Porn Surfing 101 > Paysite Content

Exclusive video is by far the most popular type of content on any pay site. All of the best sites offer exclusive video; others only offer "plug-in" or leased content provided by another porn production company; the same plug-in content is therefore available on many different sites.

Much of the time you get a lot more than just sex in the videos;  there are often video interviews with the guys before they get into the sex, so you get more of a feel of their personality and background. Videos are usually between 10 and 20 minutes long and can be of superb DVD quality -- or absolute crap.

Video-on-demand (or pay-per-view) sites offer video from a variety of gay porn studios. With these sites you don't pay a monthly membership. Instead, you can "rent" a single movie or scene or buy time and "pay per minute," switching between as many videos as you like. For more details, check out BananaGuide's reviews of VOD sites.

Stream or Download?

Most pay sites offer two types of video: streams and downloads.

True streaming video allows you to watch the video in real time as it is "streamed" from the porn site to your computer. With true streaming video you can jump back and forth to any part of the video as soon as it starts to play. Streaming video does not save on your computer for future playback.

In fact,  most video that is called "streaming" these days is technically a "progressive download"; with progressive downloads the video file starts to   download to your computer while you start watching it. You cannot skip forward or back within the video until the download is complete, but once the progressive download is complete you won't have any buffering pauses like you may get with true streaming video.

Under ideal conditions, streaming video is clear and continuous, but top of the line technology must be used to create, send and receive the video. Usually, downloaded videos provide superior playback.

Downloaded video saves a large file to your computer. You must wait for the video to completely download before watching it. This can take a while for top quality videos because they can be very large files.

Some pay sites allow you to keep and view downloaded video files as long as you like; others use Digital Rights Management technology to license the video so that you have access to it for only a designated period, sometimes only for as long as you are a paying member of the site, but more often for the life of the computer.

There are a number of different formats for Web video, including:

 Windows Media (.WMV) played with the Windows Media Player

Real Media (.RM) played with RealPlayer

Flash (.FLV) played with the Flash Player

MPEG-4 (.MP4 .M4V) played with the QuickTime Player

QuickTime (.QT .MOV) played with the QuickTime Player

You may also occasionally find video offered in other outmoded formats such as DivX or AVI. New free versions of the video players are released regularly. Like any new version of software it is best to way a few months after a new release before installing it so that the bugs can be worked out. Otherwise you may have some trouble playing the video on membership sites.

Often you can play competing video formats in one player. For example, the RealOne Player "Plus" can play Windows Media and QuickTime files.

Images

Most pay site offer thousands of pictures along with their videos. The images are usually much larger and of better quality than those you will find on free sites and blogs.

Some pay sites don't bother with true digital photos, instead providing stills from their videos (known as "video captures," or "vidcaps" for short.) Vidcaps can range from quite sharp (if the video is high-definition) to awfully blurry (if they aren't processed correctly). Vidcaps can also only be enlarged to a certain point before they lose quality so they are seldom as large as true digital photos. On the other hand, there are some pay sites that take care to provide a full set of high-quality digital photos to complement each and every video.    

You can usually save any picture you're looking at by right-clicking on it and choosing "Save Picture As". Many paysites also allow you to download an entire photoset as a zip file which you then unzip to a folder on your hard drive. Very often you can also view the photos in a "slide-show" mode.

Live Sex

Many pay sites include access to real time sex shows or voyeur cameras. With live sex shows performances occur on a regular schedule. Recorded highlights of past shows are also usually archived on the site.

Voyeur sites, such as Boys Condo have several cameras situated in a living space so you can observe several guys at rest and play. Nudity and sex do occur regularly, but the episodes are not as scripted as the live sex shows.

The quality of video for live streams is not as good as for regular streaming or downloaded videos. Usually the sites include text chat so you can chat with other observers and / or the performer while watching.

More Content ...

E-Zines are leased by pay sites from content providers and offer new photosets, video, reviews and articles each month. Some of the most popular e-zines include Squirtz, Dick Magazine, Rainbow Magazine and Men Magazine.

Aside from video, images, live sex and e-zines, a pay site might also include erotic stories, chat, personals, forums, games, news and lifestyle articles.

Because pay sites depend on the customer remaining a member, they know they have to provide him with tons of high quality, exclusive content which is updated frequently -- and the best ones do!