eHit Reviews

Editor's Star Ratings:

Costs:

A choice of monthly packages:

• 2 DVDs at a time for $14.99, no monthly rental limit
• 4 DVDs at a time for $23.99, no monthly rental limit
• 6 DVDs at a time for $31.99, no monthly rental limit
• 8 DVDs at a time for $39.99, no monthly rental limit

OR Pay-per-rent “Points Rental Plan”:

• 50 points for $50
• 110 points for $100
• 230 points for $200
• 350 points for $300

(DVDs generally cost between 2.75 and 3 points to rent depending on demand, TV series cost 10 points)

Features:

• Specialises in the cinema of the far east
• Free shipping
• Keep DVDs as long as you like (except pay-per-rents)
• No minimum contract
• No late fees (except pay-per-rents)
• Cancel anytime - no extra fee
• 10 day free trial
• Gift certificates available
• Rents out whole TV series in one go
• DVDs also available to buy
• Rewards for referring a friend
• Website is secure
• Website includes many film reviews to help you pick

Editor's Verdict:

EHit specializes in bringing the cinema of the Far East into your home, be it Hong Kong, China (in Mandarin and Cantonese), Japan, Korea or Thailand (be aware you may require a multi-region player to view some foreign discs), and also offers a decent selection of western movies and TV too. Their inventory is always growing in size and scope too. The website, which by the way is also available in Chinese, is well organised and explains the rental options available to you clearly and in some detail. The search engines, designed to help you find out about and choose films you may want to rent, are also very good, the reviews providing a great deal of information as well as opinions and recommendations of similar films you might like.

EHit’s monthly subscription packages offer competitive, but not exceptional, value compared to the top guns in today’s online movie rental dogfight. Having said that, you have to expect to pay more for specialist products you’d otherwise have trouble getting hold of in the US. The suscription service works much like many of the other DVD rental sites listed in this category. First you create a list of DVDs you want to see, then however many DVDs from the top of your list your package allows you to have at once are mailed to you in packs of two. When you're done watching them, you just pop them in the pre-paid return envelope. As soon as they receive your returned DVDs they'll mail you the next batch from your list.

By contrast, EHit’s “Points Plan” is a pay-per-rent service which allows you to rent specific DVDs and pay for them using points purchased in advance (it's worth noting that, unlike many pay-per-rent services, points purchased with EHit never expire until you actually use them). Unlike the monthly subscription service you cannot keep pay-per-rent DVDs for as long as you like – movies are allowed out for 10 days and TV series for 20 days. As is normal with pay-per-rent services, this system represents slightly less bang for your buck than monthly subscription services but offers you greater control over what you watch and when. Obviously, choosing the right package, and provider, for you will be a matter of matching what’s on offer to your own lifestyle and appetite for movies.

Shipments generally take 2-4 days to reach you, not counting holidays, partially depending on how close you are to their depot in Sunnyvale, California. Anecdotally, EHit is sometimes said to be not quite as quick on the draw as most major leaguers in the online rental market. This may be partly because they currently only ship from one location and partly because, whilst they have a decent range of different titles, they may be able to stock less individual copies of them than their larger competitors, which can be a particular problem if your list is full of really popular movies. This process can be sped up by taking advantage of their clever “advance return” system whereby you let them know, via the website, when you mail your current batch of DVDs back to them and they then immediately dispatch the next pair to you without waiting for the returning DVDs to arrive.

So if you yen for for the rich and colourful cinema of Japan, China and Korea, EHit just might be the feast from the East you’ve been looking for.

Click the button below to check out eHit.com for yourself...