studiohotline.com

All that said it is still a very interesting site to join, as it has a small but good range of hosts, some good technical features and moderate pricing. 

I did struggle a bit though to get a free signup to work in Google Chrome browser.  It worked in IE but wanted to use some Microsoft ActiveX to check my email address I think.  So after some time of trying again and again I guessed that maybe Chrome was the problem and switched to Internet Explorer and it worked ok.

When you do get registered it says "CONGRATULATIONS, YOU'RE NOW REGISTERED TO Studiohotline ".  But the funny part is "Remember that it's important to provide us further details to make your stay with us more profitable".  I think they mean profitable as in a good thing for everybody, but it comes across as "give us your credit card and we'll earn from you!"

As I said trying to free register with Chrome just didn't work, no error message but just nothing happened when clicking "Next".  Changing to Internet Explorer and it got past the Next button but although this seemed to work but I never got an email.  So I tried again with another email address but it wouldn't let me until I closed and reopened IE.  Finally this time it worked and I got a registration email, but really that was a lot of work and I probably would have given up if I was a normal Chrome using surfer.

So what do you see once you are registered with StudioHotline?  What looks at first like a typical who-is-online page, only there are more than one category of icons. Some smaller ones at the top and then larger ones in the middle.  The small ones are labled "Cam Girl - Now online" and only shows 8 thumbnails but with a "Show All" link that implies there are more.

The larger thumbniles are in a section labeled "Cam Girls Live - On chat models" with a number like "9" or "10" and this is the number of girls who are actually available for chat immediately.  Most are individually labeld "online", a few are "on chat" but a few are "on prive" which means they are in private.

Only the ones who are "on chat" are available for free teaser chat, with video and text.  Some of the hosts have a "curtain" across the video, meaning a blurring which you have to pay to remove.  A little messages comes up that says the model "is in DRAPERY mode. You can spy her show or ask for a private chat. " However some are just doing normal webcam chat.  I think odd word 'drapery' came from someone translating the word for Curtain in Italian, the image on the screen is of a red curtain.

Typical rooms cost about 20 credits/min for private, while spy cams are 10 credits/min.  There is also a charge to send internal emails to the hosts which is around 6 each.

The video has your own username on the video itself, and it moves around.  Why?  Obviously so that people can't post recorded videos without revealing who it was did the recording!  A great and obvious step when you think about it.  I'm sure it can be defeated, but only with much effort.

I chatted with madambelle from Milan in Italy who switched effortlessly from English typing to Italian to deal with her different guests.  And happily gave a little spin to let us see her in her pretty panty and bra set.

Also I saw models from Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Colombia and a few other countries.

Each model at studiohotline.com has a little time-chart bar-graph showing when she is regularly on.  Unlike the "schedule" published on a few sites, which is generally input by the host herself and often entirely wrong, this one seems to be based on actual hours worked and so is much more useful.

It's funny they show online users, which means hosts as well as visitors, but I guess that is part of the attempt to be "social" which is so fashionable these days.  I don't see the visitors really trying to interact with each other though.

As for those online models who are not in chat, I could not see any way to call to the online models to ask them to come into chat.  I suppose you could send them an internal email if you wanted to spend the 6 credits on that.  Then maybe arranage a time, a bit like scheduling dates are RealTouchInteractive.

There seems to be no tipping at this site.  It is more old style with privates, spy/voyeur mode and free chat to tease, think they heyday of camcontacts, imlive etc.

When you go into free teaser chat you don't get to see who else is in the free text chat until they speak though, and in the rooms that I saw there was plenty of Italian being spoken/typed, although the hosts in question are actually from Romania.  Do Romanians have a good level of Italian?  I guess it doesn't take much for webcam chat.

Payments are all in "credits" which are basically 10 credits for one Euro ($1.25) so you can see each credit as being worth about 12 cents.  Pay via Visa, Mastercard, Diners, Discover, JCB, Maestro or Postepay - that last one is a German thing I think.

If you buy credits in quantity then you get a discount.  The minimum purchase is 25 Euros, and that gets you 250 credits, but if you spend 144 Euros you get 1600 credits or about 10% extra.

There are a lot of pretty and nice and friendly hosts around, but it is hard to navigate sometimes without Italian.  I mean the hosts only use Italian sometimes for their descriptions or to explain what they do/don't do.  I can guess "no anale" easily enough, but viso solo se ti mostri in cam to cam needs a translator to work it out.  If you're curious it means she only wants to see your face in cam2cam, not that other part!

Technically you'll find it a good but not exceptional Flash video system with big, medium or small video windows.  Cam2cam and one way audio are also supported.

There are no fan clubs as such but you can buy videos and galleries of pictures of your fav hosts.  They are generally very cheap at just a few credits each.

If you'd like to comment more on studiohotline.com please post a message in the forum.  Thanks.

For Models:

Despite the Italian emphasis it does accept models from anywhere and is trying for a more international and English speaking audience.  I think there are an ok number of viewers online and do see some privates being done, but not a huge number it is true.  With the existing customer group being mostly Italian or European you'll need to be able to appeal to those viewers if you want to work on this site.

You earn credits and when you have got 2,000 credits you can convert them into money and ask for the payment into your bank account. Each 10 credits equal 1 euro.  I can't see how you can get paid except by bank transfer.

Earnings are basically 50% of the customer spending.  If they pay 20 credits a minute for a private, then you get 10 credits a minute.  Same for an internal email which costs them 6 credits and you get half, 3 credits.

Signup needs the usual info including government ID and pictures.  Slightly unusually they do ask for "Three photos with your face visible, of which at least one in close and another with the whole figure (they won't be published)".  I guess this is to make sure you are good enough looking?

You can also earn money by uploading videos and images, but I don't think many of these are selling.