http://www.spanking-review.com/reviews The World's best spanking sites are reviewed here. Thu, 04 Dec 2008 08:05:23 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 [1]English Spankers has for many years been a leader in British Spanking web sites. They were the first to start shooting and editing their material in High Definition video and, because of the long association with Remington Steel, a renowned producer and film maker, their production methods and quality were guaranteed to lead the site where others just could not go. That there have been a number of changes of direction within the site will not please everyone but I look at it from the viewpoint that change, movement and diversity are important factors in keeping a website live and pertinent to today. What did I not like? Well I have noticed that some of the films I liked to go back to from time to time to watch and re-watch seem to have disappeared, that photo sets are not always relevant to the film, that the content varied between school type scenarios with lovely young girls being well spanked and the more ‘domestic’ or office, home based scenes with more mature but, it must be said, still very attractive ladies. I suppose here I am showing a bias towards my own likes and dislikes. The webmaster at ES told me that films that do from time to time disappear will come back only re-edited and at a much higher quality. I had forgotten that this site has been running for many years now and the earlier films will have been encoded at lesser codec’s than we find acceptable at the top end today. [1] http://www.english-spankers.com http://www.spanking-review.com/reviews/?p=52 [1] One thing you will notice since our mini-review is that the Sound Punishment [2] site has undergone a complete visual makeover. The site now has a clean front page listing the last six updates with the images linking to a film preview page. The navigation is easy and the number of 'tour' pages has been reduced. This, I am told by their web designer, is because extensive monitoring of teh traffic through the site revealed that having a lot of preview pages was unnecessary as the vast majority of visitors never completed the tour. The video preview page has, at the time of this review, over 30 free clips for the latest films, out of a current total of 91 films in the members-area of the site. The clips are all high-quality 720x576 resolution and last 30 seconds each. They give a good flavour of the spanking content available to members. Inside the members area the navigation is simple and effective with a page of thumbnails for navigating the 147 high-quality photo-stories and links to two pages containing the schoolgirl and domestic films. The image galleries contain images which are all 1000 pixels on the longest side and each gallery has its own extensive thumbnail page. All of the full-size images open in anew window when the thumbnail is clicked so that you do not have to be constantly backpaging to get back to the thumbnails. A sample of the images are displayed at the end of this post. The films inside the members area are in two forms. Early content uses RealMedia as the encoding codec whilst the majority of the films, each of about 10-15 minutes in duration, are in Windows media 9 format. All the films are in 720x576 pixel format consistent with being filmed on a DV format camera rather than an HD camera, but they are none the less in quality for that. The lighting is good and the sound recording quality is above average for this kind of movie. It is just a guess but I think this points to off-camera quality microphones being used as there is no evidence of lens motor or camera handling noise - something that is unavoidable when on-camera mics are used. The films are somewhat formulaic in format Girl/lady does or is accused of doing something wrong They are told off for it They are punished This is not a criticism though as all spanking films fit the same format, it just depends on the proportion of each segment that makes up the film. Fortunately Sound Punishment [2] have decided that the first two segments should be minimised and the last, and for us the most important, the punishment maximised. Therefore on average over two thirds of each film is devoted to the placing of hands, paddles, rulers, tawses, plimsolls (gym shoes for our US cousins) straps and canes in close and rapid proximity to a varied selection of bare bottoms. This for our reviewers was a big plus because we see too many films from other sites of 30 minutes duration with only 5 minutes of spanking. The ladies range from early 20s to mid 50's and the scenarios include Schoolgirl Adult schoolgirl roleplay Wives Secretaries Lovers Models and many more. The acting of the ladies when punished varies from the stoic to almost hysterical weeping and the display of the ladies' "naughty bits" from full covering to "nurse please pass me the gynoscope" .... There is something for everyone. The male leads are good, either a well-known headmaster figure (who owns this site) seen on several other sites to occasional guest spankers which include Mr Stern from English-Spankers. They contribute a good dialogue to the films and the action is filmed to concentrate on the girl and not the spanker. The cost of membership to this site is $34.95 for 30 days (recurring billing) and $89.95 for 90 days (choosing either recurring or non-recurring billing when you join). At under 40 cents per film this is excellent value for money. All in all we were very pleased with this site and don't think you will be disappointed. [1] http://www.soundpunishment.com [2] http://www.soundpunishment.com [3] http://www.soundpunishment.com http://www.spanking-review.com/reviews/?p=35 [1]Adele Haze [2] is a young woman who is starting to make a great impression on the UK spanking modelling scene for the level of chatisement she can take and for her professionalism. Adele's blog states "I’m Adele Haze. I live in England, but come from Eastern Europe. I’m into CP/spanking, with a heavy preference for role-play and age-play. A while ago I decided that it would be hot to be spanked on camera. So I went out and became a spanking model; it’s been fun so far. I don’t like sex very much - and don’t mix it with spanking, in any case - but I suspect I’d have a hard time convincing folks that a girl who gets her bare bottom smacked on film isn’t a sex worker, so I might as well embrace the label. I spend more time ploughing away at my degree than perving myself out, so I haven’t yet had a chance to do a lot of shooting, but I’ve done some." Rather an understatement we feel. Her blog has been running since February 2006 and she combines articles on her blossoming spanking career with her insights into the UK spanking scen and events she has attended as well as other spanking related material. The article are illustrated with stills from her movie and website appearances. Adele has also recently started to review some spanking sites, the latest being SoundPunishment.com [3], and she shows a keen and knowledgable eye about the material and production values on that site. Her style is light, insightful and entertaining and well work reading with updates done on almost a daily basis. We give this blog 90/100 http://www.adelehaze.com/ [4] [1] http://www.adelehaze.com/ [2] http://www.adelehaze.com/ [3] http://www.soundpunishment.com [4] http://www.adelehaze.com/ http://www.spanking-review.com/reviews/?p=33 [1] [2]Bars & Stripes [3] scored 22/50 on our mini-review [4] of the free-site content and design. Fortunately this low initial score does not reflect on the quality of content in the members area. Entering the members-area you find a clean menu and greetings area with dark-green background and red control buttons. A little too 'Eddie Stobart' for me, but effective as a branding exercise nonetheless. You are welcomed as a visiting prison Governor The menu on the left hand side of the page divides the site into the following areas: Navigation Home Latest News Inmates Matron Updates Prison Diaries Suggestion Box Contact Us Prison Area Governor's Office Cell Block Intake Office Solitary Sick Bay Interview/Visiting Prison Grounds PT room On the Outside Governor's House At Large [1] http://links.verotel.com/cgi-bin/showsite.verotel?vercode=26413:9804000000807791 [2] http://links.verotel.com/cgi-bin/showsite.verotel?vercode=26413:9804000000807791 [3] http://links.verotel.com/cgi-bin/showsite.verotel?vercode=26413:9804000000807791 [4] http://www.spanking-review.com/reviews/?p=23 http://www.spanking-review.com/reviews/?p=30 [1]The first thing that 'hits' you at Sound Punishment [2] is the bright red background to the page. Now I know this is popular with lots of spanking sites but I just feel that someone who has put together such a top class site could have done something a little different. At the top of the page we have a clear menu which allows easy navigation around the site, including access to a spanking personal ads area and a professional-looking helpdesk system. As this page indicates that the site is updated weekly, it may have been better if this were reinforced on the scrolling list of updates which tops the first page of the tour. Hitting on any of the top three images on the index page will take you to the first tour page, I would maybe have liked something more here, perhaps a video or a larger picture. There is a free video however on the site's index page and I have to say I was very surprised by the quality. With so many web sites still insisting on giving poor quality video clips in the free area and then trying to tell us that the quality in the members area will be better, I am delighted when someone says, 'look at this. Its free and its top quality and that's what you get'. I had just read the text telling us about the site and learnt that it is run by a husband and wife team and, maybe unfairly, I was expecting to see something a little more, well not quite up to the mark but as I say, a top quality video sample, right on the front page, that gets me interested. Passing quickly over the rest of the first tour page text, it does go on a bit, we have the scroll down list of past updates, as I said I would have liked to have seen them dated but that is just a small niggle. There are a couple of places to click through to the join page from here so no complaints there, clear and to the point. This page seems to be all about updates so we skip quickly onto the next section of the tour and find six high resolution video clips. These are all around 4meg each so the site is obviously aimed at broadband users and why not I say. [1] http://refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clicks.cgi?CA=925656-0000&PA=1374441&BAN=0 [2] http://refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clicks.cgi?CA=925656-0000&PA=1374441&BAN=0 http://www.spanking-review.com/reviews/?p=32 [1]I must say this reviewer was a little disappointed when going onto Shanelle's spanking site [2] to see that the lady with one of the most spankable bottoms in the UK has now started to assert her more dominant self, there are however plenty of images and video clips in the free area of the site to wet the appetite and go part of the way towards appeasing my desire to see her spanked one final time for daring to deprive the rest of us of this most spankable of derrières. But. onto the site itself. First impressions are of a site put together by amateur enthusiasts trying to get a message across and maybe doing too much of everything in the process. The background to the pages is messy, like a bad wallpaper job in your sitting room, this tends to detract from the text and pictures. The menu buttons are again a little obtrusive and just ad to the impression of untidiness, too many ideas not executed as well as they could be. There is a fast changing animated gif on the first page, I always find these things distracting and in this case doubly so as it leads to a chat, message system heavily populated by adverts for insurance and other money making sites. Yes I know that I should have followed the menu tour button but seeing this flashing picture thing there just distracted me, it may also distract others who are looking to see some great spanking pictures and leave them thinking that it might not be worth the trouble, and that would be a pity. Going further down the page we find a series of pictures at quite low resolution advertising the latest update, these would have been better placed at the top of the page maybe, as you won't see them till you have passed below the large menu, extra text and the flashing gif. Going even further down the page we are offered the chance to join a Yahoo group. Now call me old fashioned but I think when someone has taken the trouble to find a particular web site from the thousands on offer, started to explore it and got past the inducements to buy a new ipod or whatever banner is showing in the chat area the last thing you want to do is to send them away from the site to the sad morass that is the motley collection of spanking sites that have not yet been culled by the Yahoo thought police. [1] http://refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clicks.cgi?CA=932401-0000&PA=1377860 [2] http://refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clicks.cgi?CA=932401-0000&PA=1377860 http://www.spanking-review.com/reviews/?p=31 Bars and Stripes [1] is a new site on the British Spanking scene starring some of the best female spankees in the business such as Leia Woods, Kara Jayne, Emma Brown, Amy Hunter, Adele Haze, Niki Flynn, Gina Moon, Dublin O'Brien ... the list goes on and on. Set in a fictional women's correctional facility, it tries to portray how most red-blooded males would want a female prison to be run. After the almost obligatory 'RU 18?' entrance page the site opens onto a graphics-rich page. The header of the page incorporates an animated gif file of a rather rapid spanking which, though eye-catching, will slow the page loading for people viewing it on slower connections. As you progress down the page some large thumbnails of the latest content are shown, all of which link to the JOIN NOW page and not to any enlargements of the images. A scrolling message box is used to display site news. A link to a Preview Clip is next. This takes you away from the site and opens a download window. It would have been better to have set up this link so as to keep you on the site. The sample is in WMV format, 4.92 Mb in size, 1min 10sec in length, 352x288 pixels encoded at 700 kB/sec. The quality is good, the clip comprising of video sections interspersed with still images. This is the only downloadable content on this page. The table below that box shows the updates to the sites with dates, whether they were an image update of a video update. Clicking on the associated images just takes you the Join Now page again. [1] http://links.verotel.com/cgi-bin/showsite.verotel?vercode=26413:9804000000807791 http://www.spanking-review.com/reviews/?p=23 Disciplinarian [1] is a site dedicated to schoolgirls in school uniform and the punishments they receive. The site claims to update with quality photos three time a week. This site is part of a portfolio of sites which include Regulation Knickers [2] and other sites. The free Tour links takes you via 5 pages of on-page images (none of them expandable - only using 'right-click and save' can store them on your computer). All the images link directly to the Join Now page. The image quality appears to be good and studio lighting appears to have been used.The movie downloads pages show 24 thumbnails which link to individual sales pages, each with three small images (framegrabs?) and an embedded WMV view of rather small size. You are then invited to buy the film in approximately 10 minute segments at $15 per segment = $45 a film! The film viewer on the page did not work in FireFox browser but worked correctly in Internet Explorer. The film samples are of mediocre technical quality, 30 seconds in length and non-downloadable, but the spanking and caning action was real and set in both domestic and a realistic school set. Wihout being able to see the full size films I cannot say what the product sold to members would be like, whether the films are downloadable for later viewing or whether only online streaming viewing is possible. If the latter then it is important to be sure that they will work in your browser and that you have a fast enough broadband link. From what I have read on the site, the Members Area comprises only 100 galleries of schoolgirls in uniform being punished. There is no mention of any videos in the members area. With membership at $29.95 per month and $60.00 for 3 months (with no information as to whether these are recurring or non-recurring billing) this site appears very expensive when compared to others on the market which have extensive video as well as photo libraries for their members. Free Material Members' Area Design & Ease of Navigation 8/10 0/10 Quality of Images 6/10 0/10 Quality of movies 2/10 0/10 Quantity of Images 2/10 0/10 Quantity of movies 5/10 0/10 Total Score 23/50 23/50 0/50 Comments More image and movie downloads would give a better impression of this site. Too many questions need answering about quality etc. [3] [1] http://links.verotel.com/cgi-bin/showsite.verotel?vercode=16992:9804000000807791 [2] http://links.verotel.com/cgi-bin/showsite.verotel?vercode=18094:9804000000807791 [3] http://links.verotel.com/cgi-bin/showsite.verotel?vercode=16992:9804000000807791 http://www.spanking-review.com/reviews/?p=28 [1]Planet Bitch [2] is another femdom site from the same production company as Cassie Canes [3]. Like that site, the non-members area of this site is attractive and has some downloadable free content. The design is similar with good quality graphics but it only has a few downloadable images in the form of 10 medium size pictures of posing dominatrixes, each of which have a heavy central semi-transparent watermark. There are no free movie clips to download and no indication as to whether the site host movies for download. The site gives no indication as to when it is updated. A calendar of updates would inspire more confidence I think.I would have liked to have seen more images and movies (if they are in the interior) and I think that the watermarking,of what images there were, was somewhat intrusive. If you like seeing a statuesque young ladies posing as dominatrixes then I think this site will be for you. The non-members area of the site is just not acceptable in respect of giving the potential customer a true flavour of the internal content. There was just not enough information regarding number of images, movies, updates etc. in the member's area to enable us to recommend this site. Which is a shame because I suspect that what is inside may be rather good. Unfortunately, without becoming a member. one will never know and, based on this introduction to Planet Bitch [4], my money will have to stay in my pocket. Billing is by Verotel (£12.00 for one month). Unusually for a pay site the site owners do not use automatic rebilling. Free Material Members' Area Design & Ease of Navigation 8/10 0/10 Quality of Images 6/10 0/10 Quality of movies 0/10 0/10 Quantity of Images 5/10 0/10 Quantity of movies 0/10 0/10 Total Score 19/50 19/50 0/50 Comments More image and movie downloads would give a better impression of this site. Definitely more information on the updates and amount of content is needed [5] [1] http://links.verotel.com/cgi-bin/showsite.verotel?vercode=26422:9804000000807791 [2] http://links.verotel.com/cgi-bin/showsite.verotel?vercode=26422:9804000000807791 [3] http://www.spanking-review.com/reviews/?p=26 [4] http://links.verotel.com/cgi-bin/showsite.verotel?vercode=26422:9804000000807791 [5] http://links.verotel.com/cgi-bin/showsite.verotel?vercode=26422:9804000000807791 http://www.spanking-review.com/reviews/?p=27 Cassie Canes [1] is a femdom male sub site starring Cassie, a beautiful but stern young lady. The non-members area of the site is attractive and has some downloadable free content in the form of 8 medium size pictures of severe caning of males, each of which have a heavy central semi-transparent watermark. There is also a single short WMV format movie sample (22 seconds, 1.8 Mb, 640x480 pixels encoded at 696 kb/sec). The technical quality of the movie clip was acceptable but soft and grainy. This is probably due to either too low a lighting level or it was recorded using a domestic video camera. This movie is watermarked and contains a scene where you see Cassie deliver two extremely heavy strokes with a heavy cane, possibly a dragon, onto the bared and already heavily marked male buttocks. This scene is not for the faint-hearted and if this is the level of punishment depicted in the members-area it may be too much for some audiences, though I suspect the main potential customers of this site will love it! Cassie is tall, slim, dark haired and very beautiful with legs up to her armpits ... and she wealds a cane viciously and accurately onto her target male's behind. It appears she will also undertake 1-1 sessions with selected clients, but that is outside the remit of this site! The site says that it is updated every 3 days, but it does not give any indication of what with, or when, this was last done. A calendar of updates would inspire more confidence I think. The non-members area of the site is just about acceptable regarding giving the potential customer flavour of the internal content. I would have liked to have seen a few more images and movies and I think that the watermarking of the images was somewhat intrusive. If you like seeing a statuesque young lady beating the c**p out a man's buttocks, then I think this site will be for you. Billing is by ccBill ($28.00 for 30 days) and Verotel (£15.00 for one month). Unusually for a pay site the site owners do not use automatic rebilling. Free Material Members' Area Design & Ease of navigation 8/10 0/10 Quality of Images 8/10 0/10 Quality of movies 7/10 0/10 Quantity of Images 5/10 0/10 Quantity of movies 2/10 0/10 Total Score 30/50 30/50 0/50 Comments More image and movie downloads would give a better impression of this site. [2] [2] [4] [1] http://links.verotel.com/cgi-bin/showsite.verotel?vercode=26421:9804000000807791 [2] http://links.verotel.com/cgi-bin/showsite.verotel?vercode=26421:9804000000807791 [3] http://links.verotel.com/cgi-bin/showsite.verotel?vercode=26421:9804000000807791 [4] http://links.verotel.com/cgi-bin/showsite.verotel?vercode=26421:9804000000807791 http://www.spanking-review.com/reviews/?p=26