Consumer electronics company Apex Digital was busy showing off their 2006 line of products at CES in early January. These new products included a portable DVD player, regular DVD players, LCD TVs and a media center style device.
Apex’s latest entry in the portable DVD player space is the new PD-707. This 7†LCD display model offers USB 2.0 connectivity so that users can connect devices such as a digital camera or MP3 player to get playback of their supported media directly on the DVD player. Other features include wide screen (16:9) display and integrated speakers. It should be available in the second quarter of 2006.
Apex’s other new DVD players are the full size AD-2200 and AD-2800x. The AD-2200, like the PD-707, offers USB 2.0 connectivity and is a full featured player with functions like support for CD-R/RW and DVD+/-R/RW discs and component video output. It will also be available in the second quarter. As for the AD-2800x, it also offers USB 2.0 connectivity and component video, on top of which is thrown in the ability to upconvert standard DVD video to a high definition video signal and then output that via a HDMI output. It should also see the light of day in the second quarter.
Apex’s new media center style device is called the CenterPiece. Projected to be available in the third quarter of this year, the CenterPiece incorporates the functions of a DVD player with multi-format DVD and CD playback, USB 2.0 host connectivity for playback of supported digital media formats from digital media devices, a personal video recorder and a home media server which can stream content from networked computers or the Internet. The CenterPiece appears as a standard DVD player, includes component video output, utilizes a standard 10/100 Ethernet connection and offers up an 80GB hard drive for storage of media and recorded television programming.
Apex’s new LCD TVs are highlighted by the AVL-2078 (second quarter availability), a 20†LCD flat panel with 640 x 480 resolution and a 7†counter depth. Other models to be released this year will include the HD ready (DVI+HDCP) 27â€, 1280 x 720 AVL-2778, the HD ready (HDMI) 32â€, 1366 x 768 AVL-3278 and the HD ready (HDMI) 37â€, 1920 x 1080 AVL-3778. The 37†model will also feature Picture over Data capability, allowing users to view television and a computer application at the same time when the TV is connected to a computer via a VGA input. All four models are expected to ship in the second quarter.
