February 23, 2000

1:29 PM

It's a DVD Player, it's a CD player, it's an mp3 player, it's a karaoke machine! ... okay, so I probably won't use the karaoke part, but at $179.95, I had to grab the APEX AD600A DVD player. It's even got a supersecret menu so that you can change region settings... not that I would *do* that, but... you know... if you've got friends visiting from Taiwan or something... You'll note I didn't post the link until my order was confirmed. I'm all about sharing the love, but not at the risk of having the love backordered.
posted by CrazyUncleJoe (9 comments total)

Ah, Karaoke!!! Watch the Matrix, and then act out all the scenes! :)

"Free your mind, Neo"......"Whoa!"

Actually, that would make an interesting personalized version of MST3000, with the Karaoke/dvd mix. It would be like watching your old Karate movies all over again.
posted by Cavatica at 1:33 PM on February 23, 2000

There's a rumor that the secret menu is only available on older models. Does anyone know how to distinguish? Have people confirmed that they do or do not have the secret menu?
posted by faisal at 2:01 PM on February 23, 2000

Many things are explained on the Apex AD-600A Info Pages. My roommate just picked one up after I pointed him to this thread. :) $170!
posted by jason at 3:39 PM on February 23, 2000

My husband just got one of these this week. Yes, it did have the secret menu. I don't know whether it works or not, since we didn't have any out-of-region DVDs to test with.

The karaoke works, though.
posted by litlnemo at 3:55 PM on February 23, 2000

I bought the same dvd as Jason! I am a geek after all! Woo-Hoo!
posted by CrazyUncleJoe at 5:08 PM on February 23, 2000

so the karaoke works on DVD movies? really?
posted by mathowie at 11:31 PM on February 23, 2000

It worked with the bonus karaoke songs on the Wedding Singer DVD.

Joe, you qualify for Geek Second Class. To get your First Class badge, you would have had to beat Jason to the DVD. ;)
posted by litlnemo at 12:49 AM on February 24, 2000

Picked mine up at Circuit City today. Must act fast :) When I got there someone was walking out with one. I played with the floor model to check if it had the secret menu (it did), checked that the floor model was from the same shipment as the stock, and bought it. When I got it home I checked to see if it had the secret menu (it did), then tested various things. MP3s didn't work, but it appears that the problem is that I'm using an unsupported sampling frequency. Will have to encode some in a supported frequency and test that. In any case, I picked up The Matrix and the Aliens Special Edition to play with. Sweet.
posted by faisal at 3:34 AM on February 24, 2000

Wendi -
I can't be geek First Class even if I start IRCing on the bus? I admit that Peter is the one who told me about it, but I should get points for acting on it before the coolness factor was discovered by the main populace, causing it to be pulled from the market. I mean, that's what happened with the fisher price digital video camera and that great casio sampler keyboard, so I've definitely gotten better, right?
posted by CrazyUncleJoe at 8:35 AM on February 24, 2000