Cheap price, mp3 player, decent quality

Skips dics, clunky remote, ugly faceplate

Well, I thought this would be a good deal reading over the more recent posts here. I bought the Apex and James Bond 007: The World Is Not Enough. I hooked it up and started playing a few different DVDs, and all seemed fine. Then I threw in James Bond, and it ran fine until a certain scene transition, where it froze and recovered only to have no audio/video sync and a very blocky picture. I re-ran the scene transition (12-13, for those interested) several times, ejecting the disc, checking for blemishes, etc... and it ran through it fine once, had a small pause once, and completely lost it similar to the originial fashion several times.

Based on that, I'm returning it today.

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Sony DVP-S360

Fixes for Problem Titles!

Loophole menu is G-O-N-E!

*UPDATE* Apex has released newer versions of this player! The most obvious result is that, indeed, the secret "Loopholes" menu is gone. However, the company has fixed previous problems with "The Sixth Sense," "The Abyss," and "Stuart Little." With glitches like these fixed, the player stacks up quite well to other "name" brands that never had a problem with these titles. Add the ability to play mp3's (thankfully that wasn't taken away!), and you've got an extreme value for a player under $200.

One note: There are several versions of the "NL" (Non-Loophole) Apex floating around. As of 5/28/00, Circuit City is selling players with version "N-3" & "N-4." N-3 only fixes "The Sixth Sense" anamorphic switch glitch, while N-4 fixes all of the current glitches. It has been reported that Heartland America is only selling N-4's. Never fear, though, since Apex has promised to replace chips to N-4 if you don't end up with one. Of course, this will remove your Loopholes menu if you still happen to have one.

And, not to give false hope, but there are scattered reports that some Circuit City's are still selling Loophole Apex's, mixed in with the current stock of NL Apex's. I would not plan on finding one.

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Too many to list!

MP3, VCD, Price, "secret menu," split video out

Artifacting, has issues with just about every type of disc, poor hardware, overheats, crashes(!)

OK, as a DVD player the APEX is a pile of crap. I won't mince words with that. Its output of VCDs is grainy and blocky, features nearly no interpolation and has trouble reading well made discs. Several of my music video VCDs don't work at all. It pops. It snaps. My first unit had issues with the remote (!) so that it would occasionally shut itself off, rewing to the beginning or skip a track entirely. This unit tends to overheat, dislike cds over 78 minutes and crash if I ask too much of it.

But let's face it: that's not why I bought it.

The Apex is currently one of three machines that will play mp3 files burnt to CD. It does so wonderfully, so long as the discs are clean. I use it as a jukebox, and as a way to operate 8 hour playlists for parties without having to buy huge, clunky changers or lug one of my PCs out to the drawing room. It plays CDs fairly well, with bits of hiss audible from the analog out but perfect sound from the digital. The coaxial digital out, combined with well made mp3s (archival VBR or better, nothing less than 224 kbit, stereo and not joint stereo) is the best and most flexible truly digital sound available for 2000.

Some companies are developing mp3 boxes that will outperform the APEX. That's fine with me. The thing is a total piece of crap, and was designed to be. You don't pick up cutrate chinese silicon, make a sub-200$ machine out of it and expect the miracle device of the nineties. But the APEX has created a niche, created a desire, and created a cult following that will not be denied (www.nerd-out.com). I certainly don't own three of any other DVD player, or three of anything, but I just had to have an APEX-ad600a for my apartment, my truck and my mom's place. It's the internet audiophile's best friend.

And as for "The Matrix:" if your TV is so good that you can see the artifacts, what the hell are you buying a $150 DVD player for, anyway?!?

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Panasonics, RealMagic, Sonys

Macrovision disable, MP3

Incompatible with a lot of movies,

I bought the Apex from Circuit City for $179. I used it for about a month. Most movies it played well - sharp picture and sound. CD playback was also good.

The problem with the player is that it is compatible with many GOOD DVD movies.

1) The Matrix - It had a lot of artifacting (digital graininess), it locked up a number of times,

2) The Abyss - Picture was good, but kept repeating scenes.

3) The 6th Sense - The letterboxed picture gets stretched to pan and scan. On it's own. For no reason. It's annoying. The "stretch" makes things look out of proportion - like those old spaghetti westerns in the 60's.

I returned the APEX. I would recommend that you avoid it. Too many problems. The only good feature is the Macrovision disabling. And really, how many times are you going to watch a VHS copy of a DVD? - NEVER!

I bought a Toshiba SD 1200. I have had it 2 weeks. It played all of the movies above flawlessly.

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Pioneer 525, Toshiba SD 1200

Karaoke function, component video output

Mediocre construction; MP3 playback, picture quality out of the box

This player has got to be the proverbial red-headed stepchild of the DVD player market. First things first: the good parts. It IS affordable as far as DVD players go and that's saying quite a bit. It has a karaoke function, a plus, which works adequately but could be a bit better if you're going to make it a feature on the player at all. It also has component video output which is a big plus in a player in this price range ($180); most players don't have that unless you're paying $250 and above. These are the good things.

Next: the bad parts. This player is constructed poorly, in my opinion. The picture quality of the player out-of-the-box is nothing compared to other players I have seen uncalibrated and untouched in that way. You have to adjust the settings of this player to suite your television or DVD. The MP3 playback is functionally and definitely no frills, but it can often get hung up during playback, depending on what CD-R media you use and the amount of songs on the disc. The fast forwarding and rewinding turns the pictures on the screen into a mosaic mess. It also got stuck on a few DVDs I tried on it, i.e. Gone with the Wind, Being John Malkovich, The Matrix, Labyrinth, and even Stuart Little.

The player is extremely deficient compared to other players that match or even beat its price. The Oritron DVD200 plays beautifully, has great picture, and good construction (including SECRET MENUS). The Sanyo DWM-360 is such an outsanding player that it should go for double what it costs (there is actually a different model that is similar to the DWM-360 but it comes with component video output and cost about $500 dollars.)

Save your money and get something like the sanyo, Oritron, Zenith, GE, or Samsung, all of which are great values and of excellent quality.

Similar Products Used:

Oritron DVD200, Sanyo DWM-360

Plays DVD VCD CD MP3s on CD-R and CD-RW
Region Free and no Macrovision
Inexpensive with lots of featurs

questionable componet quality

OK - for all the complainers out there in regards to this product - this is a "Hackers" product. If you aren't willing or don't have the ability to work on it yourself then I wouldn't recommend it.
HOWEVER - If you aren't afraid to get into the box then read on:

First- my optical assembly died at 13 months. But unlike other DVD players, this one uses regular DVD drives that you put into your computer. Easy and cheap fix. (And possibly better quality). And the drive fit right in like a glove.

Second- Unit does generate allot of heat, I solved this by placing heat sinks on the ESS chip and the ADV 7071 chip on the main board with a 12 volt cooling fan tied directly into the power connecter to the DVD drive itself. It is a standard computer power adapter. Unit runs exceptionally cool now. (I will be adding a second fan to the unit by drilling a 2" hole in case for optimum airflow)

Third - Loophole menu (in America) is the A8 EPROM. Anything later and the menu is disabled. HOWEVER a new firmware upgrade can be obtained with the region set to 0 and macro vision turned off permanently- latest firmware is N6. Go to this website for MORE information:

http://www.dvd-wizards.com/darrenk/600/600.htm


Fourth - A Custom background image can be placed in EPROM.

Fifth - Unit is a solid MP3 player and works great. (Only lacking in fast scans of the individual MP3s). This unit is also the only unit that I have found with shuffle play and repeat play available while playing MP3s.

I have a modest system and I have a Dolby Digital and a Digital DTS AV receiver and when using the digital bit stream - it opens a WHOLE new door in sound quality for me!!

Overall I would rate this product a MUST have if you plan on playing Dvd from other than region 1 and if you would like to transfer DVD to tape for kids to use in their vcr.

Enjoy - because I know I do.

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Panasonic - GE

Low Price, DD and DTS output, component video output, great sound and picture.

Half baked MP3 support. DVDs with seamless branching have problems.

I bought the AD600A because it was cheap, had the loophole menu to turn off macrovision and region restrictions, plays MP3, and plays CDRs.

I have been very happy with the video quality using composite video to a 27" TV and component video to a
Sony 53" RPTV. There was some strange interaction between the Apex and the Sony KP-53HS10 using S-Video that caused flickering, but I only use the component video now.

It has played every DVD I have given it. Except for scratched rental DVDs it has worked perfectly. I read that it has a problem with seemless branch DVDs like Stuart Little, but you can still play them by using the resume function.

The digital and regular audio sounds great for movies.
It is only OK as a CD player. The audio is a little noisy.

I have not played much with the MP3 capability. It restricts you to 8.3 character names, with no subdirectories and files are ordered alphabetically.

The remote is a little odd. It has two play buttons, and I still use the wrong one sometimes. The power button on the remote leaves most of the electronics running, generating heat end electrical interference. Normally, you have to use the power switch on the unit to really turn it off.

The Apex generates a lot of RF interference. When I had it above my VCR, it would wreck the VCR's reception.

The zoom function does not work as I would like. I'd like to be able to make some of the extreme widescreen movies a
little bigger. Instead, it does a 2x or 4x zoom, and it can leave the zoomed image cut off on the top and bottom
even when there is unused space on the screen.

It works much better than I expected for such a low price.

Ability to play different DVD, VCD, CD's

If you want to freeze a frame, back up run it and do this several times in rapid succession (I thought I caught an error that the Director of the movie missed) you can "lock up" the unit and the remote will not work. It didn't harm my unit, I just pressed stop on the front panel and went back to the scene to resume play. I just didn't expect it to stop responding.

I think this is a terific machine for the price. I have a 36" set, surround sound system and I one of the movies I watched was the Matrix in wide screen format (black bars top and bottom). Movies are sharp, the colors are strong, even when viewing a movie in wide screen, the bars were black with no "noise" that I could see on the screen, which I have seen on video taped movies.

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None

MP3, CD-Rs, VCDs,, PRICE. Did I mention it plays Mp3s.

No more LH, overheat.

For $180 this thing is a definate buy. If you have tons of Mp3s and VCDs then this player will play your CD-R's. What more could you want. I would pay 180 for a CD player that could do that. But this also playes DVDs, and the sound is good too. As for picture I havent seen any problems, and compared to my parents DVD player which was twice as much, the picture seems the same, and the fast forward and rewind are much smoother. The only problem I have is that the player overheats faster than other devices, after a few hours of watching movies in a hot room, the player acts kinds funny, so store it in a cool place.
If you are computer literate and are able to make Cds burned with MP3s, and make VCDs, then BUY this player.

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Philips and JVC DVD players dont remember the model #s.

Supposed to read everything.....DVDs, MP3, CDs....
DD Decoder

Didn't read what I really wanted it to, DVDs!!

Basically, it was a total disapointment. I ran out and bought 4 DVDs the day that I got it, and it skipped and/or froze on 3 out of 4. I took the unit back the next day - don't waste your time....there is a reason why Apex is so cheap. Don't let anyone talk you into buying an Apex.