Has anyone bought a portable Apex?

[kitty]

Has anyone purchased the new portable Apex players - PD-50, PD-100, PD-150?? walmart.com had them, Circuit City has them - would like to know compatability.

I'm temped to take my test VCD & SVCD to the store.

[cruffino69]

I just received my PD-50 yesterday and played around with it last night. It's a decent machine for $200. Here are a few of my observations (qualify these with the fact that this is the first portable DVD I've messed with):

* The Apex site states that it plays SVCD's, which I assumed that means it also plays VCD's. Either that assumption is wrong or the Apex site is wrong. I tried a VCD and XVCD (but not an SVCD) with no luck (it wouldn't recognize the disc). The manual doesn't mention SVCD (or VCD for that matter) as a format it supports. I'll be making a call to Apex when the west coast wakes up.

* The screen leaves something to be desired, but then again, this is a $200 unit; you get what you pay for. The "color" adjustment is a joke, as it doesn't provide much control at all.

* The unit is heavy when you have the battery attached. The manual states that it'll last for about 3 hours. I'm not sure I'd want to lug this thing onto a plane for the enjoyment of one movie.

* It gets rather warm, I think a little too warm. I left the unit plugged in overnight to charge the battery (you can charge the battery separately as well). This morning when I tried to play a normal CD, the screen wouldn't stabilize (like the horizontal hold was messed up). I unplugged it and let it cool down for about 30 minutes and it played fine after that. Furthermore, it was making a rather loud whining noise which also disappeared after I let it cool down.

* The remote is reasonable to use (it measures 2"x3.75"x.25"), but you must aim it directly at the unit.

* The sound from the built in speakers is about what you'd expect.

* The video viewed on a TV is very nice, though this is not a critical (nor thorough review).

* When I tried to play a few audio CD's that were recorded on CD-R and CD-RW media, they were recognized but played poorly (the unit skipped around a bit). This is disappointing, because if this implies the unit has poor tracking capabilities on these media, playing VCD's (if that's actually possible) may be troublesome.

I hope this helps anyone who's thinking of getting one. I'd also like to see what other folks have experienced too.

[cruffino69]

UPDATE:

I got through to Apex and they informed me that, indeed, the manual is correct. This unit does not support the VCD or SVCD formats. Bummer.

[kitty]

The PD-100 does play SVCD
http://forum.vcdhelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=96303&highlight=pd100

[cruffino69]

Kitty, thanks for the info on the PD-100. These are probably the same units with exception to the display. I tried the SVCD sample from this site burned with Nero on CompUSA media (I have no idea who makes it for them) using an HP 9100. I actually tried it twice, once burned at 4x once at 1x and it was jumpy at best in both instances, though the 1x did perform better (neither was acceptable). I then tried Memorex and HP CD-RW media and BASF CD-R media, all did much better (again burned at 1x). However, in all these last three cases there was a hiccup at the beginning of the Aliens scene. I'm going to blame that on either Nero or my burner.

This makes me happier since I can supposedly capture SVCD with my Radeon. The unit is to keep my son occupied on long car trips and we have lots of tapes I can put on SVCD's.