I bought a sony DVD player about 3 years ago and has always worked find until 6 months ago. The player has problems playing all the new DVDs I buy, it'll play for a while, but then it'll get lost. Meaning the frame will freeze and you hear noises from the player.

It still plays all my old DVDs perfect. Anyone know of the phenomenon?

Also, is there something I can fix, or should I go buy the $88 panafonix at Costco?

Since it's so old I would immediately think it has some kind of dirt or dust build-up and needs a cleaning. But since it plays all your old discs flawlessly then it sounds like a software incompatibility. A good cleaning wouldn't hurt and might fix the problem. If it's software incombatibility then you'd need to upgrade the player. But software compatibility is usually very well documented and sometimes even fixed by the DVD production studio.

What model of Sony DVD player is it? I've got a Sony DVD player that's 5 years old (DVP-S3000) and it plays new discs just fine.

Which discs won't play?

On some newer DVD's, a different type of dual-layering is used. Your DVD player's laser may not be able to read this :)

The sony I have is the DVP-S560D. I should add that I did buy one of those cleaners and it didn't seem to help.

DVDs it didn't like: The two towers(only at the end and the preview of Return of the King on the second disk), some of the Baby Einstien DVDs, and a few others I can't remember off hand.

Thanks for the help!

I would suggest trying the DVD's on a different DVD player (maybe a friends, or a computers). If they work fine, get a new DVD player (Panasonic has a really nice $79 progressive scan one, if your interested)

I'm just bad about putting out useful info that I already know! :p

All my DVDs work fine on the player on my computer.

I think when I'm at Costco next, I'll have to break down and get a new one. It's just 3 years ago, this thing cost me $300, and I want to avoid getting a new one. But I'm going to have to face reality.

Dude, tikiboy, DVD players are only like $60 these days, just get a new one!

Could be an issue related to RCE (Region Coding, Enhanced) or seamless branching used on some newer DVDs. Either way, it sucks. I have a couple of players (high-end Sony, low-end Sharp) that wont play branched titles (supposedly seamless branching to extended scene sequences w/o having to use the stand-alone special features stuff).

Oh well. Time to get even more home electronics.. :(

-arg