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| Content Quantity: |
18/20 |
Content Quality: |
19/20 |
Updates: |
7/10 |
| Entertainment: |
15/15 |
Navigation & Design: |
10/10 |
Download: |
4/5 |
| Value for Money: |
15/15 |
Reviewer's Tilt: |
4/5 |
Total: |
92/100 |
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Site info help
Site info updated September 6 2010
| Pictures: |
1,631 photosets (approx. 50-150 per set)
(3,554 photosets across all three network sites)
900 px resolution |
| Video: |
351 DVDs/2,578 scenes
(858 DVDs/5,764 scenes across all three network sites)
Windows Media (wmv), MP4, Xvid (avi) and Streaming Flash/MP4 available
Highest quality: MP4 1920x1080, 8000 kbit
No DRM protection |
| Pricing: |
1 month recurring: $29.95
3 months recurring: $59.95
6 months recurring: $99.95 |
| Bonus: |
ZTOD membership includes full access to two other one studio sites (direct site links), 3rd Movies and Black Ice Pass (details in my 2nd Look and updates below) |
September 6 2010
ZTOD, 3rd Movies and Black Ice Pass remain my favourite 3x one-studio package deal, with particularly Zero Tolerance and 3rd Degree Films still delivering lots of mostly great hardcore movies with both well known pornstars and newcomers. The total number of downloadable DVDs across the three sites is now up to 858 - or 5,764 scenes, and updates are still regular with a new DVD added to each site roughly every 7-10 days (though Black Ice Pass sometimes a bit more irregular).
Since all new releases have been with HD options for almost two years now, plus HD releases of some older movies, you'll now be able to download over 40% of the total number of movies/scenes across the three sites in 1080p or 720p HD. Still quite unusual for DVD donwload sites that are mostly limited to DVD resolution.
Update, May 9 2009
The third and final site in the network, Black Ice Pass, has now received the same design makeover and HD upgrade (on recent titles) as the other two sites - along with new movies, updates on that site had otherwise been absent for several months.
Black Ice Pass has 30 HD DVDs (or Blu-ray rips or whatever you want to call them) at the time of writing, while ZTOD is up to 70 and Third Movies isn't far behind with 62 of its 227 DVDs available in 1080p HD.
Update, March 16 2009
Just a quick note to say that aside from a few new HD titles at ZTOD and 3rd Movies since my previous update, some of the older titles have now been made available in HD versions as well.
The total number of HD DVDs (or converted Blu-ray titles I guess, if we have to use the correct terminology, the actual HD DVD format lost the war to Blu-ray a year ago after all) is now 52 at ZTOD (up from 28 in January) and 42 at 3rd Movies (previously only 11).
Update, January 13 2009
I actually updated the numbers in the info box above just a month ago, but several things have happened at ZTOD in that short time.
First - after a bit of a slump in the update pace in the second half of 2008, almost 20 new DVDs (around 130 scenes) and 40 photosets have been added at ZTOD in that month (as always it has to be taken into account that this is a one studio site, so it's obviously never going to match the extreme, several DVDs a day pace at the very large DVD download sites).
Second - all these new DVDs, and a few older ones (28 DVDs in total), are available in both 720p, 4000 kbit and 1080p, 8000 kbit HD versions, in addition of course to the various lower quality versions.
Streaming Flash is also an option now, as it's been on the other two network sites all along, and if you have the bandwidth for it you can actually watch 720p streams (that's in MP4 H.264 format in QuickTime rather than Flash though).
Third - the site design has gotten a pretty major overhaul, although since the browsing and search features were already great, this was probably mainly done for cosmetic reasons and to be able to fit the high res streaming videos into the site format.
I've added two points to the quality score, and if we were just looking at the new HD videos alone it would obviously have been three for a perfect 20/20. I considered whether I should only have added one - only 28 DVDs out of 620 in the network are in HD after all - but in fact the lower quality non-HD versions have also for quite a while, been better than they were when I did the original review back in 2006.
Additional update, January 25: Just this little note to say that 3rd Movies has now received the same design makeover, and has gotten a few (11 so far) titles in HD as well.
Update, April 28 2008
I just rejoined ZTOD last night for the first time since last year, spurred on by a particular brand new DVD that caught my attention, and which I promptly reviewed to a 100/100 score - Interactive Sex with Bree Olson (and while we're talking about near perfect point of view movies, they have two other DVDs in that series, starring Jenna Haze and Courtney Cummz respectively - and half an hour ago I additionally came across Total Interactive Control of Sasha Grey on one of the other now two included sites, 3rd Movies. I've watched one scene, and I'm downloading the rest as I'm writing this).
A couple of other things have happened since my last update nearly a year ago.
First, you'll now find a full DVD resolution, ~3000 kbit version of all videos, including the oldest content at ZTOD (on my last visit only the recent additions were available in this quality).
Second, a new third one studio site was added a few months ago, which means we're really talking about a small network now.
I don't personally think the new studio, Black Ice, is anywhere near as interesting as Zero Tolerance and 3rd Degree Films, but if you're into black girls - plus some interracial hardcore action with a number of white pornbabes (more my thing), you'll likely enjoy this new addition.
What's often disappointing me with regards to black girls in porn, is that too often they are frankly not particularly good looking. Unlike the wealth of gorgeous Caucasian, Latin and Asian chicks in the adult business, it looks like most of the pretty black girls opt for less controversial career choices - which is obviously a bit of shame for us porn fans. I'm certainly not saying they aren't here at all, including at Black Ice Pass, but you definately seem to have to dig around a bit more in order to find them.
Across the three sites there are now a total of 523 DVDs. Quite a bit short of the several thousand at some of the multi-studio DVD download sites, but as I think I said in my original text below, also a lot less lackluster crap to sort through as we're only talking about quality studios here - all three of them, whether you care for the latest addition or not.
Update, May 31 2007:
I just rejoined ZTOD ten minutes ago and I can confirm that no matter which of the two sites you join, ZTOD or 3rd Movies, you will get full access to the other one as well, even though that's still only mentioned on the 3rd Movies site.
I was also pleasantly surprised to see that it looks like all of the scenes at 3rd Movies as well as the latest few DVDs at ZTOD are now available in a much higher quality - full DVD resolution at 720x480/540 (widescreen/regular 4:3 format, depending on the movie), 3000 kbit. And if those 400-700+ Mb files are a bit too much to handle for you Internet connection (those downloads are probably going to push my patience a little now and then), there are obviously still several lower quality options available as well, both as downloads and streams.
2nd look, May 19 2007:
A few thing have happened at ZTOD since my original review back in October.
First of all the DVD collection has grown from 161 to 194. Yep, it doesn't sound like much compared to the five new DVDs you get every day at VideoBox or the one to three most of the other DVD download sites add, but keep in mind that ZTOD is a one studio site, and pretty much every single release is great or better, unlike some of the... well, less fortunate additions you often have to sort through at the other multi studio sites.
The second important thing is the removal of DRM protection from all videos at ZTOD, just like they did with their other site VideosZ a few months ago. It certainly is nice to be able to keep and play the videos you downloaded even after your membership may have expired - and you also avoid that annoying login prompt from Windows Media Player every time you play a video.
Third and final thing I'm going to mention is that last month the guys behind ZTOD and VideosZ released a new one studio site, 3rd Movies, with currently 127 DVDs and 406 photo galleries from 3rd Degree Films, a studio that's right up there with Zero Tolerance when it comes to highly entertaining hardcore porn with a long list of popular pornstars. I probably won't be doing a review of 3rd Movies, but here's a link to the site.
The next thing is important. If you join 3rd Movies you also get full access to ZTOD, but nowhere on the ZTOD site does it say if it also works the other way around. I guess there's a good chance that it does and that the site just hasn't been updated to reflect this (they have had a month to do it though), but there's obviously little point in taking any chances, so I highly recommend you follow the link to 3rd Movies when and if you want a membership.
No changes to ZTOD scores as none of the otherwise quite impressive changes listed above are significant enough to have an impact on any of the scores. It's a highly competitive review category afterall.
Original review:
Pros
+ The guys behind one of the best and most popular DVD megasites, VideosZ, is here with another very similar project. Where Zero Tolerance on Demand differs from VideosZ and its competitors is the choice to base the site around just a single porn studio, and there are definately worse choices they could have made than Zero Tolerance.
This is no-nonsense hardcore porn at it's very best. High quality productions, a long list of popular pornstars, often in sexy outfits, and no shortage on anal, DPs, orgies and other good stuff.
Go and check out the movie archives yourself if you want a better idea of what makes Zero Tolerance one of the, in my own humble opinion anyway, hottest porn studios right now. Like the other sites of this kind everything at ZTOD is open to browse through for guest visitors
+ 161 downloadable DVDs is a pretty neat collection considering we're only talking about one studio (I've taken this into account in the quantity score and not compared it directly to the multi studio mega sites)
+ Real photo galleries (not video stills), quite a rarity on this kind of site (never seen it before actually).
Zero Tolerance apparantly do a photo session whenever they shoot a new video, and the result is usually pretty damn good and highly professional. The first ten to twenty pics in a set is just the girl or girls posing for the camera and generally looking hot, the rest are similar to the hardcore action in the video scene.
There's no less than 729 photosets on the site at the time of writing, one for each scene I would imagine (fits with the DVD number as there are typically four or five scenes on each).
Aside from viewing them online you can also download the full sets in zip files
+ Is it worth it? Can't you find most of these Zero Tolerance movies at VideosZ, VideoBox and Adult Movie Club anyway?
Nope. VideosZ currently has 13 and VideoBox 16. Not sure about Adult Movie Club as they don't show studios and I didn't want to wade through the entire archive, but I guess it's probably below 20 as well.
The only other well stocked Zero Tolerance online source would be AEBN with 159 movies, but that's pay per view and is gonna end up costing you a whole lot more than $29.95 if you want to watch more than a handful of DVDs
+ Great site design and very powerful search and navigation features, and there are "my DVDs", "my gallery" and "my picture" collections as well to keep track of your favourites.
They've basically recycled the interface from VideosZ (which received a slight overhaul a few months ago), added some different graphical elements and made a few improvements. Smart move
+ Pretty decent video quality, although not nearly a match for the DVD video resolution (720x480) at Adult Movie Club and VideoBox (if you choose their recently introduced VIP membership). The 2200 kbit highest quality option ensures a nice and sharp image, which remains more or less so even when viewing the videos in fullscreen mode, but I definately wouldn't have minded at resolution boost to at least 640x480 (the files are already pretty large for the highest of the three qualities though, as many of the scenes are quite long, so I guess in all honestly I probably wouldn't have had the patience to download a higher resolution version on my modest 1 Mbit connection).
I've given ZTOD one point less in quality than I gave VideosZ ten month ago. The quality is the same, but technology is moving on
Cons
- Just like at VideosZ all the videos are DRM protected so you'll need an active membership to watch them. I guess it's more understandable here at Zero Tolerance on Demand as they have so many movies from a single studio. I imagine there might be some potential lost revenue for Zero Tolerance if people can download and keep a major part of their movie catelogue rather than buy the regular DVDs, which probably isn't quite as big a deal at VideosZ where only a limited selection is available from most studioes (so why don't you go ahead and remove it VideosZ? Your competitors don't use DRM)
- No quick "one DVD a day" update schedule here, but that's hardly a surprise when all the movies are from just one studio. Expect a new DVD roughly every one to three weeks, fortunately closer to the former rather than the latter most of the time (so far anyway), and sometimes you only have to wait three or four days
(Member area screenshots)
Click here to visit Zero Tolerance on Demand
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95+ Excellent
85-94 Very Good
75-84 Good
65-74 Acceptable
-64 Don't Bother
Full rating info here
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