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Content
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| Quality : |
16.0 / 20 |
| Quantity : |
15.0 / 15 |
| Entertain : |
15.0 / 15 |
| Updates : |
7.5 / 10 |
| Exclusive : |
2.0 / 05 |
| Download : |
2.0 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
57.5 / 70 |
| Navigation |
| Easy : |
8.0 / 10 |
| Features : |
3.5 / 05 |
| Design : |
3.5 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
15.0 / 20 |
| Other |
| Originality : |
3.5 / 05 |
| Hard Facts : |
4.0 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
7.5 / 10 |
Scoring Criteria
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| Editor: Duke |
Initial Review: 11-20-06 |
| Follow-Up Review(s): 10-28-08 |
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1. Huge collection of movies.
2. Vids stream/buffer pretty quickly.
3. Straightforward design/navigation.
1. Needs preview pics or scene breakdown.
2. More navigation features would help.
3. Some movie only have Real format.
"An enormous PPV movie site with pretty basic navigation & streaming options." |
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X on Demand is a huge pay-per-view movie site for streaming hardcore videos. The guest pages are set up exactly as member's see the site so it's possible to browse the entire collection before purchasing any minutes. They've got all the major niches covered so it's targeted towards a general audience looking for any type of hardcore movies. Quantity of movies is what they're selling not exclusivity.
The Goods:
- Huge Collection of Movies. An enormous movie library is key to any successful PPV movie site and X on Demand definitely fits that bill. The niches cover a few dozen of the most popular categories and the browsing allows for some sub-niche breakdown.
- Vids Stream/Buffer Pretty Quickly. The movies stream in a stand alone player (WMV or Real) and the ones I sampled streamed easily and at good speed. The buffering was also fine as I jumped around to different parts of the movie.
The Bads:
- Needs Preview Pics or Scene Breakdown. Each movie has a write up, studio info, length, performer names, and box cover (front/back). What they don't have is any preview pics for who is in what scene or what order they're in. Basically you have to stream the entire movie blind and jump around to attempt to find the start of the next scene or the performer desired. Even if they just had a couple preview pics from each scene that would help.
- More Navigation Features Would Help. They have the basics with browsing genres and a search tool but considering the size of the site they need to fine tune the features. Also, they should date stamp the new releases or all the movies so members can track updates easier and see what's new and what's older.
Conclusion:
With PPV sites obviously you give up downloading ability and usually trade that in for a larger collection of movies than you're going to get from a monthly fee site. That's the case with X on Demand. Depending on how much you watch PPV can be less or more expensive than monthly memberships. The cost does rack up fast for those who watch for any significant length of time.
| 1st Follow-Up Review |
Review: 10-28-08 |
After taking a look around X On Demand and my initial review it's clear that my Good/Bad bullet points still apply here. The foundation has held steady as a pay-per-view streaming movie site with a straightforward design. The key asset that stands out continues to be the sheer quantity of DVD movies available to members. Simply put they've got a boat-load of full length movies in all the main popular niche categories. Clearly they continue to update steadily even though a log or specific dates are not posted on the site. They may have increased the niche browsing as they now have dozens of niche categories with each having sub-categorization which basically allows for filtering by two niches at once. The main negatives remain the average video quality, the fact that not all the movies have WMV, and the lack of scene breakdown and preview thumbnails.
Score increased from 79.0 to 80.0.
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