Update (11-8-2003)

Still not much news to report I'm afraid. Some guy named Justin has been publishing a hack on www.dvdhelp.com that seems to be bogus. Justin, if you read this, contact me, I'm interested in the backgrounds of that hack

Also, Apex is now selling a new model, the 2710 which looks identical to the 2700 here. The 2700 I've only seen on the chinese apex website (now down). Dutch distributor claims region free option but is very vague on specifics. Check it out here .

For the people mailing me. No, I do not have any permanent Region or Macrovision hacks! There's a limited hack, see below. If I do get them I'll publish them here. For the moment our best bet is to contact digitrex for a firmware update of their 2700.

Possible Hack Found (03-03-03)
At first only reported on some forums. Didn't want to get your hopes up then. However, since I am now getting reports that this works at least for the 1040 model, here it is from (http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdhacks.php?select=Apex%20AD-1010W)

1. Load your DVD in the tray

2. close the tray

3. As the DVD start to load the software press the number 1 in the remote several times.

4. Whoooa enjoy your DVD's from other regions.



If you use the 0(zero) key, you will briefly see a title/chapter selection menu, where you can enter the chapter/title you want to go to. You can get rid of the "wrong region" display by pressing the "P/N" key on the remote. All that remains is a kind of Stop-button sign on the top right side of the screen. Unfortunately the player seems to pretty much block all menu functions on the remote. May be somebody else can figure out how to get to the menus.


Note: Several people have reported this to work on the 1040. I have not yet been able to get this to work on my 2100. Since this is more or less a buffer overflow the timing and rythem of the sequence is probably somewhat tricky.

Goodmans 2100b
Goodmans 2100b seems to be another incarnation of the Proline 2100. Since Goodmans is also sold by Comet (which has sold proline) it seems plausible. Although why they chose to fix yet another badge on this thing beats me. Also, Digitrex is now surfacing in Ireland and the UK, no longer an Australian-only brand it seems

In october 2002 I purchased a Proline DVD-2100 DVD player for 129 euro at BCC.
I selected it because of it's price and it's excellent playback of not only DVD but SVCD as well. I compared it with the Samsung SD-224. The samsung had severe problems keeping the lines on my Monsters Inc. SVCD sharp. Also colors were far less crisp and constant.
At the same shop they also had the DVD-1040 for 99 euro. This unit lacked a display and certain output options. It also looks far less attractive. So I opted for the 2100 instead.

I had done some research before at www.vcdhelp.com where I found that for older proline models, the 1000 and 2000 the region hacks were available. Naturally I assumed that the hacks for my proline would soon follow. When it failed to I started to do some research.

So, I started to wonder, what kind of brand was proline? Did they perhaps sell the same player under a different brandname elsewhere in the world? I started on the shop. It turns out that BCC is part of the Kingfisher chain which operates consumer electronics shops in several european countries. Many of the other shops in the group also sell the proline DVD players. I simply send them an email asking for help. No response of course.

Time to try a different approach. I boldy went where I hadn't gone before, popped the top and jotted down chip markings. One of the biggest chips on the board was labeled "MT1369" I then started googling for those. Almost immediately I encountered the SIPA site. It turned out that that chip was made by Mediatek and got them a design award for it. I quote:

"This DVD-player chipset consists of two ultra-scale integrated circuits based on CMOS process, MT1336 and MT1369, wherein MT1336 performs the analog signal processing in the DVD-player system and MT1369 performs the servo control and MPEG-2 decoding, among other functions."

And indeed, my board also featured that MT1336 chip. In fact, the whole setup looked remarkably simular to the Mediatek Reference Design.

So.....

Some more hunting for other players. Pretty soon I ran into Darren King's Excellent website on Alowhishus' nerd-out.com. It is one of the biggest and best websites about Apex players. also on that site, a very good forum.

There I discovered that some Apex players started to use the same chipset. I also learned that they'd uncovered a key sequence that displays a hidden menu. On some players it allows changing of region settings. On others, including mine, it only displays the firmware version.

1.player "on"
2.Open tray
3.push "setup button"
4.cursor down to "exit setup"
5.push 1,3,6,9 on your remote control.
6.push 3 times left cursor 1 time right cursor.
7.new tab appears "Version

Now, on the region free versions of this chipset you can set the region here. Not on mine though, it shows the firmware version and subversion but that's it.

Then what?

Further Google work of course.

What I've found out:

There's several different companies selling the same style products to a certain extent.
Apex (USA, some UK, also spotted in Sweden)
Digitrex (Australia)
Scott has few models that resemble anything else except their 837 which seems to be identical to several other models.
Hiteker (Europe) This company seems to be unrelated. But on Darren's Website there's several clue's that their products come from the same factory. Also, on http://www.hiteker.nl/factory.php they state:

"Hiteker - Jiangkui, Laser Audio & Video System
A Development & Production Company "

Update:
Bingo! Found the factory website! http://www.apexdigitalinc.com.cn/jkcp.htm (chinese, try http://babelfish.altavista.com on it)
This has the AD 2700 on it (see pic on the right) which looks to be identical. Slight color differences to the display and tray area are due to reflection, that section of the housing has a mirror finish.

Well, that leaves me with a player that is, according to the manufacturer, flash upgradable, is sold under three different names and in at least one incarnation (digitrex) very likely region free. I suppose I'll just have to wait and hope that a new firmware becomes available for the digitrex.

The 1040
Proline's 1040 has even one more incarnation as the 2100. As near as I can make it out these are all the same unit:

Apex 1020
Digitrex 1020
Scott 837
Proline 1040

The Scott and the Digitrex seem to be region free. All seem to respond to the same version hack.

Remarks? Suggestions? Updates? Mail me

Goodmans 2100b

Proline 2100 Remote

Mediatek reference design for MT1336/MT1369

Proline 1040