One of America's most favorite ways to spend an intimate evening with a loved one is at home, watching a favorite romantic movie on home video, according to video rental data tracked by the Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA), the international trade Association representing the home video entertainment industry. According to VSDA's VidTrac program -- the video industry's most accurate video rental retrieval system, based on actual rental transactions -- the rental of romantic movies on Valentine's Day and the surrounding week are significantly higher than normal. To prove this consumer behavior, VSDA looked at video rental data from February of 2001 and noticed significant rental increases on ``romantic titles'' the week of Valentine's Day, including those movies that were considered older catalog titles and generally were experiencing declining demand.

For example, the classic comedy-romance movie starring Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, ``When Harry Met Sally,'' and ``Pretty Woman'' both gained 46% more in rental revenues the week of the Valentine's Day holiday as compared to the previous week. Also, rental revenues were up 41% for ``The Wedding Singer,'' 35% for ``You've Got Mail'' and 16% for the Richard Gere and Julia Roberts ``Runaway Bride'' romance.