Hard N Straight

I’m not happy. I am a bit confused and rather frustrated. Here’s why:

I couldn’t find the sign up page for Hard N Straight, (HNS). The join button led me to a page advertising Brendon TV where, if I joined, I would get the site I was interested in for free. So I did as I was told and, after a long wait for the page to load, found the join button. Once you've joined that site then you get HNS listed as a bonus/feed site. Clicking that and I was back to the HNS tour page with the join button leading me to that damn TV sign up page again.

But luckily for me, for the purposes of this review I had been given access directly into HNS so I cheated and used those access details. I have no idea how you are going to get to it, sorry, but joining Brendon TV isn’t a bad idea as it’s a pretty good site and you may find what you are looking for there.

So, I am finally in the right site and… I find 25 episodes on the home page that advertises a new update every Wednesday. (On line since 1991 the tour said, that, by my quick calculation should be around 884 weeks’ worth of updates.) Ok, I’ll check the page for you to see if I've missed anything: Top menu? No. Well, yes – a link to the page I am already on and a link to the video store. (On line shop.) I resist the temptation to contact customer care with a few choice words as I am determined to get to the bottom of this myself. Side menu? A list of four titles, two of which are ‘new this week’. There was then a chance to join Brendon Marley’s newsletter. OK, lets try those videos on the main page.

They each have a title and ‘episode number’ written beneath them. Clicking that and I get a warning about pop ups trying to open. You know I have an aversion to them but I feel this is the only way I am going to get to see anything here. I temporarily allow pop ups and find the scene I clicked. (I can think of better ways of letting members access the content.) I click the title of the movie and get a “here’s a preview of what’s showing in our members’ area” message. Two previews and at four speeds – Real Player format, two minute clips. Close that pop-up and try another one. The text on this one doesn’t fit the screen so I scroll to try the alternative link – and this time get asked for my username and password. Once done, that is followed by a Real player streaming a scene of 10 minutes. I’ve never really got the hang of this kind of player but I can get it to full screen and various percentages of it’s original size. The short movie looks good enough.

You may have gathered that I wasn’t having much fun with this site and I was starting to get worried in case I had missed something on the tour. Something useful like a message that read: “This is a site that will bring you a few samples of what you can buy at our video store or what you can find when you join another site.” I don’t think I’d missed anything – You’re told that your password gives you access to the TV site but I still couldn’t find out how you actually get your access. Head pounding I gave up.

No samples