With over 26, 000 scenes uploaded to the site, pinpointing a favorite can be a difficult undertaking. Nevertheless, I would like to invite my fellow members to reply to this post with their choice for favorite VideoBox scene. Please provide a few brief comments explaining the rationale behind your selection. Let me kick things off by offering my pick for favorite scene.

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Logging onto the site Saturday night to check the latest update, we’re greeted by the alluring face and body of the lovely Sativa Rose. She’s gracing the cover of First Date from the site’s hot new studio - DVSX. Surrounding Sativa on the cover are Kat, Jessica Sweet, and Brodi(e). We note there are six scenes on the DVD as Trista Post and Trinity Post are also on board. You immediately say to yourself, let me get at that Sativa scene. However, there is a problem.

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I’ve noticed a paucity of articles posted to the blog on the weekends. My hope is to feature a DVD preview each weekend from studios such as DVSX and Private. I’ll attempt to preview these movies a few days before they’re uploaded to the site. However, we’re still trying to work out the logistics of this operation. So today’s post will dig back into the archives to briefly highlight an old favorite of mine.

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Back by popular demand, the most downloaded scenes of the last 7 days.

VideoBox’s Top 10 Downloaded Scenes Last Week
1. Teen Sensations #2, Scene 1 starring Gauge
2. Daddy’s Little Princess #2, Scene 2 starring Carmel Moore
3. The Babysitter #5, Scene 4 starring Briana Banks
4. Daddy’s Little Princess #2, Scene 1 starring Sasha Grey
5. Meet the Twins #1, Scene 5 starring Lanny Barbie
6. The Babysitter #5, Scene 3 starring Gauge
7. Up Close and Personal P.O.V., Scene 1 starring Monica Sweetheart
8. Daddy’s Little Princess #2, Scene 3 starring Stacee Morgan
9. Pornomation #2: Zuma, Tales of a Sexual Gladiator
10. Teen Sensations #2, Scene 2 starring Patricia Kahn and Nicky Reed

It was a teen-heavy week, but that’s no shocker. I am a little surprised, however, that Pornomation #2 made the list, though. Maybe I shouldn’t be. It did get 4 1/2 stars.

As a final note, the fact that every single one of these movies was released between March 17 and April 2 makes me wonder if my last list wasn’t a little off. Or a lot off…

For the past month, I’ve had the pleasure of beta testing a small VideoBox add-on program that is designed to block selected member comments from the movie review section. This application represents the latest response from the site to satisfy subscriber requests. Let’s take a brief look at the program, which is expected to be made available to the full membership within the next several weeks.

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Dear Euro Lovers,

Your requests have been heard. I’m very happy to announce that we’ve signed a deal with Private to begin offering a selection of their movies on VideoBox!

Private is known for hot Euro girls, beautiful locations and crazy features. We got a little of everything, so here’s a small sample of what you can expect in the coming months:



Click the box covers to get a look at the cast and descriptions for the movies.