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Widget and Siercia were watching "Kiki's Delivery Service" Saturday afternoon, and at a certain point, our 7-year old Apex DVD player just... stopped playing the movie. It would go into the movie, but it wouldn't go past chapter 9. The movie would play in my PCs DVD drive fine, but not in the DVD player, even after being thorougly washed.
This is not the first time we've had issues with this drive. This was an Average drive in year-2000 standards, made outstanding only by its ability to play any DVD from any world-region. At the time, I expected I'd be watching a lot of wacky anime and foreign movies with that nifty feature. I didn't.
So, when this thing acted up now for the fourth of fifth time, I didn't have much love left for it, and I knew DVD players were significantly cheaper than they used to be. Sure, I could have bought a lens cleaner for the Apex, I could have taken it apart and cleaned it out, but... No. I went online to Consumer Reports and some other A/V review sites, and decided on this: http://www.crutchfield.com/S-MYW9jAzcBNW/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=54400&I=158NS75H, the lovely and amazingly THIN Sony DVP-NS75H. It plays DVDs, it plays Music CDs, and as a bonus, if you plug it in through an HDMI cable, it Upconverts pretty darn well from 480p to 720p or 1080i resolution, which happens to be what the nice new LCD TV we have supports. We hit Circuit City yesterday afternoon, and bought one (on sale for $99!)
Last night, after we watched Rome, I pulled apart about 1/3 of the cabling of our AV system, re-routed the HDMI cable from the Satellite box to the DVD player, and then wired up the Satellite box with some real nice Component Cables I had purchased, as well as switching out the old PS2 composite cables for the nice new Component cable I got as well, so IT can output 720/1080 in the few games the support it. :)
The first 10 minutes of Serenity look pretty good in 1080i. I am pleased.
Anyone want a used Apex Region-Free DVD player? :)
This is not the first time we've had issues with this drive. This was an Average drive in year-2000 standards, made outstanding only by its ability to play any DVD from any world-region. At the time, I expected I'd be watching a lot of wacky anime and foreign movies with that nifty feature. I didn't.
So, when this thing acted up now for the fourth of fifth time, I didn't have much love left for it, and I knew DVD players were significantly cheaper than they used to be. Sure, I could have bought a lens cleaner for the Apex, I could have taken it apart and cleaned it out, but... No. I went online to Consumer Reports and some other A/V review sites, and decided on this: http://www.crutchfield.com/S-MYW9jAzcBNW/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=54400&I=158NS75H, the lovely and amazingly THIN Sony DVP-NS75H. It plays DVDs, it plays Music CDs, and as a bonus, if you plug it in through an HDMI cable, it Upconverts pretty darn well from 480p to 720p or 1080i resolution, which happens to be what the nice new LCD TV we have supports. We hit Circuit City yesterday afternoon, and bought one (on sale for $99!)
Last night, after we watched Rome, I pulled apart about 1/3 of the cabling of our AV system, re-routed the HDMI cable from the Satellite box to the DVD player, and then wired up the Satellite box with some real nice Component Cables I had purchased, as well as switching out the old PS2 composite cables for the nice new Component cable I got as well, so IT can output 720/1080 in the few games the support it. :)
The first 10 minutes of Serenity look pretty good in 1080i. I am pleased.
Anyone want a used Apex Region-Free DVD player? :)
