What's wrong with my DVD player?

Factual Questions
1

I have a Panasonic 5-disk DVD player (part of a Panasonic surround sound system) that is suddenly giving me problems. It seens ti play CDs just fine, but lately any DVD I play will run fine for about an hour and then just freeze. Sometimes I can un-freeze it by pressing FF or REW or pause, and then hitting Play again, but it will only play for a few more minutes before freezing again. Each time I get it unstuck, it will play for a shorter period of time, so after a while it is freezing ever 10 seconds or so.

This has happened with ever DVD I’ve tried in the last week, and they have all played fine on my laptop, so it’s pretty clear it not a problem with the discs. Could it be overheating? or something else?

2

Sounds like an overheating problem - you haven’t covered any ventilation holes, have you?

3

I haven’t covered the ventilation holes, but there is not a lot of space around it in the entertainment center. I’ll try giving it more air and see if that makes a difference.

4

If it’s on top of another component that generates a bit of heat, that won’t be helping - yes, try running it out in the open air.

There might actually be a fan-cooled component or two inside it, and the fan might have failed.

5

After checking for overheating, I recomend a DVD cleaner DVD, to clean the lens.

6

My DVDs seem to get a static electricity buildup after about an hour, causing the image to
stutter and then stop. I have to take them out and wipe them down to demagnetize them
before I put them back in. Seems to work most of the time.

7

You meant “destatic”, I’ll wager. Static electricity and magnetism are two completely different (yet, strangely enough, fundamentally related) phenomenon with very different effects. I’m sure you know all that, of course. That said, I guess it’s possible for a static buildup problem to occur, especially in wintertime when the indoor air is drier than usual. Running a humidifier should alleviate the problem, if it is a static issue. It might also be a heating issue. Next time it happens, just turn off the DVD player for 15 minutes or so to cool off but don’t do anything to the DVD, just leave it in the player. If it plays again after you turn it back on, then you have a thermal problem. The suggestions above on dealing with with this issue should help you.