Apex AD-1201 DVD Player

Rating:
Summary: Too Low End For Me
Review: So far I have found three problems with this unit. First, it is smaller than a standard DVD player, which means you cannot easily stack other units on top of it. Second, on my unit the disc tray cover does not close automatically. You have to flip it closed by hand. Third, I have had the same problem that the other reviewer talked about regarding the picture pixellating occasionally. I decided that if I see it do that one more time, it's going in the trash can. I have zero tolerance for that and will not compromise on picture quality. I bought this unit mainly because I heard that Apex was good for playing many DVD-R discs that my Philips player couldn't handle. I chose this model because it has the chapter forward and backward buttons on the unit itself. Then I purchased a model AD-3201, which is much better than this one. That is the one that I will probably end up keeping. In summary, I would not recommend that someone buy this unit if they were looking for an Apex DVD player. I would say get the AD-3201 if you can find it. It is rare and hard to find. It is a unit where you can set it for multi-region and turn off Macrovision copy protection via a secret menu that is not described in the owner's manual. The only place you can find that model is on [internet store]

Rating:
Summary: 2 Year Life Span Max.
Review: This is a pretty good DVD player if you don't mind buying a new one every 2 years or so. I got mine in December of 2002 and it worked great. The roomie plays lots of cd's on it as well as DVD's. However, at just under the 2 year mark it has started to die. It freezes in the middle of a scene, then jumps forward about 2min or more from that scene. It decides it likes one frame in the movie you watch, so never progresses the picture past that frame, yet the audio continues and you can listen to the whole DVD while watching that one frame sit on the screen. It also likes to fragment the picture so it looks like tiny pieces of stained glass instead of a movie. And sometimes, it will do all 3 at once.

So, if you're one of those people who MUST get a new DVD player every 2 years, this one was good while it lasted. For everyone else, I'd recommend finding something that will last longer. I know I'm going to...