Apex AD-1500 DVD Player
Quality control stinks, but awesome features for the price
(...) Once it was hooked up, we tried playing Little Mermaid for my daughter.  It would not read the DVD at all.  Next I tried Lady and the Tramp.  It played for 10 minutes and froze up.  I was less than happy.<br />(...)The quality of the parts is less than any other electronics component I have ever owned and they obviously have quality control issues.<br />Functionality is near perfect.  It played DVDs wonderfully ... with one slight exception -- I played Little Mermaid with the Spanish language track and English subtitles on.  At ends of three of the over 20 chapters, the transition was not smooth but jumped slightly as if a couple of frames were dropped.  Other than that, DVD playback was great.<br />VCD playback was good.  I honestly could not tell any major quality difference between the VCD movie and the DVD movie; the DVD looked only a little brighter and sharper.  Having never played a VCD before, I was shocked to learn that almost all the DVD functionality was gone.  I could play, stop, rewind, fast-forward and goto a specific time in the VCD - no chapters, menus, etc.  I understand this may have as much to do with the individual VCD as with the VCD format and the DVD player.  Still, I just can't wait to start capturing home videos into my PC and burning my own VCDs now that I can play them.  <br />Audio CD and MP3 CD playback was awesome.  I have burned just over 100 of my favorite songs to a single CD-R and it played them with no problems.  There are some neat features here as well.  (...)!<br />In summary, I would say that this player has awesome features at an amazingly low price, but at this price, something had to be compromised.  That compromise was quality of parts and assembly.  I am left with the impression that I need to \\"be careful with it and not hurt it\\".  I could never let the kids use it by themselves.  I really like it and certainly do not regret buying it ... as long as it keeps working.