Question for Apex 1500 owners

[pago cruiser]

I'm looking to buy one of these, but after reading the review section I could not find an answer to a couple questions:

1. When playing back MP3's, do you have to select which ones you want on a TV screen 1st? My Daewoo 3000N is like that, and its a pain. I have a friend with a Philips, and as soon as you insert the MP3 (with long filenames), it starts playing-it is NOT necessary to select what you want it to play, as it just starts at the beginning and plays till it reaches the end...

2. Does this unit playback MP2s (MPEG 2) directly? I am making backups of several VHS tapes using an ATI AIW card (it encodes at 640x480 directly to MP2 format), and then burning directly to a Pioneer DVD-R. It would sure be nice not to have to re-encode in DVD format, as I keep having audio synch problems with my PIII 1GHZ.

[bnbhoha]

The 1500 has a mp3 shuffle feature. When I put my cd in (I hooked it to my stereo as aux) I had to press the right arrow and the down a few times to guess where the folder was and then it played fine.

I know a player called Koss from target that plays raw mpeg files. It's in their big greatland stores. sells for $99 it plays everything including mp3s on dvd-r which the 1500 doesn't. And it's compact about the size of the new playstation ones. Good luck

[House de Kris]

The AD-1500 can play MPEG files (1 or 2) that are burned on a data disc. No need to author as SVCD or VCD.