Warm Deal..APEX DVD player for $200

[Fireman]

I found this at Andy's Garage.
APEX DVD Player
Not sure if this is the one with the hidden menu but is said this in the description:
"When Gertie and I saw how many high-tech features were packed into this one unit, we were simply amazed. You will be too! In fact, there's so many fancy features, you may discover new ones we haven't even mentioned."
This is my first Hot Deal Post so go easy.

 

[lotust]

sorry fireman. BUt I have to flame this APEX DVD player. I had it and returned it right away. I have seen a better picture from a software decoder. + it has no S vhs out. and no optical out.

The picture was real bad. And I do mean real bad. Citcuit city sells them for 180$ everyday.


Sorry fireman I did not mean to flame you.. I just want to warn people about this POS. I an useing Hollywood Plus DVD decoder and it kicks @ss. I love this thing. I use the S vhs cable to my tv and the digital out.

EDIT: the mp3 playback sucked too. It was always skipping.

 

[zoiks]

Actually my landlord has 2 of em. He bought one and liked it so much he bought another one for his bedroom. BTW they were on sale for $149 at circuit city.

 

[Knightshade]

You obviously got a bad unit... I've had my Apex for almost a year and it's FANTASTIC... I certainly didn't notice if it had S-Video connectors since I'm using the significantly superior component outputs to connect to my TV... DVDs look fantastic, it plays VCDs (even on CD-Rs) wonderfully, and no problems with music/mp3 playback either.... not to mention the terrific hidden features like disable of macrovision and region-free DVD play... There was one batch of them that had overheating problems, maybe you got stuck with one of those...

 

[Fireman]

Sorry fellas. The reason I posted this was I thought it might be the one with the hidden menu everyone was raving about. Their text hinted that way.

 

[Fireman]

Lotust: It didn't mention optical output but id did list S-VHS.
"S-Video output -- Two shielded video lines for optimal quality hook-up to S-video type TV input"
Just lettin ya know.

 

[lotust]

Fireman
thanks fireman. I just hated that thing . I am just glad I was able to return it.

 

[Eug]

I own one and I agree. By DVD standards it's a POS. The video quality is worse than normal, and it has very buggy firmware. Lots of discs screw up on that machine. In fact, I have another DVD player for DVD.

However, I figured the Apex was going to be a POS for DVD before I bought it. I bought it because it's an MP3 player and it had the hidden menu for the rare discs I might need it for. Did you know this thing does PAL --> NTSC conversion on the fly? That's something that alone would probably cost several hundred bux. (Granted, I don't use it, because I don't have any PAL discs of my own.)

And, it's an EXCELLENT MP3 player. Sounds is superb. If your discs were skipping then you either had a bad unit, or your discs weren't burnt properly or with the right media. (The Apex can be a bit picky about media.)

By the way, the Apex player makes for a good 6X DVD-ROM drive and it does great digital audio extraction. I disassembled and installed the thing on my PC just for fun and it worked great. Oh, and it does have the world's worst heatsink on the CPU inside - consequently overheating is an issue with some people's players. However, you can compensate for that by putting a cheap small fan on I'd guess, since the power supply uses standard 4-plug connectors.

 

[lotust]

Eug
I would have kept mine if the picture quality was better. I did like the MP3 playback, I will wait untill more MP3 player units come out though. There should be some maker following in APEX's footsteps.

 

[counseLor]

DO not buy these units with the assumption that they have the secret menu
THEY DONT HAVE THE MENU> I ORERED SOME AND WAS ABLE TO RETURN THEM BECAUSE OF THAT>

 

[WDK]

APEX DVD player is good up till the point where they start to fail... Mine died 2 days before it's warranty was up and I lost my secret menu. And, because I am so shoddy with a soldering iron, I have not been willing to "update" my player with an EEPROM chip that has the secret menu. Go get the Raite...

 

[GetInMyFatBelly]

Add a fan? There are no vents on the thing, great design. Turn it in to one of those old Jet Stream ovens for your chips and discs. I have one and it only plays about 60% without problem, and there are some that won't play at all. The picture quality is great for the price, if you don't believe me, read the reviews on the net by professionals, they love it. If your thinking about getting one of these, you might want to check out this place I've found:
http://www.inc-tech.com/

 

[lotust]

I think that there are a lot more players that have a much better picture for the price. But none that hame MP3 playback. But that will all change soon. I would think any way.

 

[Eug]

"Add a fan? There are no vents on the thing, great design."

True, but I don't think it would matter as much as you think. The thing gets warm, but the CPU is MUCH hotter and essentially has no way of getting rid of heat. Maybe just a better heatsink would be better. (The "heatsink" is just a piece of thin metal touching the CPU, and covering the other components. Actually, on mine, I think it was just 1 mm OVER the CPU and not even touching it. )

In terms of the picture quality, to be quite frank I'm convinced that these so-called professionals are either confused or else have requirements which are different than the rest of us mere mortals. The video in certain situations is just terrible with the Apex. For example, in Contact if you look at Jodie Foster's black sweater it has a nice shading on my RCA. On my Apex she was weird patches of green jumping around the sweater. Bizarre. I've been told that the reason for this is the filtering method on the RCA, which is lacking on the Apex. While this may be good for their complex systems, I'd rather much rather it look good on my 27" TV. So, in real life, the Apex IS significantly worse from that aspect. More importantly, however, is the bazillion discs this player has problems with. It's a nightmare. Furthermore, the colour balance of my Apex is different from my other video sources. If I calibrate my TV for my RCA, broadcast TV looks fine. If I calibrate the TV for the Apex, the colours are way off. Again this is not as much of an issue for high end systems with multiple memory presets for the settings, but it's still a pain for me. If you say it's a bad unit, then well, it's true, the quality of these things just suck. All of the benefits of this player are in the context of POS workmanship and compatibility, so it's the last thing any high-end person would want.

However, I'm not being biased, as I own the thing, and still love having it, for the reasons I mentioned in the previous post.

But for those of you are thinking about this:

If you want MP3, get this.
If you want standard DVDs, this is waste of effort.
If you want foreign DVDs, esp. in alternate formats, this thing is a great buy, but ONLY if you are SURE it's one with the menu.

 

[Kwad Guy]

I have an Apex with the secret menu, etc.

Pros: Able to disable Macrovision, plays discs from all regions,
does NSTC<->PAL conversions, plays MP3s

Cons: Lots of bugs in DVD navigation; some discs are almost
impossible to get playing; overheating tendencies/problems;
creates terrible interference when on; ergonomically the
worst remote I've ever used; mediocre picture quality.

I keep it in my system for the quite important Macrovision
defeat feature (perfect for recording movies that I rent but
don't have time to watch before they're due). If it weren't for that
I'd have already fleabay'd it.

Kwad

 

[GetInMyFatBelly]

I don't have a high quality TV to be able to tell about the picture quality, maybe when I can get my hands on one of those new Sony Wega XBR2 32&quot; 400 models, those are sweet. Well, it's not worth it for me to keep it, I've got mine on eb@y for $230, it has the loophole and I don't use it enough to live with it's faults. Anyone have the new 3 disc Apex, how does this one compare in picture quality, I know you won't find any loophole menu in the newer units. Anybody have one of the Infinity units, it seems to have it all, except it doesn't mention if you can disable the macrovision? A friend of mine just got the Pioneer 434 with progressive scanning for his HDTV, damm that picture is incredable, I would definitely recommend this Pioneer if your looking for the best picture for the money, in my opinion - $350 at Fry's.

 

[android]

I've been quite happy with my Apex. It doesn't overheat, and the picture quality is great!!! And I can record movies. The only downside is that some of them emit huge amounts of RF, screwing up TV reception for quite a ways. But I don't leave mine turned on, and since I can't watch a DVD and TV at the same time it is not a big problem. MP3 playback is excellent!!

Maybe I'm not picky enough...

 

[RobsTV]

I too had this Apex for a couple days. Royal P.O.S.
Now I am the proud owner of a Raites 715.
Video playback is great, and video service is my business.
This thing does everything the Apex does plus a lot more.
MP3's,DVD,VCD,SCVD,CDR,CDRW, you name it, it runs it.

My collection of DVD's is approaching 200, and I never had one that wouldn't run correctly on it yet. It is also easy to change the firmware to any version. Simply write the 2 needed firmware files to a CDRW, pop it in the Raite, and it automatically changes to that firmware. There was also a Bios upgrade that you could do by temporarily putting the drive in your PC, and upgrading just like you would a PC's CD-Rom's bios. Either way, if some change was desired, the Raite company quickly made a method that consumers could use to upgrade or change there unit. Excellent support.

You can play PAL, NTSC, and any region DVD, as well as disable macrovision. It includes optical output. Also allows for long filenames when you burn MP3's. I can play 177 MP3's on an 80 minute CDR, and the long filenames allow the song titles to be displayed on the TV screen while song is playing. You can also add your own images to any MP3, and those will be displayed while the song plays. For MP3 playback features, the Raite devores the Apex.

Priced at around $150, (search)
Heck, it is tough to find a stand alone MP3 player that plays CDR for that kind of money.

I, and many others did have a common problem that may be fixed with newer releases. The units display would fail. While this in no way affected how it worked, and the on screen display still functioned correctly, it was annoying. After using the player like this for months, just yesterday I finally opened it up. Turns out 2 transistors on the power supply were not rated high enough. Changed them to ECG 289A, which cost about $0.39 each, and problem solved for less than a dollar.

 

[Knightshade]

I dunno what you people are doing wrong... but I've had my Apex for quite a while and I've never found a DVD it won't play...(among the 60 or 70 I own and another dozen or two I've rented). I've got a fairly high end 32&quot; TV and haven't seen any problems with picture quality either. Then again I spent the bucks on a good set of component video cable... maybe that's why everyone seems to think it sucks, they're running it over composite or something? No overheating issues, and I've had it on for days at a time, or when I've played 2 or 3 movies back to back...

 

[lotust]

Knightshade
Nope I have gold cables and all. I still did not like it at all.


mabe it is the model# on the things. Or the firmware. Who knows.