Apex AD-1600 DVD Player

by Apex

Product Details

Product Manual [853kb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 12.6 x 2.8 x 11.8 inches ; 6.5 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 9 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B0000658CG
• Item model number: AD 1600
• Batteries: 2 AA batteries required. (included)
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (135 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #101,924 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Apex made a strong name for itself in the DVD arena based on kitchen-sink features and rock-bottom prices, and the AD-1600 is clearly a child of this philosophy. Apart from its appealing price, the player handles almost every disc type out there, from DVD-Video to CD, MP3-CD and WMA-CD to HDCD, and even JPEG image and Kodak Picture CDs. The unit also comes with a remote control, an owner's manual, a stereo analog audio/composite-video interconnect, and two AA batteries.

Video Features
The AD-1600 offers something unique to Apex players: support for both NTSC (North American) and PAL (European) video formats, so long as the region encoding allows (discs must be encoded for Region 1 or all regions). A screen saver keeps paused images from burning into a television, and parental controls help keep young eyes off mature discs. Picture zoom lets you focus on scenes in greater detail, and the unit's fluorescent video display is snazzy and easy to read.

Audio Features
The AD-1600 is compatible with standard CDs, audio CD-Rs and CD-RWs, and discs encoded with MP3 and WMA (Windows Media) audio files. It even decodes HDCD (High-Definition Compatible Digital), a 20-bit system used on many commercial CDs to deliver better sound than is possible through standard CDs.

Connections
The back panel offers one set of left/right analog-audio outputs for compatibility with stereo Dolby Pro Logic receivers and stereo televisions. This unit also supports both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel formats through a single coaxial digital-audio output for direct connection to a surround-decoding AV receiver. The back panel offers one output for S-video and two standard composite-video outputs, so you can channel one output into a different room.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

232 of 245 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars True work-horse, April 28, 2002

By 

John A. Radi "jradi" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Apex AD-1600 DVD Player (Electronics)

I love Apex, I've been buying Apex players for years now - and I've convinced many, many friends to follow. There are more features in this player than just about any high-end player for three times the cost. I always feel bad when a friend buys a player w/o talking to me first, especially Sony - as they don't handle VCD's that well.

Just a quick word on VCD, SVCD format. You may have never heard of them - but it's the MP3 of the future. On your home computer - with nothing more than 50cent CDR's, a video capture card, and a cd burner you can be creating your own movies! It's wonderful! Then you burn them in VCD format and Apex players will play them (not all Sony's, even those that say "VCD" work with home media).

I'm slowly converting all my home videos into VCD format - that's why I'm such a big proponent of these players. I want all my friends and family to be able to enjoy the home videos that I produce.

Another application for VCD format is Digital Cameras. I can put all my new photos into a VCD formated disk (once again - 30-50 cents each) and it will play in the Apex player like a slideshow. You can even zoom and pan through the photo. It's so much nicer to view digital pictures in your living room rather than dragging everyone to the computer. This Apex player is truly the media hub of my living room.

Plus - MP3 format - for parties, I just burn a few disks that have up to 10 regular ablums on them and I leave them in the living room. I don't have to worry about people messing around with my cd collection - and you can create a single disk with 10 hours of music on it and never have to worry about changing disks again!

73 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great player for unbelievable price, June 10, 2002

By 

Praveen Mehrotra (Cambridge, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Apex AD-1600 DVD Player (Electronics)

This player plays everything. Although an adequate display for mp3 playing is lacking (no ID3 tags, just filename), its main function is playing DVDs. It does that very well. JPG function and the VCD function which I have also tested work very well. The remote control is kind of small and cheap looking. However, the silver player looks nice and slick, and for [the price] is a STEAL. No other DVD player on the market plays all of these options in a better fashion.

Also of note,
-No optical digital out (only coaxial).
-No firmware upgrade availabe.
-Does not come with S-video cable.
-Video and Audio quality are crisp and clear!

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good bang for you buck, June 5, 2002

By 

"dcny6923" (Woodside, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Apex AD-1600 DVD Player (Electronics)

This is an excellent DVD Player which was able to handle everything I threw at it. It loads the media fast.

Asside form the good features, the remote has a cheap look to it. Holding and working the remote feels very awkward. The buttons that you'll be using the most often, (Play, Stop, Forward, etc) are all positioned in the very bottom. The Forward, Reverse, Stop, Pause buttons are far away form the Play button so expect a lot of jumping around with the remote.

The MP3 and WMA playback is great but lacking some simple features which makes it annoying. There is no Fast Forward or Rewind with both MP3 or WMA files. There is no ID3 tag support for MP3s. They are just displayed using the filename of which, 8 or 10 characters are displayed. The play screen is dull beyond belief. Just a blue screen with trackname and directories. Something better could have been done.

All in all, the player lacks some features and looks cheap but for the price that it is, this is a very good deal.