My Apex AD1500 plays erratically:replace recommendation?

[Bullworth]

My faithful Apex looks like it finally bit the dust. I was going to play a DVD for a son's friend; I pressed play from the menu and it just started playing with alot of electronic cracks and snaps for audio and would get alot of macroblocking all over the movie. Tested several movies and then the same at a friend's house so I know they are OK. Same thing is happening with ((X)(S))VCDs and DVD backups. Tried to get another AD1500 but they're nowhere to be found and are backordered many other places. I have an AD1200 for my room but I don't want to get another because I just don't like the slow reaction time. What other brands/models are like the AD1500 in it's ability to play anything from non-standard VCD/DVDs and the like. I've looked at alot of models on the players list but one seem to score as high as the AD1500. Hopefully suggest models with macrovision fixes. Thanks

[DaMovieMastarz]

Skipps and all that use to happen, but I load the firmware cd everyonce and a while and it fixes the problem

[Bullworth]

OK, thanks for the tip, I'll try that later.

[Bullworth]

OK, how did you re-load the firmware? I did it once about a year ago and when I tried to do it I get the MP3 screen which is already said to be an indication of firmware that cannot be upgraded anymore. Do you load the original and then load the update again?