Apex AD-800 Progressive Scan DVD Player $99

[robsdeals]

Apex AD-800 Progressive Scan DVD Player $99

at Sam's Club B&M and
Amazon.com

 

[jankm]

This deal seems too good to be true. Progressive Scan and Dolby Digital Decoding. Whats the catch? I haven't seen any players with these features for under $200.

 

[TekDemon]

Flaming hot deal man! Especially since many of us have a $20 off $99 electronics coupon from Amazon.com! I just picked it up for $79.99 shipped, although I also bought a DVD Box Set of Buffy(it showed up in my GoldBox for $22.50 for season 2 and I couldn't say no).

Don't bother trying to resell it though, it's worth about as much on ebay(83 plus shipping or so) so it's a hot deal if you want to keep it, but not if you're an ebayer.

Oh and in terms of "what's the catch" the catch is that it's an Apex unit that's not too reliable(has a good shot of breaking within the year) and is a little sketchy on SVCD and VCD playback, plus the remote control is from hell. What else....ummm...oh the DTS doesn't really work right on many DVD titles.

So yeah, it's pretty bugtastic but it's definitely worth $79.99!

 

[Nikepete]

It does not play VCD though. I think Apex stops supporting this format.

 

[ander]

Getting a progressive scan DVD player will make no difference on my Sony Wega, right?

 

[TekDemon]

ander, it will basically output 480p...so it depends on if your WEGA is "hdtv compatible"...I'm hoping mine is...

Oh and it will probably help if your TV has component in in the back...otherwise it probably can't handle the 480p or even 480i.

 

[mchammer187]

this was too hot to pass up even though i dont really need one

79 shipped muhahahahhah

 

[kansai999]

Here is a review of the player if anyone cares.
Just trying to help.

 

[mdplayer00]

nikepete, you scare me for a second there when u said it doesn't play vcds. According to Vcdhelp, this player plays it fine. Although it has some minor glitches here and there. But we come to expect that from Apex.

 

[Nikepete]

The earlier production supported VCD, not the recent ones. Amazon's ad states SVCD and not VCD for a reason. If you check nerd-out.com you'll see Apex recently pulls out all support for VCD for all models. Don't know why, may be law suit problem. I'd love to get the AD-800 if it reads VCD.

 

[NightTime003]

showed up at my Gold Box for $81

 

[xylem]

My AD-800 reads VCD, mp3. This is a versatile DVD Player. However, I am not at all impressed by the progressive scan output. I have it hooked up to a Samsung Ultravision HDTV, and it doesn't look very good. Also, to the best of my knowledge there is no region-free firmware for it. That said, for $79, this player is a good buy, if only for its versatility. Supposedly the first AD-800s produced had very tweakable settings, which could improve video output, but access to a lot of them were removed in the current ones.

 

[mdplayer00]

It's true that Apex has stop supporting the VCD format. I just verified it from the website. That's terrible. But now my question is does anyone know the ones coming from Amazon whether it is the old versions that can support VCD or are they all new non-VCD versions?

 

[err]

I have this same exact model and I got this a few months back from Amazon.

I have to say this is a steal to get this type of DVD / VCD player with all these features.

It DOES support VCD and SVCD. I am playing it fine. It also support DVD multiregion.

Also, it supports progressive scan and have DVD output. It also came with 2 karaoke jacks ...

Go get it. This is definetely worth it.

eRr

 

[iluvdeal]

Originally posted by: mdplayer00
It's true that Apex has stop supporting the VCD format. I just verified it from the website. That's terrible. But now my question is does anyone know the ones coming from Amazon whether it is the old versions that can support VCD or are they all new non-VCD versions?

Where exactly did you find this on their site? I can't beleive they would stop supporting it as it is hugely popular in alot of Asian countries. Are they be forced to do this by movie industry or something?

 

[puppyfriend]

Err:

Do you use the progressive output? Someone here and people on avsforum say that it's really bad. Since that's the only important thing to me, how's the quality?

David

 

[breweyez]

hmm...I guess its back to pioneer for the "play all" type of units

 

[huesmann]

WTF is progressive scan anyway?

 

[GPz1100]

Has anyone tried the jvc XV-S500BK?

Granted, costs quite a bit more than this apex unit, but supports dvd, vcd, svcd, mp3, and jpeg, also with progressive out, but no built in decoding. (Though could probably be had for ~$150).

seems to be the hottest thing with supporting svcd's (esp in non standard bitrates)

Progressive scan is the opposite of interlaced, where each frame is composed of one field, rather that 2 interlaced fields.

 

[Boogak]

Originally posted by: huesmann
WTF is progressive scan anyway?

Instead of a standard interlaced signal where half the screen is drawn each frame, progressive scan draws the entire screen each frame. Supposedly has a higher visual quality, haven't seen it in person yet so I can't comment on it. Can anyone else comment on the progressive scan quality of this DVD player? My Toshiba HDTV support progressive scan, but I wanna make sure it makes a nice difference before I get this Apex and sell off my old DVD player.

 

[vinnyracer]

good deal, not all I need now is a $20 coupon

 

[TekDemon]

The default progressive output on the AD-800 does look crappy compared to other progressive players, but at least it seems to be a hardware progressive...

BUT the good thing is...they JUST managed to hack some of these players(there are different types of the AD-800) and hopefully these will be hacktastic! It is possible to hack it into a semi functional version of the Malata 996 player! Of course the remote will no longer work and neither will the buttons in front...which uhhh is a problem =)