plays lots of disc types, disable macro and region with a cd firmware upgrade, cheap cheap cheap.

subtitle bug.

This is an awesome dvd player, but not for everybody...

This is the hacker/tweakers dvd player. For starters, it is just a raite 2x dvd-drive attached to a circuit board with an ide cable. When it dies, you can replace it.... What really makes this special is the 2x dvd drive. I can't believe more manufactures dont do this. What this means for you is the movie comes up quick, accessing the menus is very quick and scene skipping is instantaneous. Forward and reverse scanning are very responsive. Also, playing dvd games (dragon's Lair, Space ace) is perfect. I can't believe the bigger dvd players out (Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Pioneer) dont do this, too.

There are at least 4 revisions of the firmware. Mine is 8AM and has no problems with problem dvds like T2, Matrix, Dinosaur, and so on. Older firmware will have probs with some discs.

Unit plays mp3s and video cds perfectly, if they are burned correctly. Sound quality is quite respectable going into my denon avr-4800. Picture quality is only average. Looks about the same as my old RCA. Artifacts in the darker scenes. But not to the point of being a distraction.

It was down to this player and the Panasonic (31k i believe). I took them both home, and this is what i found.

Dvd playback. Panasonic good solid picture, but 1x dvd made it slow to access menu, 100x scannning is a joke. Much slower to skip tracks. Apex dvd described above. 2x dvd the bomb.

Mp3 playback. Panasonic good sound, but no track info. Nothing just the numbers 1-170. No random play for mp3s. Unbelieveable. You could scan within an mp3. Apex. 11 char readout for all the mp3s. can have folders inside the main folder. If you went random, though, player couldn't back up out of a folder once it went in. My advice leave them all in the root of the cd. No scanning within mp3.

video cd playback. Acceptable on both units. Nothing different.

Bottom line. The nuances make this unit not for everyone. You have to have a brain in order to use this unit. Just look at all the negative reviews this has gotten just because people don't know how to burn a mp3 cd. Duh. Those of you lacking in that department, should stick with video tape, or a simpler unit that plays dvds only.

Similar Products Used:

old rca dvd player, panasonic dvd/mp3 player

-Plays all CD media.
-DVD Digest function
-Multiple angles

-Subtitles auto on
-Minimal preferences

This product isn't really bad, it plays most dvd's and all.
It's the little things that piss me off, like the Bring It On DVD. No matter what I did the subtitles were on. That subtitles On/Off function in the setup menu is utterly useless. Whether it's on or off the subtitles button is what really controls it. I also just purchased, and had to return, Sound and Motion: Vol. 1. It plays fine on my friends' dvd players, yet it's all jacked up on mine. No, it's not a dirty lens or dvd. On a smaller note: If the dvd player is placed high up and the tray is open, it blocks the remote sensor. Oh, yeah. That volume control is a joke.

Price, Performance, Multiple Formats & Flash Upgrades

None I can think of.

When I first got this player home my first intention was to play the Matrix Dvd because my Zenith 2200 would not even load it. Well needless to say the matrix works! Next I tried playing some MP3 files I burned into a cd and again worked great! Finally I loaded up a vcd I made on my computer and here is where it started skipping... But I was aware of the fact that it may be do to bugs in the firmware.
So I went up on the internet got the firmawre needed and burnt it to a cd, Stuck it in the Apex 660 and in 30 sec the drive draw came popping out. At this point I was told to cycle the power which I did turned my unit back on the draw went back in and Wammo! New firmware =). And now all the media types play perfect! Awesome Dvd player for the money! If anyone needs the link to the firmware its here: http://psych.tripod.com/apexdvdplayers/ Enjoy!!!

Similar Products Used:

Zenith 2200

Play DVD, VCD, CD-R, CD-RW, MP3

Subtitle on all the time, Microvision on

I bought Apex AD-703 and it unstable, karaoke function doesn't work, skip problem (Kindna suck). I exchange it for AD-660 and I like it. It is more stable and no heat problem. It even play my DVD from ZONE 3 with out doing any loophole or hacking.
The few problem I have is when I play my Road Trip DVD before I got to the title screen sometimes it say "Disc error" but one I clean thy disc it play fine. The picture quality are equal to what you can see from the PC-DVD. The setup menu is nicer than AD-703.
P.S. Anybody know how to disable subtitle and Microvision?

Similar Products Used:

Apex AD-703

plays mp3's on cd/rw's and cdrs plays matrix and Gone in 60 seconds

Skips constantly on X-Men and MIB(no scratches)poor video quality no optical out and gets hot

When I first got this player I was impressed by it. I imediately popped in an MP3 cd and it sounded pretty good. I bought a couple DVDs and rented others and that is where I ran into problems. After the Matrix played perfectly I was amazed but then I dropped X-Men in and missed about an an 8th of the movie due to it skipping scenes. I was no longer impressed and wish I could still take it back.
If you want an MP3, Video cd, and cd player it is a good deal but if you want a DVD player go with a name brand.

Similar Products Used:

sony, panasonic and RCA

- mp3 playback
- vcd/svcd playback
- plays cdr/cdrw

- subtitles automatically on
- no component outputs

Pro - Mp3 Playback
Con - Filenames are restricted to 8 characters

Pro - Plays vcd/svcd & cdr/cdrw

Con - Subtitles are turned on by default what you start watching a DVD

Con - No component outputs

Con - No progressive scan

If you are looking for a low end dvd player just to watch dvd's and quality isn't a concern for you, or if you need vcd/svcd playback this is a ok player

But if quality is of any concern for you this is a player to stay away from

Price, plays everything including mp3

I can't get mp3s to play. Subtitles seem to default to ON, but then you can turn them off manually. Sound keeps retting to max when navigating dvd.

I got this a few days ago, and I'm pretty satisfied with the dvd operation. I am very dissapointed that my mp3 cd I burned on my pc won't play. The track titles display (as MP3), but when I try to play them, the display shows the unit just zipping through the tracks. Tried CD-R, RW, with v3 tags disabled, stil no luck. I have a Compaq presario with oem burner and Ce-Quadrat (oem) burner s/w, which has done everything well, so far. Any tips would be appreciated.

Its great plays DVD VCD SVCD MP3 CDR CDRW

None of the high end stuff.

I noticed a lot of people count get mp3s to play, at first i couldnt either. I did some research on how to do it and now it plays fine. E-mail me if you wanna know how, you have to use iso something or another format. The matrix looks great on it. I transfered all kinds of anime to vcd and it looks great also. Havent tested SVCD yet. CDR and CDRW works great however CDRW takes a long time to load.
For the price this is a great bargian.

Very versatile, will play just about every fommat, dvd cd mp3 vcd cdrw cdr svcd...

Captions will appear untill turned off, and

As a college student, the AD-660 is perfect. It plays so many formats and the price was definitely in my range. I was pretty excited to get it hooked up and ready to go.

The first thing I did was pop in one of my MP3 cd's. I couldn't get any sound out of it, and I thought I hooked it up wrong, but then I noticed that the clock for the songs was racing through each song. I borrowed one of my housemate's CDs and it played fine. The cd I put in was a PNY 700MB cd. All of my other mp3 cd's play fine, but they are 650's. The DVD-ROM drive itself is a standard computer drive, from what I've heard, so 700's shouldn't be a problem. Anyway, the MP3 Menu is okay. The folders are listed on the left and the songs are listed on the right, but you can only see six at a time. There are options like repeat, shuffle, etc. but you cannot fast forward to a part in a song. The MP3's sound really good when they are plugged into my receiver, and I think they sound better when I play them in my Apex than when I plug my computer into my receiver. We've been talking about using the Apex as our music jukebox for our house parties; it would be ideal, just turn it on 'shuffle' put on one cd and let it go for the whole night. It would be reassuring to have one piece of hardware in charge of the music, locked away during the party, instead of worrying about computer crashes, or skipping or anything else. I think I use it more for music than movie watching. :)

I have never had any trouble playing any DVDs, but the captions do seem to always be on when the movie starts. They seem to stay off if I just let the movie play, but if I skip from scene to scene enough, sometimes it turns back on. The picture and sound look pretty good. Sometimes the picture looks a little grainy in the background, but it plays every dvd like a champ. The move-able zoom is pretty cool, and the fast forward feature works well. I think the sound of the movies are really good. I have an old Marantz receiver but with 4 speakers in 2 channel stereo, so the Dolby wouldn't apply to me anyway. (there is NOT a built in decoder for it)

I haven't tried any vcd's. When I have some time I am going to convert some Divx;) into MPEG and play them and see how they go.

From a lot of other people's reviews, I've heard people hate Apex remotes, but I think it is something that works well when you adjust to it. The play/enter button is small, and some of the buttons are in interesting places, but I've been able to get pretty proficient at using it. It basically looks like a VCR remote. I don't think it feels 'cheap', though.

All in all, I've been really pleased with it. It is preferred in this house to the other dvd players including a $300 sony player. I recommend this to anyone on a budget. Obviously it is not a $400 piece of equipment; if you have expensive stuff you'll want something more top-of-the-line.

If anyone has any info about how to upgrade the menus to either fix the caption or remove Macrovision, I would be very greatful to hear about it.

Similar Products Used:

None

Not Discovered Yet!

I would recommend this to everyone who wants to play DVDs, VCDs, MP3 cds....Its awesome! it even plays the VCDs and MP3 cds that i got from INDIA. Now thats an achievment.!