DVD-/+R's & DVD Players

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Apoptosis
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DVD-/+R's & DVD Players

Post by Apoptosis »

I've been recently backing up my DVD collection (something new to me) and noticed that my DVD player wont read any of my DVD+R discs. I went over to a friends house and neither would 2 of his houses 3 DVD players. Some of these DVD players were less than 6 months old...

So out of four DVD players (Toshiba, Apex, kawasaki, and Sony) we only got the Sony to read/play our movie. The rest acted like and said that no disc was present.

I've been told by others at trade shows that Apex DVD players are the best because they will read anything and are the cheapest. So I headed up to the store and looked at DVD players. Before I went I noticed that all the DVD players on APEX's DVD Product Website state that each play can play "DVD-SVCD-CD-CD/R-CD/RW & MP3's". The funny thing is that when I got to the store that only the highend models had the CD/R & CD/RW labels on the price tag and box. I asked the sales person if the entry level DVD players could play burnt DVD's and he said no you have to go high end for that feature and showed me a $90 DVD player that would be best suited for the job. I smelled bull$#!^ so out of curiosity and fun I picked up the cheapest APEX DVD player there is the Apex Digital AD-1100W.

I took the $36 bad boy home and hooked it up. Not only does it have faster load times than my few year old $200 Toshiba model, but it plays all my burnt movies.

Now if you are still reading this I am amazed... LOL

Once I got my burnt DVD+R DVD's to work I wanted to see if I can get the DVD player to play the DVD movies I bought on my recent trip to South Asia. So I wanted to update the firmware on my player. To my dismay I found out that I cant upgrade my firmware on my model to "unlock" the regions. But in my search I ran across a very detailed page on how to get around it. While the DVD is shown to be "loading" on screen just hit a number (for example I hit 1111 a few times) and and boom it works!! It will also load my other region DVD's like a charm.

So for under $40 I can play all my DVD/R/RW movies, plus my out of region DVD's. Not a bad deal for one of the cheapest DVD players on the market.
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infinitevalence
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Post by infinitevalence »

Im sold, i got a $200 hitachi, its a nice player in that it has 5 disks and a bunch of nice highend features. But it will not even play burned cd's and it likes to skip even with new dvds. Looks like i may have to sell it and upgrade to a cheaper player. :)
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Post by LVCapo »

I bought a Memorex multi-format DVD burner two weeks ago, this thing makes my plextor look sick. Funny how some of these cheaper models can outperform the supposed "kick ass" versions.
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Post by infinitevalence »

That is one of my next buys is a dvd burner so i can start "backing" up my dvds. But i realy want a A64 system, thinking if i save my pennys i can get one around xmas :).
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Post by LVCapo »

I switched over to the AMD 2500+ mobile. i love it and the performance isn't much less than my Prescott, i just need a better cooling solution than this Volcano. It sux.
I really like this Memorex burner. But i was also thinking about buying one of those NEC burners, they are getting very good reviews.
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Emprex

Post by BigJ »

I bought a cheap Emprex 8x DVD burner and it is great. Not a bad deal for $59 after rebate. I think I also got 10 free DVD-R with it. I haven't burned a ton of DVD's since I upgraded my computer. I was using DVDX Copy and it was nice as well. I have not been able to find my old disk so I am SOL. Anyone using a nice burned program for DVD's. I am also trying to find a nice cd burner program to "backup" my games!

Someone mentioned Clone Cd, but I downloaded a "trial cersion" and it seemed to work until I tried to install the copied game and then it would not read the play disk.
To err is human--and to blame it on a computer is even more so.
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Post by T-Shirt »

I too bought an Apex Digital AD-1100W, when they first came out based totally on the price ($19, after rebate )
thinking I'd get a better one later.
I think (by luck) I got one of the best first, reads everything, good 5.1 sound, Understands the windows file system ie can play multi-media (jpgs, video) files off of any cd (great for slide shows from your own pictures on cd-cdr and cd-rw as well as dvd's) it has as many or more features and equal quality as the $4-500 dollar machines some friends and relitives bought about the same time.
The only shortcoming is finding a universalremote that will work with ALL of it's features, so I may need to buy a more expensive "learning remote"
As far as playing burned CD's/dvd's on a typical player you need to do "bit setting" when you burn it, (sets the media type to cd-rom. so that players that don't understand the type code s for writable media think its a normal cd/dvd.
some burners include this feature, and there are several free utililies for doing it.
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Post by T-Shirt »

opps, I was wrong what I bought was an Aspiredigital AD-1100 (similar to this)
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