Apex Digital AD-3201 DVD Player

Okay, so I decided not to exchange my defective Apex AD-500W. I replaced it instead with the AD-3201, which was a CompUSA ?doorbuster? sale item. You know, the ones where you see the item in the flyer, run to the store before it opens, wait outside, dash in when they open and they are already sold out? I was very lucky in that a nasty little assistant manager gave me such a hard time and told me so many absurd lies, the store manager took pity on me and sold me the display model?for full price, of course.

To my astonishment, and against all odds, the famous Apex ?Secret Menu? is back! You don?t get the awe-inspiring "YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE" legend like the original AD600A had, but still, press the proper code on the remote, and there is the secret menu, big as life and twice as handsome, offering Region Select and Macrovision defeat.

Region Free operation is a must-have for those folks who collect DVDs from around the world. And with a Region Select menu, you can even defeat RCE, or Region Coding Enhancement. RCE-encoded DVDs, such as The Patriot and Charlie's Angels, check to see if your player is "Region Free", and if it is, they simply won't play. They display a nasty message to the effect that you are a creep for wanting to play discs from other regions and that there is nothing wrong with the disc, so don't return it to the store. Through the ?Secret Menu?, the AD-3201 allows you to select Region Free operation, and disable it just as easily if you'd like to play an RCE-encoded disc.

With Macrovision defeat, you can connect the AD-3201 to your VCR, handy if you don't have enough inputs on your TV. And you can make crystal-clear VHS copies of your DVDs that way, although legal only for archival purposes.

About the unit itself, the AD-3201 is a clean, good-looking player of average dimensions. It has a typical Apex level of fit and finish, which is to say quite good, especially on such an inexpensive player. Connecting it to your TV or sound system couldn?t be easier, with composite, S-Video, and component video outputs, along with digital, analog, and optical audio outputs. Picture and sound quality are excellent, with very occasional skipping and pixelation, which seems to be an Apex trademark, but perfectly acceptable for players in this price range.

The AD-3201 will play just about anything you can throw at it, from DVDs to MP3s and even the new HDCDs. The Video CD quality in particular is surprisingly good. MP3 play is excellent, but the current crop of AD-3201s will only display the old 8.3 filenames, which means your songs with long filenames are going to be very difficult to read onscreen.

Early Apex players were well known for shoddy manuals and poorly-designed remotes. The AD-3201 manual is much improved, and in perfect English. The remote is a little tricky and incorporates poor ergonomics, but, it does offer access to a wide array of features. You get all the "standard" DVD stuff, including fast, slow, and still play, selection shuffle, repeat, subtitle selection, and so on. You get Zoom, too, which isn?t really marketed for this purpose, but, turns the typical letterbox DVD feature into ?full frame?, perfect for your technology-challenged brother-in-law who always complains about ?those stupid black bars? on letterboxed movies. Just select the 1.5X Zoom (you also get 2 and 4X). You get a nifty on-screen ?frequency equalizer? for adjusting your musical preferences, and a simple ?enhance? menu, which allows you to bump brightness and sharpness slightly.

There are a couple of odd issues. The player has a front panel, push-on, push-off power button. There is also a power button on the remote, but they aren?t linked. Push the front panel button in, and you can shut off the player with the remote, but the front panel button remains ?in?, and you?ll need the remote to turn the power back on. Release the front panel button, and you cannot turn the unit on with the remote no matter what you do. In most circumstances, the EJECT button has to be pushed twice in order to function. And the on-screen display shows ?PLAY? at every layer change, which gets sort of annoying.

One of the nicest features of the AD-3201, though, is the fact that it is quickly and easily ?flash-upgradable?. Simply insert a CD-R with the appropriate BIOS upgrade, and the player will upgrade itself, allowing you to keep up with changing DVD technology and resolve minor bugs of the sort mentioned above. So far, Apex Digital has been pretty stingy with BIOS upgrades for the AD-3201 (there is only one on their website, and it is quite old), but there are a number of good ones available elsewhere on the World Wide Web.