I am looking to start renting movies. Does anyone have experience with both or either rental services? What are the pluses and minuses of each? How much does each cost. What is the waiting time, customer service, selection of movies and rental packages of each? Thanks!
Heavenly Heavily Hootered Hos R Good 332 Posts 4/03
Posted - Jul 3 2007 : 7:08PM
I have used both. My thoughts & experiences: adult.dvdempire.com I was with them for 2 months. Had 2 issues. First I returned three disks to them on the same day, but they reported them as returned 3. 5 and 7 days later. They blamed the postal service. The postal services isn’t that bad. There was no consistency on how long it took them to record a disk as returned. Second issue is I rented “Black Owned”, a Jules Jordan product, from them. They only shipped the first disk. When I complained, I received the following response: “Thank you for your email. I'm sorry to hear that you are not pleased with our rental program. Unfortunately, with two disc rentals, we are only able to ship the first disc of the set. This is largely because our rental mailer shipping cost is determined by weight, and it would raise our rental costs to include both discs. The majority of our customers do not wish to receive the second disc as it primarily contains bonus features, behind the scenes footage, and extras. Most of the customers do not wish to receive this extra material, especially if it would increase the rental rate.” Other rental sites charge a double disk release as 2 disks against your allowed number, which seems fair to me. What really made me stop and think is their comment that most people don’t want the second disk with all the extras. From what I read in these forums, the extras are what many people watch first, before the actual movie. The second disk of “Black Owned” contains 3 of the 6 scenes as well as the extras. They actually only allowed me to see half the movie. The scene I really wanted to see, with Lisa Ann, was on the second disk. xrentdvd.com Can’t say enough good about them. Excellent selection and service. There is another website that has a large selection, but many of their titles are “not available”. Xrentdvd has a very good inventory, so almost whatever you choose is available for rent. I have been with them since 2002, and it would take a monsterous fuck-up on their part to loose me as a customer. I live in New York. Xrentdvd is in California. Dvdempire is in Pennsylvania. My understanding of US geography would lead me to believe I would have a slower turnover from California then Pennsylvania. Turns out returns I sent to California were recorded as received much faster,
I used adult dvd empire for 1 month in May/June. I had no problems. DVDs took 2-3 days each way to/from my NJ home (they are in PA), which is exactly what I expected. The more distance discs travel, the more variability you'll get. The two reasons I'd pick a particular site over another are: 1) selection - do they have the specific discs I want 2) location - where are they in relation to me. Your mileage may vary, but closer is generally better when you're talking about shipping times. I want to turn discs over ASAP.
I don't know about Xrent, but ADT has screenshots for many of their titles. This can be very helpful, for example, if you want to see if a performer's shoes are on/off in a given scene.
tutulu77: At adultdvdempire.com rentals we have over 51,000 items in the rentals programs, (with hundreds of new items added each week), which is the largest selection of any online rental company. Ace4Face: Regarding US postal shipping times, you can find complaints about shipping time consistancy for all the rental programs if you search this forum. Unfortunately the US postal service is not always consistent for any online rental company. At DVD Empire, we scan every item into our system that we receive in the mail that day. Regarding two disc items (or 3 disc items) not currently available in the rentals program, we do plan on making these items available in the future. We appreciate your feedback. Edited by - Theguru on 7/6/2007 8:09:51 AM
I live in Philadelphia - an APT. Would it be problematic getting my requests? Aside from distance it would seem Xrentdvd has the edge. I can't imagine being stuck with only half a movie becos the 2nd disc contains BTS. Thanks for all responses
Two other factors that may affect a rental membership decision are price and customer service. DVD Empire is the winner of AVN's Best Retail Website in 2004, 2005, 2006 & 2007 and we have award winning customer service. Regarding price, we offer more membership packages and overall better prices that xrent if you are interested in unlimited monthly rentals.
Adult DVD Empire's rental program prices: • 2 DVDs out at a time for $16.95 a month (Unlimited) • 3 DVDs out at a time for $21.95 a month (Unlimited) • 4 DVDs out at a time for $26.95 a month (Unlimited) • 6 DVDs out at a time for $34.95 a month (Unlimited) • 8 DVDs out at a time for $43.95 a month (Unlimited) VS X Rent's rental program prices currently listed 2 DVDs out at a time - $14.99 per month (Maximum of 5 DVDs per month) 3 DVDs out at a time -$24.99 per month (Unlimited)
5 DVDs out at a time -$35.99 per month (Unlimited) 8 DVDs out at a time- $49.99 per month (Unlimited) (Xrent's 2 out plan is the only plan that is cheaper than Adult DVD Empire, but it only offers 5 rentals max per month, where our 2 out plan does not have a limit) Additional Savings: When you sign up with DVD Empire, you are also automatically enrolled in our Empire Rental Rewards. After you have been a member for 2, 4, 6, and 12 consecutive months your membership fees will be reduced and you will earn FREE rentals as a reward for renting with Empire Rentals. 2 consecutive months of Membership = 10% discount toward your future monthly membership fees. 4 consecutive months of Membership = 10% discount* toward your future monthly membership fees plus 1 Free Rental shipment. 6 consecutive months of Membership = 10% discount* toward your future monthly membership fees plus 2 Free Rental shipments. 12 consecutive months of Membership = 15% discount* toward your future monthly membership fees. We also offer Ala carte Rentals for as low as $1.99 which allows you to rent a specific movie without signing up for a monthly membership, for 20 business days. Edited by - Theguru on 7/6/2007 12:15:18 PM Edited by - Theguru on 7/6/2007 12:17:05 PM Edited by - Theguru on 7/6/2007 12:20:14 PM
Heavenly Heavily Hootered Hos R Good 332 Posts 4/03
Posted - Jul 6 2007 : 8:17PM
After reading the above comment, I feel the need to add my personal experience. I have rented from both sites, and my experience is that the turnaround time (the day I drop a disk in a mailbox until the day I receive another rental disk in my mailbox) is shorter with xrent, even though there are four times further away from me than empire. I wanted more disks out at a time, so I asked xrent if I could have 16 disks out at a time. They were happy to accommodate me. I have read on various sites that there are varying opinions on how avn hands out their awards. I find more creditability in awards based on consumer input, rather than one bestowed by someone whose main job is selling advertising space. And I really have a bug up my butt about empire’s view that “The majority of our customers do not wish to receive the second disc as it primarily contains bonus features, behind the scenes footage, and extras”. When I choose a 2 disk release, I want both of them. When someone limits what I can see, it really pisses me off. Finally, I don’t care how many titles someone has listed in their inventory. I am more interested in how many current releases (not comps or ed powers old vhs titles re-released on dvd) are IN STOCK, available for me to rent. Excalibur boasts a fantastic number of titles, but..... In closing, a free market and competition are what make America great. Regardless of what product you are after, shop around, make an informed decision, and find a combination of price, service and quality that fits your needs. Edited by - Ace4Face on 7/6/2007 8:19:12 PM Edited by - Ace4Face on 7/6/2007 8:21:52 PM
I haven't used Empire because I'm an ala carte renter. However, the delivery & return time between X-Rent (in CA) and me (on Long Island) has been excellent. Other than the one returned shipment that that I sent on 6/26 and still hasn't been received by X-Rent (which isn't their fault), it's never taken more than 3 days for me to receive or return an order. As someone who has always been very anal about returning rentals on time (I've never returned anything late), I'm interested in seeing X-Rent's procedure for handling this return that they never received (especially considering that it contained 10 discs). Update: They apparently received my return today (7/9). I don't know why this particular return took nearly two weeks. As I mentioned earlier, all other returns have gotten there in 3 days. Edited by - Bill on 7/9/2007 7:02:48 PM
I've always been very pleased with DVDRENTZ, this is excalibur basically. I can get up to 4 discs per shipment, at $2.99 each. I can even get up to 8 vids out at a time.
Bill, you never know with the post office. One of my Netflix returns took almost a year to the day of mailing to arrive. All it had to do was go from New Hampshire to Mass.
X-rent doesn't. But they are located very close to a regional USPS sortation center. That means that their shipments typically take a day or two less than from other places on the west coast, because they don't need to go through the local post office. They shipped me an order this past Saturday, using regular First Class USPS. I received it on Long Island on Monday. It doesn't matter where someone else is shipping from, they can't beat that turnaround.
Heavenly Heavily Hootered Hos R Good 332 Posts 4/03
Posted - Jul 11 2007 : 6:06PM
I have expereinced the same quick shipments from xrent. What Bill said sounds right, now that I think about it. Where I work we are serviced by a small post office branch, who must then send it to a larger branch who then sends to the regional center; all three locations are within 25 miles. Seems to take forever for our customers to get the bills we send out. But every now and then we do a special mailing and use a mailing service. They drop off at the regional center, and customers receive delivery much quicker.
Being able to manifest and insert directly into the mail stream saves tons of time and essentially removes all of the inherent delay associated with under-worked and overpaid "government" employees.
So Xrent ships out both discs of a two disc dvd without counting it as a second rental? I'm with Bush now and they would treat that as two separate rentals. Is Xrent the only one that currently does that?
Not quite correct, the second (and even third) disc is always shipped in the same envelope via a special multi-disc sleeve. A 2-disc set counts as 2 discs toward your plan maximum-out but only as 1 shipment (for those on a limited shipment plan). However, if you have room for only 1 more disc within your max and the next available title in your queue is a multi-disc title then we will go ahead and send out that title (putting your plan over max until something is returned). When a brand new title arrives we determine if the second disc has any DVD video related to the title (including extras). For many people the extra scenes and making-of content are part of the value and enjoyment of an adult DVD. It is also required for our very popular Rent-2-Own-Keep-It program in which you can easily purchase the rental you have at home for a discounted price. We do not include the second disc if it is a CD sound track, HD, or promotional material. There is a significant amount of extra cost for the second (and third) disc largely in for form of added postage. We do our best to notify our customers on the product display page and the queue when they have selected a multi-disc title. In this way each individual customer can make an informed decision on whether a multi-disc title is worthy of being queued. XRentDVD
