Reviewed 2009-08-18 l Last update on 2020-09-26
Channel 1 Releasing, or C1R as it's also known, has been on the go since 1999. (You may have heard of its owner, and drag star, ChiChi LaRue.) The company now owns several studios under the one banner, and here they present some of their videos for members to stream online; that's scenes and full DVDs. Some are blasts from the past, others are new, updates are happening and a host of all kinds of hot guys appearing. From studs to twinks, the site gives you full quality DVDs.
You have a pretty transparent tour at C1R, so what you see on the free pages is more or less what you have inside, and the numbers are good: 231 full DVDs with their scenes included in the list of 1,056 + scenes, and a model index of 1,200 + guys. We need to start with the men and then look at who is making this dick-pumping porn.
If you are after names, then look to the model index. Here you have some guys who have worked exclusively for Channel 1 Releasing at some point - though they are not necessarily exclusive stars right now. Brent Everett, Jimmy Durano and Landon Mycels, for example, I've seen appearing in other studios' productions and on other sites; Vance Winter (Winter Vance) I have also seen in several other movies not shown on this site. There are then loads more to check out, newbies and some more experienced guys if you search by Newest. The model index also lets you search by cock size, and it's no surprise that 'Bam' is number one with his 12 inches!
I started with the guys as they are so varied; you are not looking at a one 'type' site here. You have manly, muscled studs with ripped bodies, you have good looking jocks in their 20s and fit guys in their 30s. There are smooth twinks all cute and 'come to bed' and there are average looking amateurs as well, but no one with any body fat to speak of, no one who looks out of place. Whatever scenes you decide to check out first, you will find a hunky stud, a great looking guy or several and there are plenty of studly and fit men appearing. So that's all good news. The second thing to check out are the studios.
The content of the site comes from Rascal, Dirk Yates, All Worlds and Catalina; all now owned by ChiChi and her company. This doesn't mean that all the movies are the same, they have their own styles and their own kind of content. The most recently added full DVD, 'Riverside Palls' is an All Worlds video and has three, classic, 'smooth-hunks by the pool' style scenes. The one put up before this is a Dirk Yates productions, 'Glory Days' with four military themed, hardcore movies with your typical soldiers. You can search by studio or you can search by keywords, or you can browse through the 1,056 + individual scenes and see what takes your fancy from the good sample shots given for each one.
Checking out the latest scenes, I found that the site is still running on a stream only basis, with the option to go on and buy the full DVD that the scenes come from if you want. The viewing pages are simple; well, they are non-existent actually. Click the sample shots, and you have the streaming player at full screen with Auto, 360p and 480p as resolution choices. You have a volume control, and you can jump ahead through the scenes, and jump back 10 seconds, without too much wait for the movie to carry on. The quality is fine, they are all DVD quality of course and the size of your screen will depend on, well, the size of your screen I guess. I wasn't sure about this lack of viewing controls or info, I like some extra wordy meat around my movies, but at least it's direct, and there's no hanging about. There is also no downloading. You have the same set up when it comes to the DVDs: select a scene (there is more info there and links to the models), and the stream starts in your main screen, full screen. Scenes though are a good length, up to 50 minutes and so there is a lot to see in the members' area.
Technically things are fine at C1R. You have a simple top menu that will take you to the homepage, the DVDs, scenes, models and studios. There are also links to Live Cams and the DVDs store, a search box and your favourites collection as you can mark any scenes as favourites and come back to them easily at a later date. There's nothing complicated about the site which makes it easy to use. But, if you want details and info, it's a bit thin on the ground. There are some basic stats with models, runtimes and model name links with movies, and also linked tag words. The search box is a good way to see if there are any of your favourite kinds of movies. I typed in 'twink' for example and found several titles listed and then visual links to those scenes.
There are a couple of extra features such as a category list for scenes which helps your filtering and the drop-down list of the four studios, but the site really is basic when it comes to extra functions. There were no comments or rates even, but you can use the Favourites function quite easily. This means it's all about the movies and that's fair enough. However, there are no update dates, and you don't know when a new scene or DVD will be added. I can tell you though that the site has increased by 130 scenes in the last five months.
As for the cost, it's not expensive. You have the monthly option, and that's fine, but the longer term ones offer bigger discounts with a full year paid in advance costing the same as $8.33 per month.
C1R, Chanel One Releasing, with its collection of titles from four studios and some dating back many years (remastered movies with Jeff Stryker - now there's a thing!) will keep you going for a long while. It's not expensive, there are over 1,000 scenes from a load of released DVDs, there are 720p HD versions on some, but not all, there's loads of variety and a big line-up of guys from cute twinks to hard and rough daddies. It's a case of 'a little bit of what you fancy does you good.'
