Overview:
X is a very important letter. Without X there'd be no Mulder & Scully; nobody for Wolverine to hang out with; no way for pirates to find buried treasure; xylophones would be called ylophones, prompting thousands of would be xylophonists to wonder "y bother?" Without the letter X there'd be no way to categorize the so-called “grunge generation”; there'd be two punk rock bands, one from Australia and the other from Los Angeles, left looking to other individual letters for a name. Most importantly, though, without the letter X, pornographic movies couldn't go by their familiar rating of XXX. X Movies, a porn DVD download site, would be one of the hundreds of adult websites to suffer if the letter X suddenly ceased existing. Hosting an incredible archive of more than 3000 DVDs – that’s 14040-odd GB of porn – X Movies is already in a fairly stately position within the combative, competitive world of online porn distribution. Sure, the good folks behind X are competing with some of the greatest porn sites ever to grace a computer screen, but X Movies isn't exactly backing down from the challenge. How do they fare? Oh gee! I guess you'll have to - I dunno - read the review to find out!

X Movies’ tour page claims that you’re looking at “the most comprehensive downloadable adult video site available on the Internet today”. A bold statement under any circumstance, but when your main competition comes from critically lauded sites like Video Box, VideosZ, DVD Box, and American Vice, you’ve really got to prove your worth. X Movies hopes that their huge downloadable archive, while not the biggest on the ‘net, will prove enough to satisfy their pussy-hungry members who have handed over almost $30 for a month’s worth of unlimited access. If not, these same home viewers aren’t short of other options. Can X Movies do it? Let’s find out!

Once you've signed in to X Movies, you'll see a ton of DVD cover images spread out on the main members' page, just begging to be plucked from the archives and transferred to your waiting hard drive. You'll surely notice a number of popular pornstars like Gianna Michaels, Eve Lawrence and Audrey Hollander adorning the covers of DVDs from studios like Cutting Edge, Notorious and Elegant Angel. Like most DVD download sites, X Movies' content covers a huge array of sexual styles and pornographic genres, with everything from anal, group and lesbian sex to more specific fields like deep throat, P.O.V. and squirting movies. Hell, there are even a bunch of shemale flicks if you want 'em! (I’m not here to judge you, man.) Finding the exact kind of content that you desire can often be quite a pain on a network such as this. Thankfully, that's not the case here. A top-of-the-page menu bar links you to listings of the Most Downloaded and Top Rated scenes as well as New Releases. There's also a Random DVD link for those of you that simply can't make up your mind or don't know where to start. A selectable listing of the various fucking categories sits on the left side of the page, above a keyword search and drop-down text menus for Studios, Series' and Pornstars. If these options aren't enough to help you find what you're after, surely nothing is.

Everything is clearly presented on a page and you should have a pretty good idea about a DVD title before you actually select it. Like all titles hosted here at X Movies, Destination Tonsils 2 (this month’s most downloaded title), is previewed by a DVD cover image, title, five-star rating, the number of downloads, release date, and a link to more details. Once you've found your desired fuck flick, give it a click to visit that title's page. There you'll find such info as the studio behind the production, a full list of all performers, appropriate category classifications, the movies runtime and a description of the kind of activity you'll find inside. Beneath this info table is, of course, the meat in the porno sandwich: the scenes of debauchery you've come to expect. Each one is listed with two huge preview images, the first of which can often be clicked to play a trailer for the scene, and four smaller shots detailing more of the action. A runtime is given, as is the total number of downloads this scene has hit. There is also an Add to Favorites option that allows you to add any scene to a list of your preferred movies so you don't have to go through the rigmarole of finding it all over again at a later date.

Video can not only be downloaded but streamed, too. There are two streaming options, both in WMV format, that give members the choice of either High/800Kbps or Low/300Kbps streams. Both look quite nice but I'm sure nobody will argue that they're as attractive as the downloads. Having a decent number of video download options always boosts customer satisfaction on a site like this and X Movies does pretty well in this department. The highest quality video currently available is a 720x480 resolution WMV file with a bitrate of 2500Kbps that, not too surprisingly, looks very nice thanks to its strong color palette and high clarity. The other video options available to you are a 480x360 pixel MPEG file and an iPod-ready MP4 with a 320x240 pixel resolution. While the MPEG and MP4 both look pretty good, they can't compete with the WMV, so I suggest sticking with that video for most of your downloads. Due to the nature of X Movies and content coming from a variety of sources, quality can be somewhat inconsistent. You’ll often find entire titles that have a faded or washed-out look to them as a result of either age or low quality equipment. There are probably fewer great looking titles than there are weak ones, but even those that don’t look stunning are still clear enough to, as Larry the Cable Guy would say, “git ‘r done”!

As previously mentioned, the range of sexual acts that's covered by X Movies is quite diverse. You’ll find everything from the softest, most gentle lovemaking to the raunchiest, roughest, hardest hardcore fucking you could want. Staying away from the extreme niches, X Movies is still a decidedly mainstream porn site, but there’s enough variety here that it doesn’t get bland and repetitive. The web design and navigational components of the site are very good and make for easy browsing. It'd be nice to see a new model index, fleshed-out with images and profile pages, but what's currently online (a drop-down text menu) is adequate. Monthly membership to X Movies is a usually a bit more expensive than the other top DVD download sites, but Mr. Pink has secured his faithful followers a deal that cuts $12 off the asking price and means you’ll only pay $17.95 if you sign up through the links in this very review. Not only that, but I’ve even put together some pros and cons to make your decision even easier. Do I look after my fellas or what?

Pros:
- Tons of great DVD titles starring pornstars big and small, from studios both budding and well established.

- The site design is very lean and clean with very good search and browse tools.

- The provided video options should be enough for all but the most demanding users.

- Updates arrive every single day! Awesome!

Cons:
- The content is, of course, non-exclusive; you may have already seen many of these titles on other sites of a similar nature.

- Unfortunately you can't search for multiple categories at the same time - e.g. anal and cumshot.

- The downloads weren't exactly racing to get onto my hard drive. The servers aren’t exactly slow, but could definitely use a boost.

- There are a couple of other DVD download sites that manage to provide an almost identical service for a slightly lower cost.

Conclusion:
X Movies finds itself in something of a tight spot; there seems to be only a few things that the webmasters could do to improve the site – better model index, some HD content, faster servers – but overall, they’re in a very good position, as is. With X Movies’ main competition coming from the incredible VideoBox and VideosZ, I don’t envy the task that lies ahead of the designers and administrators – figuring out exactly how to increase the enjoyability of an already fantastic site while lowering membership fees even further. If they can manage, these supernerds, X Movies will be a serious contender for the title of Best Adult DVD Download Site at whatever presumably fictional Internet awards ceremony would give away such a prize. Me? I’ll be there, cheering from the media pit, camera in hand, trying to catch a glimpse of Belladonna’s panties. Ironic, isn’t it?