I have decided about a year or so ago (around 2017-2018) to stop buying from my "local" shops who carry almost exclusively material distributed by Valentine Video (this is due to Valentine Video being the biggest and almost the only distributor of adult DVDs in my area; all other distributors are small time vendors who carry more niche material, and most of the time they just pick up Valentine Video stuff to re-sell to stores anyway).

At first when I started buying Valentine Video DVDs around the earlier 2000s (think the Feeding Frenzy 4 / Ass Worship 3 from Jules Jordan / Evil Angel era), Valentine Video only had single layer discs, so movies were edited to fit in the 2 hour time limit, and bonus features were limited to chapter selections and photo galleries (so no BTS stuff nor extra footage or bonus scenes, etc.). In one instance, a Joey Silvera film I had purchased was so heavily edited that one scene, from beginning tease to post cumshot, lasted a few seconds over the 6 minute mark!

Then came the wrong films being encoded on the discs. Twice I had purchased the "Whack Attack 1" DVD and twice, the film actually on the disc itself was "Whack Attack 7", even though the cover and the image on the disc was clearly "Whack Attack 1".

Then came a film (another Evil Angel title) which I had purchased specifically for a scene, which was simply completelly cut out of the DVD. The performer was still there on the cover, and was still listed in the credits, but the scene was just completelly cut off of the film. This happened on another occasion as well, when Valentine Video started proclaiming that they were now offering "uncut US versions"...

Yes for the most part, once Valentine converted to dual layer DVDs, the image quality also went from upscaled / glorified VHS like quality to that of decent DVD, but their incompetance at offering real "USA" versions was far from over. Yes, in some cases, you now had some bonus material like extra footage, or bonus scenes and whatnot, but in most cases, particularly with New Sensations / Digital Sin (et al) re-distributions, the bonus scenes were not the same as those offered in real USA releases. For example (but I will be somewhat obscure as to not arouse too much prying eyes or suspicions), when one would read fine reviews of, say, Jonni Darkko Evil Angel releases on this forum/site and mention bonus scenes on the DVD, these scenes were not the ones offered on the Canadian Valentine Video version, reguardless of the fact tha Valentine proclaimed to offer the original "uncut" US versions. Yes, maybe the film itself was now unaltered, but the bonus material was affected nonetheless.

Anyway, after those incidents (and maybe a couple more I haven't recalled while attemtping to write this post), I also had a few incidents when Valentine Video "distribution" of "Colmax" titles would end being the now somewhat predictable "it's not the same film on the disc as advertized on the cover", as well as one instance when the DVD was encoded in such as way that no reader could play it; be it a DVD player, a DVDr player, a BluRay player, a computer DVD/DVDr player, or even an Xbox player could read the disc.

After a few years of being forced to consume locally distributed porn from the main/major distributor in the metropolis, I finally gave up and decided it was well worth paying $26 & over (at least!) in shipping costs to order DVDs through USA distributors and get the real product, instead of taking a gamble on what Valentine Video considers to be "acceptable" porn releases in this city. Granted, most porn consumers actually almost pick a DVD in a store "at random" (more or less) and could not be bothered if the product they purchase is not 100% what is advertized nor what it is actually supposed to be, but throughout my 10+ years (at least) of trying to support the "local" retail stores, the fact that Valentine Video has no quality control nor any respect for any consumer who actually purchases titles for the title or performers themselves has made me decide to boycott the enterprise altogether.

... and let me not get into my recent 2019 purchase of a DVD title from a USA distributor, which was manufactured by Valentine Video (seriously, WTF?) and the film on the disc was again something completelly unrelated to the actual film, nor to the cover or the artwrok on the disc itself.

In conclusion: Valentine Video is a gamble at best. They may offer cheaper prices and may seem to offer a great deal of variety, the truth is that once you start dwelling deeper or further down the so-called beaten path, you will find out just how much they actually care about the end user consumer, and that is next to none.

So purchase at your own risk!

Cheers, be safe!

*** anything else is just brand X ***

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Thanks for that great post! I'll be sure to stick with US versions.

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