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... and I'd like to know where you got it, because I would also like a DVD player that does what I want.

MPlayer plus downloaded torrents of films does exactly what I want. Here's the related Info Graphic.

The MPAA would like to decide what kind of equipment you may and may not purchase, and how that equipment will and will not operate in your home. I've decided I do not support their business model, nor the distortions in the concept of copyright that they purchased.

All that said, check out the Apex brand. My first DVD player purchase was their AD-600A, with its "You should not be here" titled menu in which you could switch regions and turn off Macrovision. Back then, I got my info about acceptable DVD players from Nerd Out, which cataloged which brands and models had secret, owner empowering features.

Don't Forget about the famed Apex AD-600a! http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/03/21/1233235
http://www.nerd-out.com/darrenk/600/history.htm

It was the model to have (with the correct firmware revision) with its famous "Engineering Menu" which allowed the "Macrovision" encoding to be *disabled* and you could change it to *any* region code as many times as you desired.
DRM sucks. This Apex model *Proved* that fact to me with its 'usefulness' back in 2000 (when I took off work early to go buy one from Circuit City). It's now 8 Years old and still kicking! Good Times.

Probably a Malata or Apex. Start here:

http://www.nerd-out.com/forum/
lots of great info on off-brand DVD players.

Don't forget, the DVD series of the show is already out now, in the UK (Region 2, PAL). Comes in a monstrously big TARDIS-shaped box that opens diagonally, kind of awkward, but clever. If it takes up too much space on your shelf, you can store the discs in those black plastic DVD cases that AOL spam-mailed out a while ago :)

Use your favorite multiregion DVD player to view it, or rip it first. No need to wait until later in the year.

I BitTorrented the shows as they came out, but bought the DVD because I wanted to support the show (and get the episodes in better quality). Still find it ironic that they say it's "coming soon" to the USA, but is already sitting here on my table....

I don't have this problem because I refused to buy a DVD player until I could find one that either lacked or could easily be modified to lack the "you can only do what I tell you" (AKA UOP (user operation prohibited)) "feature". So I bought a Daewoo 5700, burned a CD, and haven't had to worry about Macrovision or UOP or regions or any of that stuff.

See, the market can handle this. You just have to decide which is more important to you, your freedom, or instantaneous gratification. (It is a sad statement about our society that I have to make such a decision wrt a stupid DVD player though...)

Since tons of people obviously have or are currently using apex DVD players...

you can read all the junk and hacks for these players here in the Nerd Out Forums.

I actually was following the forums all excited about eventually hacking mine until it would open my beer bottles as well.

Downloading and hacking firmware--you actually feel like you are creating something. Of course, then mine spontaneously up and died.

If I had just spent those hours at work instead of pouring through those forums, I could have easily paid for all the features I wanted.

However, if I were really that rational, I wouldn't be a geek... and my wife would be correct. Scary...

AC

Some 1500s are, some aren't... You sure yours is one that isn't upgradeable?

Try: http://www.nerd-out.com/darrenk/1500/1500_firmware .htm

Isn't this the reason why many bootleg DVDs from Hong Kong and China are "region-less" and why "region-free" DVD players also come from the same place? (By the way, do these actually work or is that just a myth/scam of some sort?)

Yes, all bootleg DVDs are region-free to allow the most number of people to use them. That is not to say many legitimate DVDs aren't region-free, in China, Hong Kong, and elsewhere (while most DVDs from the US are region 1, you will find many that have no region restrictions built-in).

DVD players that can be modified to be region-free (usually through a remote hack) work excellently. The Nerd-out forums and dvdrhelp's player hack list are both very helpful in finding a region-free player or finding out if your current player is region-free. But basically, once you have a region-free player, you can watch DVDs from anywhere. Especially if you have one that does proper PAL -> NTSC conversion, allowing you to play anamorphic widescreen DVDs from Europe and any other PAL countries (CyberHome and Malata are two brands to look at with this feature).

There's already DVD players you can buy in North America with Macrovision disabled - region free, too. Most Apex Digital DVD players are hackable or have hidden menues built in to disable Macrovision. I bought an AD-3201 in about oct2001 from Future Shop (yes, I live in Canada). Completely un-modded, you could change the region code and disable Macrovision from a hidden menu (if you have an AD-3201 - while the disc tray is open, press '8421' on the remote to access the menu). The Apex remotes really suck, but a universal solved that problem.

There's already DVD players you can buy in North America with Macrovision disabled - region free, too. Most Apex Digital DVD players are hackable or have hidden menues built in to disable Macrovision. I bought an AD-3201 in about oct2001 from Future Shop (yes, I live in Canada). Completely un-modded, you could change the region code and disable Macrovision from a hidden menu (if you have an AD-3201 - while the disc tray is open, press '8421' on the remote to access the menu). The Apex remotes really suck, but a universal solved that problem.

Got CDs with mpg files burned as just files instead of (X)S/VCD tracks? It'll play em. MP3s burned on a DVD? It'll play em. Got mpg files encoded with nonstandard resolutions? (512x384, 352x176, etc) It'll play em. I can personally sttest to it's smooth playback of both PAL DVD and SVCD content on NTSC hardware

With several revisions floating around, region coding can be disabled on all models, just requiring a different code to be punched in depending on which model you have. Easily looked up based on the serial number of the unit.

Early, 'golden' models were just using an IDE DVD drive, which some industrious users have managed to hack the firmware for to allow dropping in a HD instead. Macrovision can only be disabled on these early 'golden' models as well, which are sadly hard to find nowadays. Granted, the playback hardware was less powerful in the 'golden' models than the other variants to pop up since, but I'd still like to be able to just pop in a big HD worht of MP3s & JPGs, load up the undocumented 'musical slideshow' feature, and just leave it running :'>

I downloaded the firmware modification, burned a CDROM, and only then ordered the DVD player. :-) In fact, there was some editorial comment at Area 450 that Sampo intentionally makes the firmware of their players easy to crack because it increases sales!

You can't fast forward through the FBI warning and I have seen a few DVDs (Disney I think) that FORCE you to watch the previews by disabling FF during them.

It's nice to have a DVD player that gives Hollyweird the finger...hit PBC a couple of times, hit Play, and you're taken straight to the movie.

Are you better off buying a $49 DVD player on the expectation that it will only last a year or so?

I wouldn't knock the cheap equitpment. Personally, I think that $69 is a really good deal for
this, especially when combined with this feature.

Lets see a $500 dollar Sony player do that!

The DVD drive is apparently IDE, and since the APEX natively plays mp3s burned to a CD, you can simply rip out the DVD drive and replace it with a IDE hard drive that contains your mp3s. Since it was meant to work with televisions and entertainment systems, it integrates easily and works rather well. It's also cheap, as you can find APEX DVD players as low as $50-100 US.

So, for $50 + hard drive, you get:
2. Intuitive/Easy-to-Use Interface
3. IR Remote Control (so I can use my Universal Remote)
4. Ability to play mp3s (you might get ogg, do some research)
5. TV display capabilities (may fall under Intuitive Interface)
6. Digital Out

You will not get
1. Ethernet Connectivity (NFS/SAMBA/something Linux can share out)
7. CDR capabilities.

Seems like a nice, cheap solution.

Apex rules, I have the 1500. Flashed it to make it region free. Nerd-Out.com the Apex info pages has information on which models can be made region free and Macrovision off etc. with instructions. It has links for places who will "fix" your machine for you if you're wary of messing it up.

Actually what happened is that Apex didn't pay the royalties to whoever owns the VCD standard, so their newer players had to have VCD capability removed.

Check the serial number of your player... if it ends in xx08 then it hasn't been hacked either way yet; it's one of the strange new models that among other things doesn't play VCDs, unfortunately. Check out the Nerd-Out forums, go to the AD-1100W section, and look at one of the pinned topics; it's the model/serial number guide.

I have no idea what UOP stands for (User Operation Permittance? ). In any case, I think the latest hacked Sampo DVD Player firmware (also useable in most of the Apex models) includes a UOP hack. I'm running it on my Apex 660 and can skip directly to the main menu while the FBI warning (or all those friggin ads on the Disney discs) is up. It's WONDERFUL.

And of course, you can disable macrovision, play MP3s (with a much better menu than the original Apex firmware), display JPG images, hook up a hard drive or compact flash unit, play discs from any region, etc. Check out the Nerd-Out forums HERE!

I purchased an Apex AD-703 a little over a year ago and it was the best (and most lucky) purchase I've ever made.

What puts Apex above the rest is the ability to flash update the BIOS of the player. There are
many,
many resources for hacking the Apex BIOS. This includes a great utility that's been developed called
EZ Patch which allows users to create custom BIOS images for their APEX players. Among the many modules for EX Patch is the ability to make the player region free and the ability to bypass the "locks" on DVDs that keep a user from skipping over the previews and other such items.

Apex AD1100-W's are great and $65 at Wal-mart.

If you can find the 1meg-ROM unit you can reflash it to be MV and region free; the more common 512k-ROM just has the region-free hack right now but the MV fix is in the works. [check the Nerd-Out forums - AD1100 section, pinned topic at the top] All the DVD's I've used on it, the thing just skips everything you tell it to. Even the sometimes annoyingly-long intros on play menus - don't have to wait for it to come up, press play and it actually PLAYS.

And it has some other nice features: plays MP3s, VCDs, SVCDs, and it'll even show you a CD full of JPEGs. There have even been reports it'll show you raw MPEG files burned to CD (haven't tried that one yet).

No I don't work for Apex, but a box that'll do all that for cheap is a pretty good deal. (Sorry, no component outputs, progressive scan or optical digital out [does have coax], but what do you want for $65?)

I have an Apex AD660, that was "upgradable" with a simple ISO CDR image. I can't complain about the player. It has been running great for over 2 years now. I have firends that have had the AD600A models even longer, and all are running without problems. Wal-Mart stores have the players for about $70 or so for the cheapest models. You really can't beat them. They are truely the best bang-for-buck in a DVD player. They are also the most hackable.

Check out Nerd-Out for all of the info that you could ever want on the Apex and similar players.

I am not sure that there is a DVD player in existance that does what you wnat it to do, but the Apex players are the closest things possible.

Try the Apex AD-3201 which you can get for around 100. It has the hidden menu which will allow you to disable Region encoding and Macrovision settings, instructions Here. It is also a fairly good player and one of the few low-end DVD players that can truly handle all types of CDR media.

I think that if you want a DVD player, there's many that can be purchased for less than a PS2 that perform better, and play mp3s and can bypass Macrovision and Region lockouts and stuff.

the secret menu on your 600a Apex player and turn it off. I jumped to circut city when I saw the remote control trick posted on slashdot a while back...

On some DVD players, you can disable Macrovision by means of uploading a new ROM into the player by burning it onto an ISO 9660 CD-R, or by hitting a secret key combination on the remote. It's mostly APEXes and Daewoos that let you do this; ironic that they are the cheapest yet most hackable DVD players. I have a cute little APEX I scored for $70 at Circuit City... that sucker plays DVDs, VCDs, SVCDs, CD-Rs, MP3s (!), and they kitchen sink. Most DVD players have a "Factory setting" menu that you can get to, but you need to know the secret code.

Of course you'd never get goodies like this from the big boys (aka Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic).

When reading about Apex DVD players, I found that some models, like the $65 AD-1200s use a normal IDE DVD drive run off their proprietary circuit board.

So, if you could replace their circuit board with a small motherboard, you could turn the Apex DVD player into a mini-PC. You would have to drill out a bunch of holes in the back, or buy a cheap ATX case and chop it apart and use it to hold the motherboard and provide the connector holes. you would also probably need a small PC power supply.

I haven't gotten past the "hmm" stage with this one yet, but it has possibilities.

The big problem would be keeping heat down to a reasonable level. Maybe go for a low-heat or underclocked CPU, and do the decoding on a Hollywood Plus card?

Jon Acheson

Spend your "toy budget" at Circuit City or PC Club instead...that's what I've done.

I agree about PC Club (bought my last machine from them), but aren't we still mad at Circuit City for the DIVX (the crippled DVD, not the codec) fiasco?

Maybe it's just me, but I suspect that the Apex AD600A more than makes up for Divx. It's the perfect tool for giving the MPAA a big "fsck you people in the neck." :-)

The newer ones don't have the loophole menu. Check Apex AD-600A Info Pages.

From what I've read over at the Apex Forums Phillips is stopping the sale of Apex600a players on Ebay. Here is a link to that thread.

Here is a copy of the letter sent to people trying to sell the Apex600a on Ebay:

Dear Sir:

Sorry for your frustration. As our previous message states, as the patent holder, we have a right to stop ANY sale of an unlicensed product, and at this writing, the manufacturer of Oritron and Apex DVD players is chosing to be unlicensed. It is the Manufacturer of the player who is unlicensed, and therefore ANY sale of the product infringes our patents (NOT trademarks). The patents are on the DVD technology.

We are sorry for this inconvenience to you, but at this time you cannot sell this DVD player on eBay. Please be assured that we are working on this at many levels and we hope the manufacturer becomes licensed soon.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

Regards,
Ginger Affolter
IP Assistant

Philips Intellectual Property & Standards
PHILIPS ELECTRONICS NORTH AMERICA CORP.
1000 W. Maude Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94085-2810

E-mail: ginger.affolter@philips.com
Web-site: www.licensing.philips.com


I just did a couple quick seaches for 'apex600a' and 'apex 600'. I got no results. So, you can legally buy an Apex600a in the US, like I did from Best Buy, but it is now not allowed to resell it on Ebay. That makes sense.

puck

From what I've read over at the Apex Forums Phillips is stopping the sale of Apex600a players on Ebay. Here is a link to that thread.

Here is a copy of the letter sent to people trying to sell the Apex600a on Ebay:

Dear Sir:

Sorry for your frustration. As our previous message states, as the patent holder, we have a right to stop ANY sale of an unlicensed product, and at this writing, the manufacturer of Oritron and Apex DVD players is chosing to be unlicensed. It is the Manufacturer of the player who is unlicensed, and therefore ANY sale of the product infringes our patents (NOT trademarks). The patents are on the DVD technology.

We are sorry for this inconvenience to you, but at this time you cannot sell this DVD player on eBay. Please be assured that we are working on this at many levels and we hope the manufacturer becomes licensed soon.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

Regards,
Ginger Affolter
IP Assistant

Philips Intellectual Property & Standards
PHILIPS ELECTRONICS NORTH AMERICA CORP.
1000 W. Maude Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94085-2810

E-mail: ginger.affolter@philips.com
Web-site: www.licensing.philips.com


I just did a couple quick seaches for 'apex600a' and 'apex 600'. I got no results. So, you can legally buy an Apex600a in the US, like I did from Best Buy, but it is now not allowed to resell it on Ebay. That makes sense.

puck

If you're lucky enough to find one of the original run of this Apex player, you can disable region coding altogether. Mine plays every R1 and R2 disc I've tossed into it.

My understanding is that having a region-free player is only half the battle... an R2 disc in PAL format won't play back on a region-free NTSC machine, but this Apex automatically senses and converts between the two formats. My one R2 PAL disc (Citizen Kane) plays fine on my NTSC television (and I would assume the reverse holds true as well) so you wouldn't have to jettison your current collection.

Quality-wise, the machine looks a little cheesy, but the picture is great, it has component video and DTS/SPDIF audio out, and all the features you could want. Best of all, it uses a standard IDE DVD-ROM drive, so all the moving parts that are likely to go bad can be replaced on the cheap.

You can also turn off Macrovision via the secret menu, but I've yet to feel the urge to make a VHS copy of any of my DVDs.

Note: This player is designed for use with "Region 1" coded DVDs.

Forget that! Buy something like an Apex where you can bypass CSS and go Region-Free!

#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak

Ogg can't chain me to my computer or even to a PDA and expect to thrive. Ogg should spend some time bringing their codec to the typical embedded A/V processors found in the new generation of cheap OEM DVD and CD chipsets for consumer electronics (like the ESS VideoDrive 4308 and 4318, found in most of the DVD/VCD/MP3 combo players)

-Isaac

-Isaac

I run a website which was originally dedicated to the Apex player, but have just put up a message forum for discussion of this newly-discovered player.

You can find the forums at http://www.nerd-out.com/forum/list.php?f= 13, and can find general region-free/loophole news and information at the main Nerd-out.com Apex site

--Alowishus

(yeah yeah, shameless plug, but the site is there for the community, not my benefit... so take advantage of me while you can! :^)

I run a website which was originally dedicated to the Apex player, but have just put up a message forum for discussion of this newly-discovered player.

You can find the forums at http://www.nerd-out.com/forum/list.php?f= 13, and can find general region-free/loophole news and information at the main Nerd-out.com Apex site

--Alowishus

(yeah yeah, shameless plug, but the site is there for the community, not my benefit... so take advantage of me while you can! :^)

Just buy an APEX AD600-A DVD player. They let you play DVDs of any region code and skip around those stupid no-skip screens.

Also, I must agree with the other reply in that I've never seen a DVD that had previews that you couldn't skip. Stupid studio logos yes, but not previews.




--Brogdon

There's always the non-portable Apex DVD/VCD/CD/MP3 player which pretty much does anything you would want it to do for about $200. It has a relatively rough user interface and remote, but it's still godly cool.

really here.

Even with the link broken, enough people seem to have figured out the correct link to bring the site to its knees. The text of the description is:

-------
Press POWER. Turn on the unit with NO DISC in the drive, make sure that the drive is closed.

Wait for "NO DISC" to display

Press SETUP. You will get the setup screen.

Press DOWN until PREFERENCES is highlighted.

Press STEP.

Press track BACK.|>| The "Loopholes" menu is displayed.

Here in the loopholes menu you can change things like Region ID, CSS Encryption, Macrovision, and all those good things. Note, of course, that "you should not be here."
----

The last item refers to a screen shot of the menu, with the very words "YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE" at the bottom of the screen!

I hope they countersue and win. I am, quite literally, a coward when it comes to the MPAA - hence the AC post.

Nope, it's still there. The link in the story was wrong, it's really http://www.nerd-out.com/a pex/Secret_Menu/secret_menu.html. Try there.

Nah, not pulled, It's a broken link.

The correct URL is here: http://www.nerd-out.com/a pex/Secret_Menu/secret_menu.html

- Ed.

I meant here

For those of you who haven't heard of the Apex AD-600A, look here.

The problems is that Laws don't even make sense. In America you can copy stuff for personall uses but you can't make software to copy stuff??? I have said before that Americans are on CRACK.

The other thing I have noticed si that laws are not even consistent in one country to the next? The Germans are allowed to copy movies for personal uses if they rent a movie. I have said beofre that Germans smoke to much weed. They even have to pay TAXes so they can copy movies that they rent??? What is this some kind of pirate movie tax? It's a good thing the DVD consitorium is trying to sort these Germans out. I'm surprised that America even lets them run their country the silly things they do.

In Holland the do all kinds of drugs but I haven't heard about their stances on DVD.

The point is.... These DVD guys are doing su a favor. People who make Laws are on crack. DVD should decide how to make the copying and selling rules.

They shold also be allowed to charge extra if they can get away with it because they have a monopoly. And the money is going to starving artists like James Bond. Don't you guys like James Bond. He was crying last time when I talked o him on the phone. "These Linux programmers want to watch movies and won't buy windows" That is what he siad. And I started to cry as well.

Have a heart. Buy windows2000. It is most stable than Solaris anyways. And plus then you will have "erp"

Try here.

Sorry

Check out the Apex DVD player. Its the same one which plays MP3s. The engineers left a hidden menu on the player. It has the ability to select any region and to turn off macrovision (so it can be recorded to VHS). The player is not the highest quality (I had to open mine up and replug some cables to get the remote to work). Its based around an IDE DVD-ROM drive which means it can also play from CD-R and CD-RW media. All in all this is a very sweet unit for Nerd-Out

Check out the Apex AD-600A DVD, VCD and MP3 player.

There are instructions at nerd-out.com for changing the Region ID, as well as the Macrovision options and, ahem, other things, via the secret menu.

LOL. The player costs $199 at Circuit City. People are buying it en masse. I ordered mine already. :)

Check out the Apex AD-600A DVD, VCD and MP3 player.

There are instructions at nerd-out.com for changing the Region ID, as well as the Macrovision options and, ahem, other things, via the secret menu.

LOL. The player costs $199 at Circuit City. People are buying it en masse. I ordered mine already. :)

I bought one of those wonderful Apex AD-600A DVD players a couple of weeks ago, and have since used the built-in "secret menu" I found at www.nerd-out.com/apex to disable the region coding altogether. Anyone buying a DVD player needs to buy one like this so we can show them what we think of region codes!

The links are from an Ars Technica blurb