Apex AD500 DVD Player

• CD, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW
• S-Video, component video, analog audio, and digital audio
• on-screen controls

I've never written a review on this site before, but I did think it was important to put up a warning about this DVD player. I bought one nine months ago. The first sign of trouble came that night, when it stopped playing a disc halfway through. That was a slightly scratched disc, so I thought nothing of it. Weeks went by with no problems, and the return time elapsed.

Then it started getting bad. It often stopped playing in the middle of the disc, often when a new chapter tried to start. This would result in the screen freezing, then displaying digitized static. More often, it wouldn't read discs at all. I would put in the disc, it would whir for half a minute, then it would give up and report "no disc." Sometimes it would load the FBI warning, then crash before the movie or the main menu loaded. This happened about 60% of the time when I put in a new disc. Sometimes I could get it to read if I kept inserting the same disc, sometimes not. Also, the player routinely crashed when trying to play special features.

I haven't damaged the player at all. It's sat in the same place since I bought it. I see that other people have given positive reviews and said that their players are flawless, and I'm glad for them. I just wanted to report the problems I've had with mine.

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Tired of anime DVDs which would not work in my PlayStation2, I finally bought the AD500-W and loved it from the beginning :-) This model is rather inexpensive, but its quality is very good overall.

My main concern was that I wanted VCD (VideoCD) capability, which is included in this model. However, in watching the few VCDs I already own, I was a bit disappointed at the occasional skipping, something which did not occcur when viewing VCDs (the MPEG components) on my iMac. Also, for those VCDs with interactive menus, the layout of the remote control is a bit awkward, but still functional.

What is nice is the ability to handle both PAL and NTSC discs, provided the unit is connected to a television which can handle both formats. While I have no use for PAL capability, it was surprising to see such an option in a low-priced model.

While I will likely not use it regularly, the AD500-W also plays MP3s. I burned one of my iTunes playlists as an MP3 disc, and tried it on the AD500-W. While playback itself was just fine, I found the MP3 menu extremely cumbersome, especially since the disc included nearly 70 items. This was my first experience using an MP3 disc, so this may be an inherent "flaw" in all MP3 players.

A potential drawback for some users is the "dual" Power buttons. The Power button on the console must first be turned on for the player to function. Then the Power button on the remote control handles the actual operation of the player; if the player has been turned off using the remote control's Power button, pressing the buttons on the player itself (NOT the remote control) will not automatically turn on the player and carry out the chosen funcction. Therefore, it is imperative to NOT lose the remote control!!!!!

The remote control (SD-250) has a lot of functions on it. Unfortunately, the Play/Enter button is rather small for the number of times it is likely to be pressed by the average user. Two of the more intriguing features (especially when playing CDs or MP3s) is the ability to change both volume and pitch independent of the television or receiver. Unfortunately, the Title and Menu buttons are not located in prime areas of the remote control.

Overall, this is a great bargain for those shopping for a first DVD player. However, I can only give this a "4" rating due to the cumbersome MP3 capabilities and the potential for VCD skipping.

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I thought there was something wrong with the dvd's from the rental place. Half the dvd's that I rented from them didn't play on the Apex. One day, I got a new dvd player, and the dvd's played in the new dvd player. To test, I put the dvd that played in the new dvd into the Apex dvd player and it doesn't read it at all. So, all along, I thought the dvd's were bad, but in fact; it was actually that the Apex dvd player couldn't play many dvd's.

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(...) I figured it must be a pile of junk like most low priced electronic devices I buy tend to be. BOY was I SURPRISED! Not only has this worked flawlessly, it is easy to use and has more features than alot of the very high priced DVD players I looked at before deciding on this one. I would recommend this one to anybody!

Thanks, APEX for making a quality DVD player at a reasonable price!

As the proud owner of an Apex AD-500W, I must say that I have been very impressed with the player's performance. It plays DVD's and CD's flawlessly (although occasionally, discs tend to get jammed; when that happens, I just eject the disc and re-insert it, and plays just fine). The player does just about everything I expected it to, despite what I've been told by salesmen who wanted to sell me more expensive brands, most of which don't have MP3 play capability.

Speaking of which, the MP3 component of this player plays MP3 files fairly well, although it has trouble playing files that has a lot of bass, emitting static in the process. Also, the remote control could have been better designed. For starters, they can make the "play" button bigger and more accessible and put the "menu" button in a more prominent place.

Still, at a hundred dollars (not including sales tax), this DVD/CD/MP3 player is a bargain, especially if you're a person who is not into movies that have either a lot of special effects or multi-layering (which, according to other reviews that I've read, also isn't a problem). Can't ask for more than that.