Apex AD-5131 DVD Player
Khaos
New Hampshire
Well, my mother-in-law picked one of these up for us at Wal-Mart today for $60. I'm impressed. The thing plays back actual SVCDs and VCDs with no gimmicks or anything, and the video quality is very good even though I had to route it through a VCR because our TV doesn't even have component inputs on it (Only one antenna/coax input). SVCD's play like butter and they look incredible. They look better than when played on a computer, I suppose because they're meant to be viewed on a TV screen's resolution and refresh rate. They don't look quite as good as XviD can, but they look pretty darn good. The remote sucks, but for $60, it works fine.
Did I mention that this thing has a 3-disc changer? It does audio CD's, MP3 CD's and HDCD's as well. It doesn't look too bad in the rack either. Replace the remote and you're golden. If this thing did progressive-scan then I'd say it's the best DVD player ever made period ever kazaam wham bam wow blah.
For anybody looking to get a cheap DVD player that will play their VCDs and SVCDs without having to screw around with converting the files or fooling the player into thinking it's a standard VCD, this is for you.
Check it out.
Edit: I've done more research on this player and it seems to get mixed reviews; some of them work really well and some of them seem to not work well at all. Your mileage could vary... At least the one that we've got here works incredibly well and has played literally everything I've thrown at it... SVCD, XVCD, VCD, DVD, etc. There was some distortion on one VCD that I burned with Nero on some ancient 16x cheapo media that I burned at 24x, but another VCD that I burned in that fashion played fine. Absolutely no complaints. For $59 on sale at Wally World, it seems to me that it's pretty hard to go wrong. The only media this thing won't play seems to be MPEG-4. It will even play raw MPEG-1/2 from an ISO formatted data CD with no VCD information!
Did I mention that this thing has a 3-disc changer? It does audio CD's, MP3 CD's and HDCD's as well. It doesn't look too bad in the rack either. Replace the remote and you're golden. If this thing did progressive-scan then I'd say it's the best DVD player ever made period ever kazaam wham bam wow blah.
For anybody looking to get a cheap DVD player that will play their VCDs and SVCDs without having to screw around with converting the files or fooling the player into thinking it's a standard VCD, this is for you.
Check it out.
Edit: I've done more research on this player and it seems to get mixed reviews; some of them work really well and some of them seem to not work well at all. Your mileage could vary... At least the one that we've got here works incredibly well and has played literally everything I've thrown at it... SVCD, XVCD, VCD, DVD, etc. There was some distortion on one VCD that I burned with Nero on some ancient 16x cheapo media that I burned at 24x, but another VCD that I burned in that fashion played fine. Absolutely no complaints. For $59 on sale at Wally World, it seems to me that it's pretty hard to go wrong. The only media this thing won't play seems to be MPEG-4. It will even play raw MPEG-1/2 from an ISO formatted data CD with no VCD information!
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