Apex Digital 600A DVD Player

A DVD player that plays CD, DVD, VCD, CD-R?s and also Karaoke discs! I was sold. I read about this DVD play right here on Epinions and ran out to buy one immediately. The biggest reasons I bought it was for the special hidden features I have been reading about: disabling Macrovision and regional settings. What are these? Macrovision is the system that prevents you transferring DVD?s to VCR tapes. It sends a pulse to the VCR every few seconds to confuse the VCR so all you get is fuzzy snow during a recording. Regional Settings prevent you from being able to play DVD?s sold from other countries. Why is this important? It may not be for you, but some people travel a lot or may know people in different countries that can send over movies that are release in different version. More times than not, movies are released in other countries first before they are release here in the US. This is a big deal for fans of Japanese Animation movies like myself.

After I purchased my player, I spared no time in getting it hooked up to my TV and stereo. Apex was nice enough to include all the cables necessary so you don?t need to buy anything extra to get everything working.

The contents included:
Audio Cable
Video Cable
S-Video Cable
Remote
Batteries
Manual
DVD Player

The sales guy at Circuit City told me the box did not include the cables I needed so I ended up buying Monster Cables for $30 extra. While the included cables were sufficient for me to get everything working, I used the Monster Cables anyway to see if it made a difference. It didn?t.

First thing I noticed was the display is very simple. Don?t expect detailed messages on the display. It is a very simple 7-bit screen. For instance, when the player displays ?INIT? it may take you a few seconds of staring to figure out what it means, but after that it becomes second nature. Don?t worry; the display is so simple, there are only about 5 or six messages to decipher.

The front panel is pretty plain with the disc drawer in the center. The power button and mic inputs and controls on the left. The right side has 6 buttons with your basic player commands such as, open/close, play, stop, etc? My complaint is the open/close button was not designed different to stand out a bit better. It took me a quick second of looking to find it amongst the similar looking buttons. The back has the usual audio, video, dts output and S-Video connections.

The first DVD I put in was my Matrix DVD which took about 5 seconds to recognized. Play back was pretty responsive. I have nothing else to compare this to since this is my first DVD player. I was basically sold on the $180 price tag from Circuit City. The sound was excellent being pumped through my Pioneer Receiver and 5+1 speaker system. Scrolling though the menu gets easier as you get use to the remote. The remote definitely has a slight learning curve, but then again, how many remote aren?t somewhat complicated in their own special way.

Apex doesn?t have a website to show their products, but I found a great link that will help you make a better decision. Overall I think $180 for this player is worth it. I?m going to try out the MP3 playing feature tonight and will post the results. MP3 is a file type used for compressing music files into a compressed format that can be used in that state. For example, your average 4-minute song on a CD is about 30-40 megabytes in size. This format makes it VERY difficult to transfer and share with friends. While this file format is still somewhat controversial, many Internet users have found this very convenient in trading songs and listening to new artists they may not have worthy enough to purchase an entire CD. Converting these large files into the MP3 format reduces the size down to about 3-4 megabytes. By creating CD with MP3?s in the root, this DVD player can play up to 6 hours on continuous music or your choice. Try to beat that with a 5-disc carousel player!

http://www.geek.com/hwswrev/conel/apex600a/apex600a.htm

~~~~Edited~~~~7/10/00,8:00pm~~~~~
I tried the directions to access the hidden menu?s but apparently they already disabled them. To try your system, remove any disc and close the drawer. Press Setup and then scroll down to the preference option. Do not select Preferences. Press the "Step" button and then press the "Back" button and then the "Front" button. The "Front" and "Back" buttons are ones for skipping tracks while watching a DVD or listening to a CD. If it works, you should be brought to a Hidden Menu that says on the bottom, "You should not be here". If you have it then your better of than I am. However the DVD player that can also play Karaoke and also MP3's for $180 is still a good value!

~~~~Edited~~~~7/11/00,2:00pm~~~~~
I tried a few different types of CD-R?s with MP3?s on them. What I got was mixed results. A CD with MP3?s in the root and in folder would not work. A CD with MP3?s only in the root with not folders worked fine. It took about 30 second for the player to recognize and categorize all the songs. I tried another CD I had that has no files in the root and about 6 folders that start with ?!? and then had sub-folders. When I did that, only the sub-folders were recognized. It completely ignored the first level of folders. I tried a few other CD?s with AVI and MPEG?s but had no luck. I will post more as I experiment.