Last update on 8th May 2003

Welcome to my pages dedicated to the Apex AD-500W DVD player. Here I will discuss the operational features and the technical aspects of the AD-500W, which most are describing as "The Little Brother" to the very popular Apex AD-600A DVD player that has now been discontinued and becoming hard to buy. Indeed the AD-500W it is the little brother of the AD-600A with most of the same functional features (and some new features too), but lacking microphone input and RGB output.

Most of the information about the 500W on my site is on the left side menu. Operating Topics are at the top and the Technical Topics are further down. Just click on the text of the topic you wish to explore. Any topics not linked will be very soon as I create the topic's web page so please be patient. New topics and expansion in content of existing topics will be an on-going process so check back often!

Dead 500W with a blown fuse?

This is a common problem and the inexpensive solution can be found HERE

500W-4 *AND* 500W-6 Firmware WITH A REGION SETTING!

APE-500W-4 firmware and now APE-500W-6 firmware is patched with a Region Free/Region 1 menu setting and Macrovision Off. Go to the FIRMWARE page to see more!

EXPERIMENTAL:

500W Firmware
WITH RCE IMMUNITY

This firmware was taken from a CONIA M-100 player and will work in any 500W but no front panel display or buttons. Remote works fine. Go to the FIRMWARE page for more information.

Using an "One For All Cinema 7" remote control with your 500W.
CLICK HERE for the details.

If your 500W is suffering from small random pauses this information may be useful. It was kindly donated by Tatsurou in Japan:

"I got my AD-500W from an online dealer in the US in June this year and had the EPROM updated to support region 0 thanks to you a couple of months ago. The EPROM update worked just fine, now I am playing US DVD and Japanese DVDs with no problem at all. However, as several people reported on the forum, I've noticed sub-second freeze at random intervals, possibly about an hour into movie, which cannot be reproduced (when I rewind to the freezing point it doesn't happen again but does at some other places). This symptom was there before I got EPROM update, and I must admit that I had a bit of a hope that the EPROM firmware update would correct the problem. It didn't. It turns out the problem had nothing to do with the EPROM firmware as I shall explain.

I finally decided to update the firmware on the DVD drive made by DVS (DSL-710A with LP-05 firmware). I took the drive out of the 500W and hooked up to my computer as secondary master IDE drive. I didn't change any jumper setting on the DVD drive: just took it off out of the 500W and reconnected to my Windows 98 machine. On start up, the system searched for IDE devices and found my DVS drive just fine. I restarted the system in DOS prompt mode and ran the firmware update program that I downloaded from your page. The screen went all blue and I heard a short beep. It was so quick that I wasn't sure it did what it's supposed to do, so I ran the program again. the same thing. Then I started up Windows 98 to check the drive property. Yes there it was, firmware version is now LP06.

I put the drive back to AD-500W box and reconnected everything and played Rick Wakeman 2000 live and it played perfectly. Today I rented a full length movie (Vertical Limit, Japanese version, rental copy) and played it through without a glitch for the full 2 hours. The subsecond freeze symptom is gone now, thanks to the DVD drive firmware update that you kindly made available for us all.

Thanks once again for the excellent service!
Tatsurou, Japan"

DID YOU KNOW??

The 500W firmware (even the patched versions) are CGMS/A digital copy protection disabled!

This means you can copy from the 500W to your digital video without the video locking out the recording.

This is NOT MACROVISION....CGMS/A is a different copy protection scheme and the 500W is one of very few players with this protection disabled.

The AD-500W front view showing the simple front panel layout. The remote control has a lot more functions and the buttons are laid out fairly well.

The remote is laid out in groups of functions.

With the 500W you get a User Manual, Power Lead, A/V lead, Remote and Batteries

The AD-500W back view showing the connections. From left-to-right: Digital Audio Output, Analogue Audio (Left/Right), S-Video output and normal Video output.

Side shots showing the simple neat layout inside the player.

Tray open showing how the front panel of the DVD tray flips down.

Playing an MP3 disc on my messy test-bench!!!

I am not the only one impressed by the 500W. Read this email sent to me by another 500W owner:

"The 500w cant be beat for $98 US...the player runs cooler than other Apex's I've played...So far I've put it thru the test with region 1 dvd's and it has played flawlessly...It plays all my vcd's and my Mp3's which I copied on my HP burner software....seamless branching works well, no glitches at all...the 1.5 Zoom works really well to get rid of the black bars on a traditional TV. No doubt the 500W will get even more popular as the Walmarts around the country begin to distribute more...The Walmart here was one of the first to have them. I think the remote is the best featured yet...even the pitch control is fun as a conversation piece!!Another good point about the 500W...there isn't any blockiness in the dark areas...a good test was DasBoot, Matrix, and U-571. I didnt see any blockiness, a problem which plagues the 600 and 660 models. I also tried some Apex 703's and all of them had a grainy looking dark area...none so far in the 500W. and thank God...NO lip sync problems!!"

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