11 Apr 2008
Only Beef
site reviews > Videos > Only Beef
There is a new gay DVD video site in town called Only Beef. It's got a clean, easy-to-use tour that mirrors the member area and allows both members and nonmembers to browse all the DVDs by category, most downloaded, top-rated, newest and by scenes. It also claims daily DVD updates and -- depending on where you look on the pages -- either 1960 or 1200 DVD titles. On the join page they tell us to expect multiple movie formats, three resolutions and no download limits. Sound good? And let's take a closer look at Only Beef.
The member area is almost identical to the tour, allowing members to browse DVDs by newest, most popular, studio, keyword and all the browsing options I like to see. While the tour says there are 1960 DVD titles, the member area says there are 1244. And that's not the only discrepancy here. But before we worry about all that, I would like to tell you that the site does in fact have a lot to offer including a downloadable videos. But how many videos are there? That's the question.
I clicked View All DVDs and found 16 DVDs listed on each page for a total of 12 pages plus a few on page 13 for a total of 197 DVD titles. Now, don't get me wrong -- 197 DVDs is a lot of gay porn but it's a far cry from 1200 or more DVD titles. I double checked by clicking All DVDs in a second section and got the same amount, and when I browsed the scenes, I found 796 of them. What's more, the dates on the New DVDs page show that the site updates with a full DVD once a week, not every day as it says on the tour.
Each DVD contains several scenes offered in both streaming and downloadable options. The videos are offered in WMV format in two sizes -- hi res and DVD quality. The DVD quality movies are shown at 640x480 with the bit rate of 1.99 Mbps and the hi res versions are shown at512x384 with a 984k bitrate. Quality varies here are greatly -- some of the movies I watched were sharp and clear and lost only a little quality when enlarged to full screen. Others were average quality and a few that I watch were okay but you wouldn't want to go full screen with them -- they got fairly blurry.
None of the movies that Only Beef used DRM, so whatever movies that you save will play even after your membership has expired. All the movies have good sound and many play quite smoothly. A few didn't play quite as smoothly and when I checked, I found that all the videos here were encoded at 25 FPS, just a little over the normal. It didn't affect most of the videos though -- just a few.
There are 29 gay porn categories in Only Beef, including twinks, jock, older men, hardcore and all the usual categories. I ran across some DVDs listed in more than one category, however - for example Boyz From Da Hood 6 is listed in both ebony and interracial and Interview Volume 1 was listed in anal, oral and older men. Also there were some videos in the leather section that certainly had guys over 35, but I didn't find them listed in older men.
I ran into a couple issues on Only Beef. One is that the search buttons didn't work for me in either Internet Explorer or Firefox, but I was able to work the search by hitting my keyboard enter button. And second there are 2 pre-checked offers on the join page, so be sure you read them before you join to see if they interest you.
Only Beef is a pretty good site, which made me wonder why the tour had to make such inflated -- and in true -- claims about what they had to offer. The site does not offer DVD quality movies but what they do have is pretty good. In addition there are only 2 video resolutions and one format, not to mention updates once per week rather than once per day. All that being said, 796 videos is still a big site and makes Only Beef worth considering if you're in the mood for plenty of downloadable gay porn.
Things we liked:
- Large collection of videos
- DVDs are searchable and scenes can also be browsed
- All videos are downloadable
- No DRM used
Things we didn't like:
- 2 pre-checked offers on join page
- Tour claims are misleading
- Search buttons didn't work - had to hit the enter key to search
Membership prices (Independent )
- Trial: $1 (2 days, recurring at $39.91 monthly)
- Monthly: $29.91 (recurring every 30 days)
- Quarterly: $59.91 (90 days, non recurring? hard to tell)
Jeff | 27 Sep 2008
My rating:
i signed up and was banned from the begining , stating i had tried to log in too many times, to wait 24 hours than log in again, i tried in 24 hours and again was told i was still banned i contacted customer support too many times to count and was told my membership had expired ( eventhough i never was allowed to access it) i was told to sign up again, which i declined customer support never resolved the issue.In my case i never received what i purchased.In addition, if you can access the site you can only stream or download the last 10 videos.
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