Replies Given
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Your replies to other users's reviews and comments. |
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Site |
Feedback / Review |
Date |
Reply
1
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American Vice
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Reply of
Tree Rodent's Review
A customer recently told me, "you guys are the difference between Ace Hardware and Home Depot."
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04-24-10 07:17pm
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Reply
2
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N/A
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Reply of
Wittyguy's Poll
The video size makes no difference. It is just the default screen size when the video plays.
Bit rate is what matters. That dictates the quality of the file relative to the source material.
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01-29-10 12:18pm
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3
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American Vice
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Reply of
messmer's Comment
Man, I don't know if that's a fair assessment. We've prided ourselves on having the most varied content. Some of the niches you mention (pregnant and hairy), we never have had much content to begin with because it's so hard to find good DVD material.
But MILF, squirt, bondage, fat, foot -- even our own category, Sick & Demented -- are regularly updated.
As far as Gonzo, that's also not really accurate either. Because we love feature films and put up quite a lot of those, too.
We have been light on the she-male stuff recently and have some unique stuff coming up soon.
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12-06-09 11:53am
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4
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American Vice
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Reply of
anyonebutme's Reply
We can't make our encodes better than DVD quality. That's impossible. And our maximized encoding parameters are achieving lossless DVD quality, ie. it's identical to the original content. It's the best that can be done.
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10-14-09 04:58am
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Reply
5
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American Vice
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Reply of
The Clyde's Review
The comment about file sizes is very astute. I've seen other sites (or reviewers of these sites) boasting of files encoded at huge bit rates.
It's tempting to just "throw bit rate" around unnecessarily. But that's not only naive, but it imposes huge file sizes on the users. I often wonder if this is done intentionally to discourage downloads. Who the hell wants to download a 20 minute scene that's over 1 GB?
Anyway, H.264 (technically MPEG-4 Part 10 AVC) is the latest cutting edge compression technology. It's used by cable/satellite and Blu-Ray/HD. This is also known as a nearly lossless Broadcast format. Your satellite provider is giving you crystal clear digital signal at about 1500kb.
FLV and WMV are crappy Web formats. Even worse, they require a lot more file size to achieve the same video quality as H.264.
Now to really bore you, H.264 has very complicated encoding parameters. We studied these and consulted with experts, even getting a dialogue going with Adobe (who, BTW, recognizes H.264 as the future of streaming video).
Bottom line...our Computer sized files are damn near the source material and almost impossible to differentiate from our DVD sized files.
There is a law of diminishing returns with encoding, as well as quality enhancements that can be achieved by pimping out the encoding variables. We think that we've really maximized the results for the user.
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10-12-09 06:04pm
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6
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American Vice
(0)
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Reply of
exotics4me's Comment
Hey exotics4me!!!
I was going back thru all of our stuff on PU, and this comment you made almost 18 months ago still warms my heart.
American Vice has been a great concept since day one. But I'll admit that we've gotten our ass kicked at times with technology. Essentially, shitty Windows Media never allowed our full vision to achieve fruition.
But that's all changed with our new h.264 stuff. There were some dark days years ago, where our faith was tested. But comments like yours kept us marching forward.
Thanks again
Reg Berkeley
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10-12-09 05:37pm
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Reply
7
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American Vice
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Reply of
xxrrtt's Comment
Well, I didn't wanna give any false hopes back in July, but the silly problem with our JOIN button was related to some amazing new stuff we were putting in.
We're now fully streaming H.264 DVD quality content. And you can download the same, too -- at blazing fast speeds guaranteed to max out your Internet connection.
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09-14-09 11:30am
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8
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American Vice
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Reply of
xxrrtt's Comment
Yes, reports of our death are greatly exaggerated!!!
All kidding aside, we upgraded servers and boogered our email confirmations. Doh!
Anyway, we're on it like white on rice.
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07-19-09 07:17pm
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9
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American Vice
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Reply of
Cybertoad's Reply
We used to have just one low flat rate...but then we went to $17.95 per month which ratchets down on a quarterly, bi-annual and annual basis.
We also sell scenes by the token for $.79, which is popular with the European crowd. . .I can't say why.
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06-23-09 12:05pm
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10
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American Vice
(0)
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Reply of
Cybertoad's Reply
Yeah, our annual membership is $99.95 which breaks down to $8.33 per month. I wish the price sounded cooler than $8.33 :) Maybe some marketing genius will suggest something better!!!
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06-23-09 11:31am
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11
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American Vice
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Reply of
Goldfish's Reply
Look, I'm not one to start a flame war. If you don't like our site, then by all means. Frankly, "bland" isn't the first word that comes to mind involving AmericanVice. Crass, vulgar, distasteful, profane...that's my cup of tea :)
But all this talk of video quality made me want to jump in. We are a DVD download site. Our content comes from DVDs. All non-BluRay DVDs are MPEG2, which utilizes 720 x 480 (640 x 480 on PC...see another thread on square pixels versus round pixels).
We also maintain the proper aspect ratios on letterboxed DVDs and have gotten big kudos because of this. We even letterbox our screen caps to prevent distortion.
So unless you're trying to compare our DVD content to a HD site...then I can't apologize for the quality. We're bound by the nature of the source material.
All our videos are encoded at 2000K, which is the point of diminishing returns on encoding MPEG2 content. These files are about 400MB on average per scene. I'm not exactly sure what else we could do to address your comments about the quality.
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06-22-09 05:46pm
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12
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American Vice
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Reply of
wiild1's Comment
We're always amazed that not every single person who checks out the site doesn't do the free trial of Five Free Downloads.
I honestly believe that people have become so desensitized to "Free" and "Porn." And they probably think that there's some nasty catch involved.
A new restaurant will give out free samples. That was always our theory behind it. Moreover, I wouldn't say that AV is the most intuitive site out there.
Since our Search Engine and commentaries are totally unique, these features aren't always readily apparent to the casual visitor. Thus, we just want people to use the site and discover on their own all the cool shit that we do.
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06-05-09 04:15am
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13
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American Vice
(0)
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Reply of
wiild1's Reply
Glad you're digging the site. I think we appeal to the hardcore porn enthusiast who's been around the block several times. Your observations are spot on with our objectives. Awesome!
On the download speeds, I didn't want to make any big announcement yet. But a couple months ago we changed our content delivery method to a global solution utilized by companies like ESPN and the Washington Post.
Theoretically, European customers should be getting fast download speeds from local servers versus pulling from a single server in the United States.
However, yours is the first report I've actually received of a kickass speed. To date, my only data has been that I haven't had one single complaint of download speeds since we made the switch.
I have occasionally noticed slow speeds at some peak hours, but that I attribute to my ISP's traffic. Across the Internet as well, there can be periods of sluggishness, and even the best delivery methods are still affected by this.
Anyways, enjoy your free trial and don't hesitate to hit me up at support@americanvice.com .
Reg
PS: We've got streaming/download of MP4 in the works. We're utilizing a ridiculously high quality encoding parameter and just need to finish up a Flash player that can decode its complexity.
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06-05-09 04:02am
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Reply
14
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American Vice
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Reply of
Tree Rodent's Reply
Download speeds are a complicated issue. You could be 3000 miles apart and get a better download rate than 2 servers 500 miles apart. It depends on the networking and switching in between.
We actually built our own proprietary download system that does a bunch of cool threading.
Regarding the recognition...we obviously love it. Our following is small but devoted. But porn enthusiasts seem to really dig and appreciate what we do, even if it goes right over the heads of most review sites. The praise of guys like you, Clyde, Messmer and Toad really means so much.
I will tell you this much. The review sites think you guys are stupid and will watch/download whatever is mindlessly put in front of you. They see zero value in our commentary. I refuse to accept this and promise to keep up our high standards, as well as topnotch customer service.
Rock on,
Reg
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02-25-09 03:07pm
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Reply
15
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American Vice
(0)
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Reply of
picky's Comment
Welcome to the wonderful world of network latency. Depending on how your ISP connects to our servers, this affects download speed.
It's not necessarily even a UK issue per se. It boils down to any potential inefficiency in the network of interconnects.
There's a command prompt function you can run called tracert.
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02-25-09 01:22pm
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Reply
16
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American Vice
(0)
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Reply of
TrashMan's Comment
Well, sorry it took so long. But your corrections have been made. Not sure about the Natasha Dolling one. I think we got that right, but let me know if you still disagree.
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02-21-09 08:35am
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Reply
17
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American Vice
(0)
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Reply of
TrashMan's Reply
Rock on Trashman!!
Listen, the best place to contact me is thru the Contact Us page. I debated having a corrections button for the actors, but you'd be amazed at what these spam bots can do these days.
Just email me anytime with any and all concerns. You'll usually get a response within minutes, unless it's 4 AM. We've got a new, free sister site coming out soon, and if you shoot me an email, I'll add you to the beta list.
Reg
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01-15-09 05:20pm
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Reply
18
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American Vice
(0)
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Reply of
TrashMan's Comment
1) Hey, we LOVE database corrections. We're fanatical about it. I see your fixes and will implement shortly. In the future, please use the Contact Us form. That way I'm sure get your communication regarding any and all concerns.
2) The porn star sort -- to see all the rankings, you have to select ALL and then filter. Hannah Harper is #1 in our book -- the ranking is based on downloads and our personal criteria.
3) Our main DVD page is: http://www.americanvice.com/dvd.php?op=movies --- we will never be featuring links on the side. We put the movies front and center and don't believe in cluttering the page with unnecessary stuff. That's the philosophy behind the Rebel Search interface, where we compacted 76 meta tags.
4) The tour page is meant for new visitors. If you're logged in an cookied, you won't ever see the tour page again.
5) We allow users to consume a la carte. 3 tokens for a full length movie and 1 token for a scene. Token prices get as low as $.79.
6) I frankly don't see much value in letting the users either rate the content or grafitti with comments. I've seen the comments on other sites, and I think they're pretty worthless -- where a gonzo fan bitches about a lesbian movie or a feature movie. Guy's like Toadsith have said the same thing. Anyway, that's why we put so much effort into reviewing the content with a more even hand.
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01-15-09 04:47pm
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Reply
19
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American Vice
(0)
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Reply of
moonbyrd's Reply
At the risk of spoiling the perception that we're some sort of encoding geniuses...we don't manipulate any file headers, as your suggesting.
We use a professional encoding platform. . .set the output based on a profile (in this case, 640 x 480) and that profile is set to maintain the native resolution of the underlying content. It's actually quite basic. The software handles the square pixel/round pixel conversions.
If you really want to get esoteric, go check out how many websites have not figured out how to consistently display both 16:9 and 4:3 screen caps. I'm sure you've noticed the distortion. Anyway, we actually letterbox all those manually, too. I suppose, eventually, when 16:9 content dominates our library, then we'll have to re-evaluate how we display our screen caps.
Yeah, our commentary can be terribly negative, even vicious. But it's usually well-deserved. And I think it legitimizes the movies/actors that we talk up positively.
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01-15-09 05:46am
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Reply
20
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American Vice
(0)
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Reply of
moonbyrd's Reply
While I'm not trying to get in the middle of a nice, spirited discussion. I will point one thing out that many folks probably aren't aware of.
720 x 480 on a DVD is the same as 640 x 480 on a computer. If you calculate the ratio, actually 640 x 480 is the true 4 x 3. The difference lies in round pixels versus square pixels. Without getting into it, one is a TV ratio and one is a computer monitor ratio, and they are essentially the same.
For 16 x 9 content, we encode using the same 640 x 480 but we preserve the widescreen ratio. Kinda like letterboxing.
Lastly, I agree that our editorial comments are not for everybody. They're crass, low brow, extremely profane but hopefully intellectual and insightful. Anyway, that's why they're stuck underneath at the bottom of the movie display - so you can ignore them if you wish.
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01-15-09 04:37am
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