Apex Digital 600A DVD Player

I've put my second update up top because it's important that people see this. THIS PLAYER DIED AFTER 18 MONTHS AND THERE IS NO EXPLANATION. A faint burnt smell, and now now power. My guess is that it has a fried capacitor in the power supply since the little LED flickers lightly. I'll take it apart and see what the scoop is (I need to retreive a disc anyways), but odds are that this is beyond repair. I'll miss the secret menu, but the fact is that most people will never use those secret features.

update over

Don't believe the hype! This is not the be all and end all of DVD players. Most people that have raved about this player here, and in other forums, haven't played with other players. They haven't run into the problems that this player has with some discs. They haven't found out what happens when the machine runs hot (and it does run hot). This isn't to say that the player isn't a good deal. Just remember that you can't compare the quality of this player to the quality of a top of the line Sony or Toshiba unit.

A few notes about the supplementary featured before I get into the DVD playback. First off MP3's. Yes it is nice to be able to play these without my computer, but the fact is that now that people can listen to MP3s on a real system they will start to realize that 128 bit encoding isn't quite what people say it is. The difference between CD audio and MP3s is clear. The RIAA should realize that MP3s won't really kill them unless the general population starts to encode at rates higher than 128 bits. If you're converting cd's from your own collection encode at 160 or 192, the difference is astonishing. I've been told that the APEX doesn't like variable rate MP3's and that doesn't really surprise me, most players have trouble with them. The interface for the MP3s is poor, and the random play isn't random at all, try is a bunch of times and it will always follow the same order. It seems that they have put in a pattern that appears somewhat random, but always gives the same results. This is really annoying if you keep playing the songs on random.

VCD play is fine. The discs take a while to get initialized, but after that it is standard VCD quality. Nothing to write home about. Ditto for CD playing.

DVD's. The coolest thing to happen to movies. I thought when I bought my APEX that I'd be renting a lot, disabling macrovision and copying like there was no tommorrow. That didn't happen. I have been able to watch movies from overseas, and that is cool (I can let my friends watch their Hindi movies without any trouble), but I've so fallen in love with the format that I don't bother copying, it just doesn't do movies any justice. The extra features on some discs like Fight Club, Independance Day, and the like are worth every penny. Being able to watch things like this in slow motion without any of the distortion that even the best VCR throws on the screen is great. What does that mean, don't worry about not being able to get the special menu, if you love movies it won't matter a bit.

For those of you that don't know, there is decoupling of the voice and video tracks with the APEX on occasion. This is usually caused by overheating. If you open the chassis you'll see that the inside of the APEX looks a lot like the inside of a computer. The CPU of the APEX has a heat sink/metal strap over it to channel heat away, but careful examination usually shows that there is no contact with the CPU. An application of thermal grease will solve that problem, and will reduce the amount of decoupling that will occur. As I said earlier, the innards of this thing look a lot like the insides of a PC, and that goes right to the fact that the APEX uses a standard IDE DVD-ROM drive. The drive is actually recognized by Win98, and drivers can be installed, if you so desire. This is good in a way, it explains why the drive is so cheap, and it means that if the drive decides to stop working I should be able to get a cheap replacement drive from my local computer store.

The remote on this device is by far the worst thing that I have ever seen. Though it feels like you'll break it when you use it, it holds up fairly well, but the buttons have too far to travel and they are far too small. I have fairly large hands and some of the smaller buttons are a pain to press. In addition I think that I figured out how the buttons were laid out. After putting the numbers down they threw the rest of the buttons in the air and placed them wherever they landed. The ergonomics of this design are attrocious, and the fact that the labelling is so damn small doesn't help, finding the mute button in the dark is a challenge. A bad as the remote is the on cosole buttons had to be designed by the dimmest of teams. All the buttons, including the play and eject buttons are exactly the same. There is no way, short of memorization that you can tell these buttons apart in the dark, making it difficult to eject a disc, with either the remote or the console unless the lights are on.

The player has a reasonably diverse set of outputs. There are two different Audio outs, a video out, SVGA and composite outs, in addition to a DTS out, though there is no optical out. The lack of optical out will start to become an issue as more time passes, but then again most people who have a stereo that supports optical outs will probably not have this system, or at least it won't be their primary system. The composite outs give a colour that is a little bit to warm, and requires adjustment, so I would advise the use of the SVGA cable if your TV supports it.

All told I think that this DVD player is a good thing for first time buyers. It allows you to see what the format has to offer. Unfortunately there are discs that are known to have problems with this player. These problems aren't unique to the APEX, but beware of discs that use seemless branching, they may not like you. On the other hand, if you want the ability to use an optical out, this is definitely not for you, if you want to know that the player you have will play anything, look elsewhere. That being said, for its price the DVD features alone are great. I bought this for two reasons, region free viewing and the ability to copy. I've done plenty of the former and none of the latter because I've fallen in love with the format.

The true movie lover should probably try to spend a bit more and ensure that the best player possible is sitting atop your TV, but if you can deal with the inconveniences and don't mind missing a few movies now and then, the APEX 600A will not disapoint.

update 1

I've found that discs that use seemless branching don't work properly. This is a problem for things like Independance Day. Typically seemless branching is used when a disc offers the theatrical version, and a version with deleted scenes put in. Instead of putting in two video tracks, they create a linked list of scenes to run from depending on which mode you've chosen. It's a great feature, but it confuses the hell out of the APEX. Independance Day comes out stretched, and is just a pain to watch.

In addition I've noted that the machine is a bit noisier than most other DVD players, I could probably baffle the sound, but doing that might increase heat problems so I won't try. Remember that the drive is an IDE drive, so it was designed to be in a personal computer, not exactly the quietest environment possible.

And on a closing note, the controller gets no easier to use with time, it's just as annoying as it was on the day I bought the unit.