Current Member for less than 1 month (at the time of review).
Pros:
- Some variety of JM Productions series’
- Membership gives you discount ($13.95 versus $29.95) at Gag Factor
- Updates (but not on any obvious schedule)
- Streaming available
- Downloads available
- Supports download managers (no obvious time-out issues)
- Bills through CCBill
Cons:
- Terrible video quality in older files, barely passable in newer
- Small site
- Not part of a network
- No access to many series and titles
- Heavy reliance on Behind-the-scenes material (which to some may be a positive)
- Updates are irregular, but never frequent
- Only one video file option
- Not good value for the monthly subscription ($19.95)
- A lot of overlap with other JM Productions sites
- No search function
- Very basic layout
- No screencaps or other pics
Bottom Line:
Jerkoff Zone sells itself as the official JM Productions (JMP) site. For those who don’t know JMP, they are known for their extreme hardcore material. Think Max Hardcore toned down just a bit. They’re known for such series as American Bukkake, American Gokkun, Young & Anal, Tough Love and Gag Factor. I’m a big fan of most of their work and the site’s intro page listed all the series that I liked, so I presumed I’d have some decent access to that material. It turns out that the site over promises and under delivers. They can’t be accused of false advertising because there are scenes from all the series they mention on the site, but most are not well represented. Take the “Young and Anal” series which has about 40 editions now (assuming four scenes per edition makes that roughly 160 scenes) and the site offers just two scenes from this series. That’s the worst it gets, but it doesn’t really get much better with the other series. Take American Bukkake – this is a groundbreaking series and really has no competition in the American market. There are 40 editions, with usually two scenes per movie. The site offers four scenes. American Gokkun? Of the 10 editions (20 scenes) produced, two are on the site. You get the picture.
I might not have as much to complain about if the video quality was good, but it isn’t. Back in late 2008 the site started offering “high quality” video for both download and streaming, though the streaming is lower quality than the video. Even in 2008, though, the quality was barely up to industry standards. In 2011 it is woefully inadequate. The best resolution on the site is 720x480 @ 2000kbps. Those are rare though. More common is 720x480 @ 1500 and 640x480 @1500. Videos posted before January 2008 (maybe 40%) are virtually unwatchable at 320x240@ 460 and even as low as 235kbps. There are no options for downloads either – just the one WMV file. One good thing is that Free Download Manager worked flawlessly.
The site layout is very basic. The main page is broken down in to several sections: videos, BTS scenes, “Travels with Ashley Blue and trailers.
The video page opens to a page with all the videos. They are sorted by upload date and not by DVD title. There is no option to sort them in any other way. There are approximately 180 videos posted, with 40% of those being poor resolution. The “Travels with Ashley Blue” is just four links to a handful of photos of Ms. Blue touring porn shops. The BTS section has about 70 BTS scenes from various titles. Then there are trailers for other JMP DVDs. So for the $20 fee all you really get is maybe 100 watchable porn scenes. The site relies too much on filler like BTS and trailers and markets them as if they have real value to a consumer. They can be interesting, but they aren’t what people join for.
The site claims to update “every couple of days” and that might be true, but the update is more likely to be a BTS or trailer than an actual scene.
When I joined I was offered a $13.95 discounted price to another JMP site, Gag Factor. I took that option and as it is sold as a stand-alone site I’ll post a review of that later. I have no way of knowing if the discount is a standard offer. I’ll give full credit to the site for not making this a pre-checked cross-sell.
The biggest disappointment about this site for me is that is mostly a wasted effort. JMP makes excellent porn. The production values are good, they use top female talent and they have some of the more innovative niche series out there. They are also a prolific studio and must have hundreds of titles to their credit. But they continue in the tradition of studios not putting much effort into their websites. The site offers only a fraction of the material that the studio has, it offers it in poor quality and on a site that looks like it took them an hour to put together. It seems to me that a poor effort like this would reflect badly on the whole studio. I have no idea why JMP would have such a poor internet site. They do offer a lot more on VOD sites, so maybe they push that to make more money. If that’s the case, then the website is just a large advertising site that people pay money for. If that’s the case, I guess I’ve been had. At least they bill through CCBill so I know I can cancel easily. They also heavily push DVDs, which seems odd to me. Are they living in a time warp?
If they offered much more of their catalogue at good resolutions this could be a good value at even twice the price. As it stands though, this isn’t a good value at the current price.
Should you join this site? If you’re a huge JMP fan then give it a try, knowing that it isn’t a very good site. If you want to dabble in some unique JMP stuff, you’re better off just giving them your money at a VOD site or finding a DVD at your local shop, which is probably what they want anyway.
Current Member for less than 1 month (at the time of review).
Pros:
- Diabolic is one of the best studios around
- Access to about half of their titles
- Several updates a week
- File sizes are large and look good
- Download speeds are on par with the competition (but file sizes are significantly larger)
Cons:
- The website appears to have undergone a major re-work, and it is either really buggy or is still under development
- Videos all stutter, sometimes it really detracts from the scene
- Many dead links
- No obvious support for customers – three tries to contact them got nothing
- Some scenes are missing from movies
- Many scenes have watermarks, some are small, some have watermarks that are huge and block a good portion of the screen
- No star name associated with many scenes
- Notwithstanding the many dead links, only about half or less of the Diabolic library is online
Bottom Line:
This is my second time taking a membership at Diabolic. It appears that they may be undergoing a major re-work. I can’t say that for sure because my three emails for support were never replied to. I deduced the re-work theory from comparing the current site to the most recent review.
The biggest problem (assuming they are in the middle of a major overhaul) is that the site just isn’t ready for public use yet. Most of the older scenes I specifically joined to get have dead links. At the time I joined around 40% of the links were dead. (I didn’t test all of them, but I noted that every movie that shows it has had zero downloads has dead links, so I counted all the zero download movies.)
If the site is being overhauled, maybe some of the above will be fixed. Regardless of that though, there are some larger issues. I download the wmv versions, which are all large and look generally great. They are listed as HD. But they all (yes, all) have these annoying stutters. Sometimes it isn’t too bad, but other times it can get really annoying. Some of the stutters can last a few seconds.
I’m also not a fan of the site navigation. Each page shows 12 DVDs that are available. You select one that you want and that loads a page that shows the scenes in that movie. Under each scene are the options to watch it online, download it, or build you own. Hitting any of those options will bring you to another page (that frequently crashes) where you select how you want to do what you want to do. As in how do you want to view or download the file. Maybe I’m, being fussy, but having to drill down through three pages to download the file seems like one page too many. Maybe I’m just being fussy because I’m frustrated with all the other problems.
I have no idea why the site is as bad as it is. Maybe Diabolic is in its final days like someone here suggested (I hope not) or maybe they just don’t put the effort into web sales because they don’t see them as important. It seems to me that web sales are the future. I haven’t rented or bought a DVD in two years – everything is online now. I’m sure I’m not the only person who finds the web a more convenient place to get my porn. If so, Diabolic has to get in the game better than this. Adding to this concern is that Diabolic is updating the site a few times a week, but there are still well over a hundred titles that have never been added.
Diabolic has been one of my favorite studios for years. I really hope that they resolve the problems with their website because without it they’ll have no place in the online porn market.
And in the past I took it as a positive sign that the webmaster responded to concerns. Not so any more. Twice I contacted them through normal channels, and once through the email here at PU. Nothing in the two weeks since.
My recommendation is to avoid Diabolic until we have some assurances that the problems are fixed.
Protecting Minors We are strong supporters of RTA and ICRA, two of the most recognized self labeling organizations. Our site is properly labeled to assist in the protection of minors accessing inappopriate content. For information about filtering tools, check this site.
DISCLAIMER: ALL MODELS APPEARING ON THIS WEBSITE ARE 18 YEARS OR OLDER.
To report child pornography, go directly to ASACP! We're proud to be a corporate sponsor.
Have concerns or questions about porn addiction? We recommend this helpful resource.
