Apex DVD Playback

[Shannafey]

Apex players seem like a dream come true. They play all formats, all types of discs, have mp3 capability and are region free, but all I keep hearing about, is the fact that it's a horrible DVD player. What does this mean? What makes it so bad? I was thinking of putting one in my bedroom, since they are under $100, as my second DVD Player. Can anyone elaborate on the problems with DVD Playback? Thanks.

[sracer]

As far as I can tell, there are just a few of us who are pointing out the downside of Apex players. Apex players may be able to play all formats, but they don't play them well. Playback of DVD, VCD, etc. show artifacts, and break-ups that are not visible on other players. VCD playback is notoriously bad. a/v sync problems, artifacting, video breakup, are severe problems. I've lost count of how many people thought that there were problems with their homemade VCDs, when it was really the Apex player that was at fault.

If you only plan on playing DVDs, and don't mind sub-standard playback quality, then the Apex may serve well as a 2nd player.

[sommersby]

When I replaced the broken drive in my apex with a better drive it really improved the player, but I wouldn't buy one with the intention of doing that, For $134 you can get a pioneer 434 from sears which although does not do mp3's, plays everything else great. Mp3 playback on the apex is kind of a waste, tried it once, but you have to burn your cd to an older compliance, forget the number, sorry have CRS desease, and it does not support folders.

[Shannafey]

Thank you all for clearing that up for me. It's not worth a cent to me, with that kind of feedback. I have a Pioneer DV-333 as a first deck, and if I get a second, I'll stick with Pioneer. Thanks again.

[Chuck Roulette]

I think the only bad thing about APEX, from what I've read, is that they just aren't producing a consistant product. I've owned 2 (the 600-AD and the 703) and both have worked great. Had a few issues with the 600-AD, but the 703 works like a dream. Plays anything you put in it and plays it well. I've even turned 2 of my friends onto APEX and they've never had a problem either. So, I guess we can deduce that APEX just isn't putting out a consistant product.

[ya_jai]

I bought my APEX because I think I can modify some of the feature to fit my need, such as disable macrovision and region selectable. So if you dont go into this topic dont buy it, and with new model you aren't able to hack for now. About VCD quality, I agree that APEX doesn't produce a very good quality picture, I have tried my vcd with different players and mine (APEX 660a) is the worst one. But if you look at value of money with brand name you play $130 up and some cannot play even SVCD some, of course, not support MP3, I'd play another $99.00 for APEX 660a. This is a commend only for APEX 660a (APEX 1500 and 3121 are not good at all).

[thxkid]

own a 600a for over 2 years and a 660 for year, yes they seem to have a little more artifacts than my toshiba 2050, but my toshiba will not play MP3's, SVCD's and you can not by pass the macrovision like the simple flash upgrade I did with my apex 660, and MP3 is a dream have made over 10 MP3 discs and they all play perfect with or without files. Its the only player I can put in my CD-RW bacup computer disc in and can find MPEG1 or MPEG2's and they will play, yes a apex will play MPEG's just burned on a disc, they don't have to be a VCD or SVCD like a pioneer must have or sony, toshiba, JVC, etc. My 17 year aodl daughter bought a APEX 500W from walmart 8 months ago for $92 and its played strong since she has it, My dad owns a 600a, 2 uncles 500w and none of them have a problem playing any DVD, VCD, MP3 or SVCD they have tried the only time I have seen a audio sync problem are with the Illegal movies everyone seems to be copying from the net that are very sub par picture anyway. I have way more audio sync problems with my Toshiba 2050 than I do with my 660.
True these are the older models, I have not tried out any of the newer models that APEX has released in the last few month's.

[next]

Well actually this topic has been beaten to death. Every few months it seems to pop back up.

About six months ago I did a comparision between about 12 dvd players. They all seemed to perform about the same with VCD properly encoded. The list included 2 apex players. The lone exception was pioneer. It seemed to play the VCD better. So if VCD is your interest then go with pioneer.

As far as other formats the apex always seemed to come out on top. Probably because it can play an abundance of formats at extremely high bit rates. Here is where the pioneer slipped. It can only play SVCD up to 2.5 mps. I attempted to play disks encoded at 2.5 VBR and it choked because peak bit rates on the disk were as high as 3.2mps. The apex units played them fine. The other players had serious problems with SVCD in general. That was six months ago so maybe newer models can handle SVCD better. Also I realize that a SVCD with peaks up to 3.2mps is not technically an on spec SVCD but being able to have a player that could handle the peaks allowed me to encode higher quality playback disks. Plus the apex could handle really high bit rate xSVCD's in gerneral with no problem. For example CBR at 4mps.

As far as DVD they were pretty much the same. Each one had their particulars as far as image quality but it would be a tough challenge to rate them in any particular order. I challenge anyone to blindly walk into a room and say "yup that looks like a JVC or a Sony or a Daewoo". Some people complain about color depth on some players as not being as good as others or pixalation as being better on others. My advise is to simply adjust your television set. Increase the color depth on your televesion or reduce your contrast for example. Plus I think it is possible to get caught in the minusea of things and really get too strung out on this stuff. John Q public might think things were getting a bit out of control and say "hey it looks great to me" or "can't tell a difference".

As far as quality of the player. They seemed strikingly similiar to me. The Sony seemed good. The JVC. The lower end apex seemed fine. As a matter of fact the Pioneer I tested was doa out of the box but I still think the quality is fine.

Because this is an apex thread I'll add that apex seems to be the favorite of hackers. They brutilize these players with hacks and play them to death because they can be made region and macro free. And they return them often just to get a new player. Heck they'll even purchase a player and play with it for a while and then return it. You don't find that too often with the type of people who purchase Sony players for example. My advise with an apex is to not purchase an "open box" model. Also because apex seems to attract hackers there are always firmware upgrades that come from the hacker community. For example my 703 can now play minidvd's because somebody hacked the firmware to make it possible. I like that.

I'll add as it relates to quality a comment on here from sombody who killed the laser on a Sony by simply playing SVCD's. The response back from Sony was not to play SVCD's because it will kill the laser. Not good. If it was an apex the flame thread would still be going. Different community of buyers I guess.

By the way it looks like somebody figured out how to make the apex 3201 region and macro free with a simple remote control key sequence.

One last thing. Apex does not manufacture players. They contract with manufacturers to produce their units and are badged as apex players. GE uses some of the same manufacturers and their units are of course badged as GE's. So if you are intent on staying away from apex be careful that you are not just getting a different case with a different name but the same player. I remember a thread on here of somebody praising the quality of their newly purchased player and how much better it was then their old apex. Turned out that the new player and the old apex were the same unit produced by the same company - just different cases. Go figure.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: next on 2001-12-21 11:08:11 ]</font>

[SergeantD]

Go with a Daewoo (3000 or 5000) for only $99. It far surpasses both Apex and Pioneer and plays EVERYTHING!!!

[K3]

I have a question about the 500W. I bought this a month ago and the first disk I played in it (The Mummy Returns) stuttered... a LOT. The video would pause but the audio would play fine. This doesn't happen with every DVD I have, just some of them.

It seems to play VCDs just fine, but real DVDs it seems to chocke on.

Did I get a bad player? I read a while back that a few other people have had the video pause problem as well.

Would getting a macrovision free hack chip fix the video stutter?

EDIT: I answered my own question! Turns out I need to do a DVD-ROM firmware update. I also found the necessary files at http://www.dvd-wizards.com/darrenk/

K3


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: K3 on 2001-12-22 00:32:30 ]</font>

[pinoy2201]

dp any of you guy have the Apex AD-1500 thats $79...i will be buying one after Christmas an i want to get more info about its quality play back and if it is a reliable Player