Apex 500

[matt88]

Ok Im thinking about getting this player, an I have read the comments about this player, and now i dont know if I should get it. Can anyone give me a comment on this one. Not the 500A 500B or any of the other ones just the 500.
thanks

[ilc]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-10-05 22:47:55, matt88 wrote:
Ok Im thinking about getting this player, an I have read the comments about this player, and now i dont know if I should get it. Can anyone give me a comment on this one. Not the 500A 500B or any of the other ones just the 500.
thanks
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Is disabling Macrovision and making the player region-free a priority?

[matt88]

Disabeling macrovision, and being able to play svcds ,a vcds, I need to to beable to do.

[brodieman]

i find apex players to be pretty good. i dont have that model but i have the 660-AD. my friend's dvd player couldn't play the vcds he made. but they could play on mine. it must have been the cd-r's he used. apex is compatible with a lot of the cd-r's. all the successfully made vcds i made work.

[ilc]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-10-06 00:26:27, matt88 wrote:
Disabeling macrovision, and being able to play svcds ,a vcds, I need to to beable to do.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

OK...

There is one risk in getting a 500: you don't know, until you've opened the box, whether you have the version that can be hacked to disable Macrovision. (There are at least 2 different versions floating around).

If the player looks like the one pictured at:

http://www.qvc.com/img/E/34/E28534.jpg

...it *cannot* be hacked.

If the player looks like the one pictured at:

http://www.apexdigitalinc.com/images/products/1.jpg

...it *can* be hacked (probably).

Instead of dealing with this uncertainty, I would consider the Apex 660 instead. There are multiple versions floating around, but you can disable Macrovision on all of them -- some versions require you to open up the player and replace a chip (the cost of a new chip is about $15-$20) while others allow you to disable Macrovision by burning an altered version of the player's firmware to a CD-R/CD-RW and play the disc in the player.

For either the 500 or 660, the players will accept VCD and SVCD. But I used to own a 500, and I noticed that there was too much contrast in the picture when playing back VCDs (my homemade VCDs anyway.) I've never tested VCD playback on a 660, but I haven't heard any reports of contrast problems.