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Component DVD/MP3 Player for $170
JohnDonagher
among many other sent this in. I still haven't had a chance to get to Circuit City to confirm this, but apparently Apex Digital is selling a component DVD/MP3/Karaoke player for $170. The model number is AD-600A, and you have to ask for it because its not being kept on the shelves. The player will play any MP3s on an ISO formatted CD, and you can use the standard CD controls, although apparently you can't scan around within tracks. MP3 CDs aren't bad. 600 megs is getting a lot closer to that 'I don't need to insert physical media' line that I'm itching for.
MP3 and karaoke? Oh yeah. Why the big hush? Once consumers find out they'll want it. I'm sure the record industry will try to fight it.
What I'd like to see is one that will play my CD's, my MP3's AND my DVD's...
Now if only we had Circuit City up here.... :( Just gonna have to use the one I'm bulding istead :)
Some people have been able to find them, others haven't. Some have problems, others don't, etc. etc.
No Joliet? Doesn't that mean no long file names? Boo.
Go over there and scroll down on the first page a little. Some of the guys have gotten their hands on this little puppy and had good things to say about it.
I bought one a few days ago. It reads all of the discs I have burned (with Easy CD Pro 95) for archiving my mp3s. I was impressed that I didn't have to re-burn a special cd for it. The on-screen interface is a little dis-appointing, as it only displays the first 8 characters of the name of a dir or file, but if you have one album per directory, its pretty easy to naviagate. Quality seems very good to me. I have played a bunch of dvds and they all look good.
The links are from an Ars Technica blurb
Select Home Audio Department, search for AD-600A:
Your Search for AD-600A returned 0 items.
I wonder what all the hush-hush is over...fear of getting sued by RIAA?
Eric
Luckily there is a cached copy at Google. Doesn't say anything about playing MP3s, though.
. com/shoppingatnet/apdigdvdplay.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:st13.yahoo
"Tomorrow's forecast: a few sprinkles of genius with a chance of doom!" - Stewie Griffin
If anyone reading this article hasn't already, check out some of the posts about this on the "Open Forum" at http://www.arstechnica.com. Some of the more interesting comments on the Apex player mentioned an inability to do low bitrates (less than 32kbps), an 8-character track name limitation on the unit's display, and weird problems with audio sync on certain DVDs.
:-)
Still, the overall consensus was that the unit was a bargain despite these limitations. Of course, I recommend you read and decide for yourself before you throw your money at Best Buy employees.
Fry's sells a mp3/dvd player made by SAMPO.
I've never heard about before and couldn't find any info on the web.
Anybody tried this out?
Be insightful. If you can't be insightful, be informative.
If you can't be informative, use my name
I think they should have checked the info a little more clearly. According to Yahoo Shopper, that model is just a plan DVD player, and costs $279. Maybe someone modified a player. Donno.. just my .02
pugfantus -- #linuxlounge EfNet -- http://members.dencity.com/pugfantus
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." -- John Cage
Check it out here.
It plays DVD,VCD3.0,VCD2,DVCD,MP3 all the standard stuff, even copied DVD's work on it. And for the Europeans under us (like me
Cheers,
Arno
Joliet is just an ISO extension, and it only exists because microsoft didnt want to use what was already out there, rockridge. I dont see any advantages to using joliet, but i have noticed it doesnt like characters like : and ? in filenames.
Frys in Southern California has been selling DVD players that can play mp3s for some time now. In November they had a sale on a model from RAITE for $150. That model was particularly interesting because you could include lyrics and pictures to be displayed while the song is playing! And they are proudly displayed on the sales floor - not hidden in the back.
Actually Shinco ( a company in Singapore) has a similar unit...Actually they have three different models that do the same thing. The DVD specs on this model leave a little to be desired..but then again, you can't complain for that price...Now only If I could pick one of these up in Canada...and a car mp3 player. Now that would make me happy
I saw a DVD player at Fry's while doing my Christmas shopping with a big "Plays MP3" sticker on the front. Since there are already enough computers around here which are mp3 enabled, it wasn't a selling point, though. I got a Sony instead. ;)
Try the empeg for the car have seen it and it kicks butt
Alright moderators get your pen and paper out because it's time for school to start. Off topic? He was stating that he had been waiting for a unit like this for years. You probably assumed, however, that he was 'waiting for a first post' forever.
Oh... I thought you were referring to a first post.
:-)
My bad.
---
Tempfiles fugit.
I have a Raite 715, which plays MP3, VCD, SVCD, DVD, and CD. I bought it at egghead.com for under $150. They have another model that does Karaoke, too. One of the best things about this player is that you can upgrade the firmware by CD--just download, burn, and insert!
The problems with this player: Doesn't have random play for MP3s or CDs; the drive mechanism is relatively noisy.
Firmware issues: Is picky about filenames for MP3 files, and has trouble with VBR and files from certain encoders. I'm waiting for them to email me the latest firmware so I can see if that helps.
Other features: secret codes from the remote to disable region coding and macrovision.
Features I would like to see: Photo CD support. (Well, it will display an image associated with any given MP3 file, so you could use it as a slide show that way.)
It does.
It plays Mp3's & DVD's, CD are assumed. DVD drives absolutely can play a music CD.
Cool, eh?
http://www.somethingpositive.net Funny + bitter = comedy gold
The portability of the media notwithstanding, I still would like an mp3 network appliance -- a simple system with:
- a decent processor
- an os in flash for upgradability (with some careful consideration of security)
- a local drive for cacheing
- network connectivity (dhcp capable, since a lot of dsl and cable bridge/routers provide this)
- http, ftp, and maybe nfs protocol support
- a stupidly simple browsing mechanism (lcd touch screen?) that would allow you to pull files or playlists
- subtle styling so that it doesn't look out of place on top of a tuner
Hook up the cat 5 right alongside the RCA plugs, enter a couple of starting points (small keypad?), and browse for music. Now THAT would be a component mp3 system.J
I think not...(*poof*)
DOES it play vcd's????
I have one of these. I purchased it from futureshop.ca over X-mas. It was also available with their doorcrasher sale on boxing day.
Interesting!
I will have to try and play my MP3s when I get home. Cause if this is the case, then it is pretty sweet.
i think i'll always like to insert physical media once in awhile...
-- your knees hurt, don't they?
The Apex does this. It also handles CD-RW media as well, which is a sweet feature - get tired of yr MP3 party mix? Reuse the media!
It is a bargain, definitely.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
http://www.pjbox.com/product.htm
--
That player sounds great. I asked them if the player implemented Macrovision on the composite outputs. If it doesn't, it's the perfect player!
>I've been wanting one of these for years!!!
Beware of Circuit City, epecially if you think you might want return something, especially electronics. They charge something like a 15% restocking fee even if you return the item within 24 hours. You open the box, you get hit with the fee. At least that the case in the Virgina stores according to my brother-in-law....
Besides wasn't Circuit City one of the main forces behind Divx?
Why not just get a Book PC, throw Linux on it, and have a ball?
I wonder when we'll start seeing box sets all on one ISO CD buyable from any music store.
I'm still waiting for the car based MP3 players to come down in price
-no broken link
I just visited my local Circuit City.
Go to the video section and ask them to look up the following:
Vendor: APX
Model: AD600A
To their amazement, this little beauty will pop up. My local store had 4 (3 now).
The unit looks fairly clean on the front, and sparse on the back. The remote looks like my cd-changer's. The manual is nothing special, but looks readable.
Steven Yelton
After reading the thread, I jetted out to Circuit City on my lunch hour to try and track down the player.
After teaching the CC employee how to enter stock code into his terminal, I discovered that Apex DVD player is listed as:
APX AD600A
My local Circuit City didn't have any in stock, but they had over 400 had the warehouse, some scheduled for delivery within a day or two.
Retail price was $169.99.
What I should have said was nothing.
After reading the thread, I jetted out to Circuit City on my lunch hour to try and track down the player. After teaching the CC employee how to enter stock codes into his terminal, I discovered that Apex DVD player is listed as:
APX AD600A
My local Circuit City didn't have any in stock, but they had over 400 units in the warehouse, some scheduled for delivery within a day or two.
Retail price was $169.99.
What I should have said was nothing.
The Price is $149 in many Circuit City Stores. Some as low as $139.
It's often not on display, you have to ask them to look it up on the computer.
They cannot order from other stores, but can have them hold it for you or order from the central warehouse.
Just picked up two (one for a friend), they had one on Display, two in the back.
m l
$149 each, normal price, no special sale or anything.
Display says nothing about MP3, box has a small line of text saying it supports MPEG3 Audio.
Salesman said it's a new item, had them a couple weeks.
It really does play MP3 CD's, even with complex directory structures and long filenames.
The 8 character limit is far worse than you suspect. First for any duplicates (in the first 8 chars, which is darn likely) it immediately chops off 2 characters to put a 'N' and '1' to '9' to handle the duplicate names. If it hits more than 9 duplicates it chops off another 4 characters (leaving you with 2 unique chars), putting a 4 digit hex checksum of some sort, then a 'N' '1' (assume that's there on the 1 in 65536 chance of a duplicate hex checksum).
So it's really quite hard to figure out what the tracks are!
Even when playing a track there is no extra info, no more filename, no track number, no MP3 tags. Only an elapsed time for that track (which defaults to off, you have to use the display button to get it). You have to read the track number from the front display.
As for VCD, it will actually play a PAL format VCD on a NTSC TV! So all those pirate movies from Hong Kong on VCD will now play on your TV. Even plays slightly messed up VCDs (like a couple I burned with Adaptec CD Creator 4.0 which would never play on my Phillips play fine on the APEX).
Still at $149, it's a STEAL!! I am so happy to be able to play my MP3 CDs directly without a computer, if I was richer I'd buy one for everyone in my family.
The drive is a standard DVD drive with IDE interface and 4 pin power connector.
It's based on the ESS 4308A chipset (which I assume is a newer version of the 3308 since the default Adult password is 3308).
Here is a press release from ESS announcing APEX using their chipset:
http://www.esstech.com/Newsroom/1999/9-23-99.ht
I submitted this story back when it first appeared on Ars. Glad somebody else was able to submit it at the "right" time.
By the way, I couldn't find one at my local Circuit City. I even had the guy check in the computer system and no good there either. Oh well.
----------------
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
Frys has had the DVD/mp3 players for a while now under the brand name RAITE. They cost about $147 on sale. I picked one up and returned it withing 48 hours.
Why?
The mp3 player part of it has the following limitations.
None of my Old Time Radio Show, Spoken Word or 78rpm era jazz mp3 played with out major "bird sounds" or even flat out rejections. Many of the newer MP3s i have also would not play right.
Unless you live by around these limitations this unit will be pewp on your shoes.
This was not only NOT ready for consumer use, it was a pain in the butchecks for someone who knew what they were doing. the onlyworth of this thing is that it is a decent DVD and VCD player.
I was thinking of frankenstining it but it really wasnt worth it. My Toshiba Satalite serves me much better, and i can play Homeworld on it.
Summation--interesting first round consumer item...will be as valuable as a pet rock in a slate quary in about 6 months.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
The Shinco is also reviewed in the DEC-99 edition
of Home Cinema Choice (from the UK).
It seems that most of its insides are made by
Sony. They give urls, though I haven't checked
it out myself - http://www.shinco.com and
http://209.207.158.106/site/map.htm
"The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
I'd like to see a standard set of tests any CD-based MP3 player should follow. Call it a benchmark - a torture test for any device purporting to call itself a CD-based MP3 player. At a very first draft, I'd like to see the following checklist in any review of MP3 hardware, and my thoughts on what should be required behavior in any such device, and what behavior would be "nice to have" but not essential.
- CBR support I: Playback of files with constant bit rates of 96/44, 128/44, 160/44, 192/44, 256/44, 320/44. (Required: All. You might convince me that 320/44 is a "preferred", but embedded CPUs are fast enough now that if you can do 256, you should be able to do 320.)
- CBR support II: Playback of files with low constant bit rates. Some old-time radio material or spoken-word material is encoded at 24, 32, or 64. Because it's mono, this is good; there's no real loss of quality. (Preferred: All. May be a requirement for some users.)
- VBR support: Does it play back Xing/VBR at all the Xing/VBR quality settings? If not, what playbacks are supported? (Required: All.)
- Media support: CD-R? CD-RW? Both? (Required: Both)
- File display: Filenames? ID3 tag contents? Both? (Required: ID3-tag-first, then if no ID3 tag, the filename)
- Filesystem: ISO-9660? Joliet? That next-generation-universal-filesystem? All of the above? (Required: ISO-9660 and Joliet. Only ISO-9660 should be required if and only if ID3 tag support makes the display of 8.3-munged Joliet filenames unnecessary.)
- File layout: Files in current directory? Files in recursive subdirectories? (Required: All. Directory-searching is computationally trivial.)
- Non-MP3 files: If you put a README.TXT file or a WINAMP.M3U playlist on your disc, is the player smart enough to not try to play it as an MP3? (Required: *.mp3 get played. All else skipped. Preferred: Support for at least one playlisting file format.)
For your typical 64M handheld, none of this matters. But if you've already got 10-15 CD-Rs full of burned MP3s, you care about whether they'll play on your new device. You care about the encodes you worked on from restoring all your old vinyl stuff will also play. You care about whether or not your practice of using subdirectories (or not!) on your CD-Rs as you burn them will screw up your player. Damn it all, you care about whether the device handles your data.If mp3.com and the other reviewers of MP3 playback devices won't do it, and the manufacturers of MP3 playback devices won't disclose their specs, then we should.
What else belongs on the checklist that any MP3-CDR player should be expected to do before we plunk down our money to be first on the block to own one? What other files, directory layouts, and filesystems belong in Tackhead's Box Of Benchmark CD-Rs when he goes to Fry's or CC to try out the latest toy?
(Aside: As someone who doesn't use Joliet, and who renames his MP3s to 8.3 before burning to ISO-9660 CD-R, this AD-600A sounds pretty good if the firmware in the boxes they're selling supports VBR!)
Give it a month or so and you can have one in your car for a reasonable price. http://www.mambox.com/
(funny that John did not get one, but I did....)
Here is my URL with some good photos and some basic information in the unit.
http://users.ntplx.net/~andrew/apexdigi tal/
It's a toy....I'll keey my eye out for better 2nd generation products.
To get a piece of a DVD on CD(trailer), I need SVCD/VCD3.0.
Oh, MiniDVD play would be cool, too.
Yes. It also plays CAV laserdisks and BetaMax(tm) cassettes.
mp3 hardware
is no longer vaporware..
Must buy one for car!!
Let us all rejoice.
C. C. has redeemed themselves
for divx
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
....until the quality of these DVD/MP3/VCD/CD/etc players get better. My friend bought one of these and has love/hate feelings. It's a basic MP3 player. It doesn't have any of the functions that you get with xAMP on your pee-cee like playlists and random/shuffle. The quality is kind of crappy, also.
I use my laptop as a MP3 player. Just hook it up to the receiver and use the MP3 player on the 'puter to play songs. It's especially nice, also, that since the laptop has a fairly small HD (~4GB), I can plug it into a RJ45 jack next to the receiver and pull songs off the MP3 server.
AUGH. No I dont want a silly empeg pooter that will die in winter, or when a HD blows a disc. I want one that reads mp3s right off a cd and plays it in my car. Forget empeg, overpriced junk.
I just checked my local Circuit City. (Emeryville, CA) They say they have the unit in stock.
Hey, anyone that bought this for the cheap price please post the store number so we can get our local stores to honor the price.
Thanks a lot...
And I must say I'm very impressed. I bought this player specifically to play MP3s and a region 2 Suspiria DVD I have. As far as Mp3 playing goes, I'm extremely happy with it. Yes, it doesn't like Variable Bit Rate Mp3s, but using MusicMatch to convert the Mp3s from VBR to CBR takes around 30 seconds per song, or you can just re-rip off the CD again. (I found the most unobtrusive way to do this is to select all the songs you intend to burn -they are sitting in a directory anyways- and have MusicMatch go through all the songs and change their bit rates. It's automatic and fairly fast. Once I figured out the player liked 128kbps CBR, I've had 100% success playing my burned CDs. It sits here at my desk, currently not connected to anything but speakers, but I did hook it up to the TV here long enough to switch it to regionless mode and try out a few DVDs. I tried Suspiria (region 2), Devil's Advocate, Clerks, and Blade Runner, and they all played and looked fine to me. I didn't try any of the DVDs that are rumored to not work with this player (Matrix), as we have a perfectly good Pioneer and I intend to use it as a standalone Mp3 player only. MP3 stuff: What it does have - repeat 1, repeat all, skip, mute. What it does not have - shuffle, rewind, ff (you can move to the beginnings of songs or the next song but not to an actual point in the song), the ability to read more than 24 directories (AFAIK, I had to dump mine in r00t since it isn't hooked up to a TV) So, if you can afford to blow 260 bucks for a standalone Mp3 player with the occasional VCD/SVCD/DVD playback, I'd say go for it. For me, it does what it does. Your mileage may vary. Questions about the player? email me at stephenc@3drealms.com Sorry for the incoherent message, I'm trying to squeeze this in during a level compile.
I went out to Circuit City today at 4:30PM, and they said that they CANNOT sell them for legal resasons!!! This happened at the Ann Arbor store in Michigan!
I believe so. I don't own one (I'm needing a new hard drive first), but I've played Video CDs (Ahh, Macross: Do you remember Love) on other DVD players. The thing was top of the line, but I'd think that any DVD player would play VCD. There are differences, but they're still Discs that play Mpeg files.
http://www.somethingpositive.net Funny + bitter = comedy gold
Why worry about filenames... Any self-respecting person that creates MP3's puts info in the ID3 tag fields anyway, and that info is usually better than the limited filename text anyway!
Look for the APX-AD600A
Otherwise, I am waiting for a little consolidation in the CD/DVD market. I want a 5/6 CD changer that will play audio CD's, DVD Video, DVD Audio (when standardized), and MP3 audio.
Also, a great feature would be if the unit had an ethernet port, and could read from my samba drive, for MP3's, and do CDDB for my audio CD's.
It plays the Matrix perfectly, and it's extremely fast in access time and you can speed through in fastforward 8x, you can speed through audio cd's and not hear a skipping sound, it's like spinning a record really fast.
Would have been nice if I had put in the web site..www.mcmelectronics.com
Hidden Win2K Menu
Hey, what about a discman that can read cds with mp3s? I think read about such an device on slashdot a few months ago... but haven't really heard anything about it since. Does anyone know anything about it?
Anyone know how much memory these things have? Cause it would be really nice if it came with a few MB for anti-skip.
The Circuit City in Aiea Hawaii does not have em. But then again Hawaii is always like 10 years behind the rest of the world in technology anyway so this isn't suprising.
It doesn't play DVDs, but does play CD's, and it's supposedly prepared for all the issues the Apex apparently isn't - supports LFNs, M3U's, VBR, subdirectories, index and search, plus 45-sec skip buffer.
So what if they're held up in production. Maybe that really does mean they're making sure they make a better product.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
OK, let's think about this...
Laptop: ~$1000 US. MP3 component in my home, MP3 component in my car, MP3 component anywhere (Ok, for about 3 hours on battery), plus .
Apex DVD/mp3: $169.99 US. MP3 component in my home....what else?
I called the Local CC's in Tulsa OK and they have 2 in one store and 3 in the other - I'm going right after work to pick one up.
I've heard some comments in the Ars Technica forum about some DVD's losing their sync between video and audio? Is that still happening, has anyone here noticed, or was that just maybe some problems in the initial release corrected now?
Thanks
I went out an bought this unit Tuesday night at Circuit City. I'm very satisfied with the unit, but I have noticed that it puts out some nasty interference upon boot up - I have a panasonic VCR sitting directly under it, and there's notiable picture distortion on the VCR's signal when the Apex boots. However, upon switching over to the Apex's feed, the distortion went away. This weekend I plan to do some scientific research into the cause of the interference (it is mentioned in the manual), and I'll post any results here.
Has anyone else experienced this?
Other than that, I'm extremely satisfied with the unit. It has some very nice audio output, including digital coax (which can go straight into, say, a DAT deck, or a sound card. heh heh).
-- Alex
I simply don't understand why geeks who would normally turn up their noses at second-class products get so pumped about MP3.
You'd spend three hundred bucks on a videocard to get an extra 5fps and higher-res textures; you'd spend a couple hundred bucks on a 3D soundcard to get that rush from hearing a bullet ricochet beside your head; you want PC133 memory and an overclocked CPU -- and all because it's the best.
But you settle for MP3. It doesn't sound as good as CD. It doesn't sound as good as Sony MiniDisc. It doesn't match Yamaha's sound compression format, and it doesn't even match *Microsoft's* sound format!
I just don't get it. Instead of demanding a better product, everyone goes apeshit over a terrible lossy audio compression scheme that does all sorts of weird artifacting to the sound.
And then is happy to buy a Rio instead of a minidisc player.
Give your heads a shake!
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
"getting a lot closer to that 'I don't need to insert physical media' line that I'm itching for. "
:( ... until i buy another one for the remaining and to come CDs ;)
i've just bought a 200CD changer and random play it every day (it is already full) and i'm very happy.
not much too: 200$. and i've seen a 200 DVD/CD player this afternoon. a bit more expensive though
i'll never change any CD in that changer
-- x
but does it play QRCd's? I can't wait for a better
QRCd player to come out.
Just got mine from Circuit City, and on both the
Matrix and Run Lola Run the player plays the movies correctly (these are the only two movies we have to test with) but the brightness goes up and down in cycles of about 3 seconds. It is REALLY annoying and is absolutely unacceptable. Is anyone else having this problem?
Pine Technologies has just such a device scheduled for release in the next few weeks. Unfortunately manufacturing was delayed during the past holiday season. I believe it will have a suggested list price at about $150 (US).
If I could only live my life with my threshold at 4...
If you're in Canada, the product is available at Future Shop but I beleive they are selling it for $329 CAN $.. equiv to about $225 US$.
Do a product search and lookup Apex or AD-600A
I just got home with a floor model for $149. They GUARANTEED a 30 day return at no cost to me. (I live in San Diego, CA) HOWEVER... this unit is extremely buggy. So far, it has decided to arbitrarily fast forward and/or eject. I have tried a few DVDs all w/ the same result. This POS is going back!
I'd love one to go in my car. Unfortunately, Empeg is a bit outta the ol' price range. It seems like a total waste to have hard drive in there when CDRs sell for $1. Alas, anyone know where I can pick up a car MP3 player with a CD drive?
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Damn. This thing will cost a fuckin' fortune.
I've been waiting for these for a while now...saw all the prototype models being offered for a lot of money...and now they are starting to become mass produced...these are just little startup/no name companies trying to make a quick buck before the big boys come out and play... I'm sure sony, yamaha, and kenwood have working prototypes, but they're just not ready to be released yet...so if I can hold out a few more months, i'll be able to get my sony 5 disc mp3 player that'll integrate right into my sony system... it's sorta like the portable mp3 players...diamond came out with one and then loads of small companies started mass producing crappy little players...I guess I'll just have to wait and let this technology settle a bit before I go out and buy one...i'll just have to use xmms a little longer...
I just bought one for the time being, I am currently awaiting DVD-Audio players, I want a dvd-audio changer that also plays mp3 cd's without a glitch. This is probably going to be about a year wait, but well worth it I might add.
step shift left shift right the rest is self explainitory.
It's convenient, genious. Minidisc isn't solid state, CD isn't solid state, and yes, you can get a MiniDisc to skip - 40sec. skip protection doesn't do much good when you run cross country for an hour.
.
There are ways to prevent MD players from skipping while jogging or running. While I haven't tried any of them myself, there is a list of ways to prevent skipping at http://www.minidisc.org/md_jogging.html
Both those are power hogs, while Rio batteries last forever.
Sony recently released an MD portable (the MZ-E95) which can (supposedly) run for 77 hours with an external AA battery. I don't know how long a Rio lasts, but for most purposes, 77 hours of music is much more than enough.
Rios are smaller.
The latest MD portable player/recorders are barely larger than a MD (in length and width). Rios aren't much smaller.
The quality is not worse; it's all a function of bitrate. At 128kbps some wierd noises occur, but I can't tell 190kbps from a CD, period. If you were cursed with more discerning ears, sorry.
With crappy headphones or speakers, MP3s sound the same as MDs or CDs. But with high-quality headphones/speakers, the difference is clear (at least to most people I know).
If you have macrovision problems: make sure no dvd is in player press setup press step press skip left press skip right set macrovision to off in loophole menu I posted this earlier but thought it needed its own subject line.
You'd think it qould be fairly uniform nation wide... My local CC has it for $169, they also have some other player for $149 though. I can see the logic of not having two players at the same price ;-)
Out here in San Jose, They actually had the unit on display.. but I doubt that the sales person could have told me about its capabilities.. I didnt bother to ask. The going price at my local circuit city was $149 out the door and I got one out of 10 units they had.
First of all.. the fact that it plays mp3's is awesome and I am glad to support new technology that shows promise like this.
Pros:
1. The first disk I put into this unit.. which is an mp3 disk i have had for a year or more worked the first time and played beautifully.. Only a few songs seemed to fail but gave no indication why.
2. The setup screens are simple and dont require mush intelligence. Available setup options are based on which mode you are currently in. This is definately a low level consumer device. I wont trade it in for my sony 5 changer, but they will learn to live together happily.
3. For those of us who are "po" and cannot afford heavy duty entertainment setups, the documentation covers setting up this unit with a desktop stereo.. Dont know why.. but it looks like they knew who thier market was..
Cons:
Im sad to say that the brunt of this review relates to defects in the unit.
The mp3 interface is very weak and untested. In the first 2 minutes there were already bugs that any engineer would not let out the door.
1. There is NO way to navigae up a directory and thus return to the parent directory without realoading the disk. You can navigate by song number and ideally reach every song by its relative number on the disk, but once you have navigated past the root directory you cannot return. This may be possible if there is a song located in the root directory as well as sub menus.
2. when scrolling through directories a file with less than an 8 character name will inherit the remaining letters of the name of the last song in its position. Its a visual bug and doesnt affect play, but its very unprofessional and confusing.
3. Some song wont play. Ther is no indication why, but some thing just didnt play. I have nothing out of thee ordinary on the disk and most songs are encoded at the same bit rate.
4. Because of the limits in the naming scheme, If you have multiple files with the same beginning characters, you will have multiple songs with what looks like the same name. this can be corrected if you spend the time to name your songs accordingly keeping this limit in mind.
5. When playing a vcd disk, the play button at the bottom of the remote will not start the video, rather the enter button is used. Both buttons should function in this case.
6. The documentation makes only 2 mentions of mp3 in its entirety. Not only was this feature an afterthought, It looks like they gave up support for this early on. Sounds like a couple computer companies I know of around here.. Where features that cant be made to work adequately, are taken out of the documentation and marked as un-supported.
Thats my speil /.
Overall, I like the unit and will contact the manufacturer about a possible bios upgrade for the unit.
despite its shortcomings, this signifies the beginning of a new revolution in the entertainment market. I see alot of promise for these units.
Even moreso, I await the second generation where consumer awareness will yield a more heavily tested product.
Last Warrior
In The Matrix, Neo stored data(?) on minidiscs. anyone know of a data MD writer? that would have a really high just-plain-cool-and-futuristic rating. kung fu on a smartmedia card?!
"There is no spoon."
Here is the Manufacturer's or Importer's Web page:
http://www.vddv.com/prod01.htm
Here is the list of add ons:
Analog 5.1 channel output.(+5USD)
Dulby digital 5.1 channel output(+10USD)
DTS output.(+5USD)
MP3 audio capable(+5USD)
Code free.(+5USD)
Optical digital audio output.(+5USD)
I wonder what "Dulby" or "Code Free" is.
I just ran out and picked one up tonight.
Very nice IMHO, although this is my first dvd player so i have nothing to compare it with:( So far it has worked well.. I just have to get used to the remote a bit. I know someone else asked about what remote code this player might emulate.. Well it is majorly screwing with my NEC tv big time. A lot of the remote buttons do stuff to my tv so i suppose there is where you want to start.
I can live with it for now since the big screen I bought tonight is coming on Sunday:) !!! Oh and DTS receiver + 5+1 speaker set:) !! Kinda went hog wide but this has been planned for months.
I did notice that when playing the matrix..my only dvd right now I cant figure out how to get back to the opening menu when the dvd is first inserted without ejecting and inserting it again. Is there a better way that i am just missing? Unfortunaly I havent had time to try out the mp3 part but hopefully it will be worth it:)
Malice95
You may already have seen this, but empeg.com make a car-radio-size mp3 player.
> The empeg-car is an in-car digital music
> player, allowing you to have up to 7,000
> singles (or over 500 albums) instantly
> accessible in CD-quality, in your
> dashboard.
Comes as default with 4Gb for about $1000. Can be upgraded to 28Gb. Includes all the usual car-radio stuff, RDS etc. Runs Linux and Python on a StrongARM.
http://www.empeg.com/
andy.
My company, www.mp3car.com, has been selling MP3/CD products for quite sometime. Our home stand alone product is called Mozart's Music Box and retails for $249.99. We are also going to be reselling two portable MP3/CD units which look very promising! Check out the website if you want to see some cool MP3 hardware. We got some kick ass homebrew too! http://www.mp3car.com
They just threw away CSS2, and are starting a new, more closed door standard.
Me, I'm hoping for a 5.1 channel mp3 standard.
A unit that plays dvds/mp3s. This is great, but what I *really* want is something portable that will play mp3s. Something similar to a discman, that plays mp3s/audio cds. My computer works fine at home for mp3s, and I don't watch dvds; however, lugging my laptop around in the car and at work, when I want to play mp3s, is getting really old.
-dilinger
Anyone else found a good place to buy these online? I really dread giving my business to Circuit City (remember DIVX?). That and I also live in Okc and I fear that the lone Circuit City here is probably already sold out.
Damn...I had the Circuit City in South San Jose put one of these on hold for me yesterday. They told me there were 7 in stock, and took down my credit card number, DOB, and driver license number. Today, I go into the store. They have no record of my order, plus tell me they're out of stock. Circuit City sucks. Roy
I need to send my entirely-too-expensive CD-changer in for repair sometime soon (a spring on the door came unwound). Something like this would be a good temporary replacement. However, I've got a pretty high-end amplifier - one that does DTS (which I don't use) and has optical inputs for everything - I'm used to the "no hiss or static" sounds that come from a pure digital setup and good speakers and wires, and I swear the sound that comes from the optical cables is better than what I get out of the digital coax.
Now, I notice this thing doesn't have optical outputs. To me, a DVD player (which I don't need, since I don't have a TV) that doesn't have an optical out probably isn't worth the money since everything inside the DVD should be digital anyway.
At any rate, has anyone tested the Apex unit on a decent amp and set of speakers? How is the sound quality from MP3 to CD audio?
If all I'm interested in is the sound quality, why wouldn't I be better served with a medium capacity CD changer with a good signal to noise ratio and optical outputs?
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Okay, it's cheap and it works great. The secret menu trick that is posted else where is awesome, I can now play any region of DVD. The MP3 play back is good too. I bought mine at Circuit City in West Los Angeles for $149 plus tax. It totaled out to $162.36. Their phone number is 310-280-0700. I believe I got the last one. The sales guy I talked to when I was there was cool and knew what I wanted. I had called yesterday and the guy I talked to was an idiot and wouldn't even look it up. So if you go there to buy one try and get Brian Jones.
This thing is great, this thing has a hidden menu that lets you disable macrovision, css, regional coding, etc. ( [power on], [setup], [scroll to preferences], [step], [ |>| ]. Vola, just power off to get out of the menu. I shared one DVD setup at my house with roomates, picked this one up at CC for my room - and having to pass through the VCR, the macrovision dissable worked great!
Yes. I have one. It played my VCDs just fine. It plays DVD, VideoCD, Audio CD, MP3 collections on CD-R. It is a distributed version of this player: http://www.vddv.com/prod01.htm With a few added options. Circuit City is losing money on each one sold, or so I've heard.
I bought mine at the Circuit City in Torrance, CA. The cost was $149. I also coughed up for the extended 3 year warranty which was $49.95. I love it. For the price (including the warranty) it can't be beat. I also have a $500 Sony and the only difference would be the Sony has better menu options and a few extra features. But not $300 more worth of features.
HAH!! But does it play Atari games??
I'm an idiot. I knew you couldn't copy DVD's to videotape because of macrovision... why did I think I could hook it up through the VCR? *doh!*
See my post at: http://www.nerd-out.com/forum/read.php3?num=5&id=1 37&loc=0&thread=137 For details.