My 18 month old DVD player is having problems. Freezing up during DVD playback. No problems playing CD's, just DVD's. Owner's manual said to try one of those Lens Cleaning DVDs to attempt to correct the problem.
( When the unit freezes up, the video signal is not dropped, however the unit will not respond to any remote control on front panel signals. The first time this happened, I powered down the unit, reloaded the DVD, and had no problems playing the DVD through the scene. That was about 2 months ago.
A couple isolated incidents {different DVDs} since that time that were quickly resolved by powering down the unit.
Yesterday the unit froze up and I had to resort to the Lens Cleaner)
Used the Lens Cleaner a single run through. Noticed a few jitters on-screen when the DVD was playing the opening credits, and re-ran the Lens Cleaner a second time. After the second run through the unit played back wonderfully for nearly 2 hours. Then froze up again. Powered down the unit, reloaded the DVD, but the unit would not load the DVD.
Re ran the Lens Cleaner twice. The unit will only play back CDs.
(Basically the player will not load the DVD--- shows "loading disc" for several minutes with no results)
Questions
1) Do those lens cleaning DVD's really work? How many times should it need to be used? I don't smoke, so smoke is not a source of the problem, and the room is kept fairly clean.
2) Is this progressively getting worse problem (or the fact that CDs can be played but not the DVDs) a sign of a faulty laser or another problem?
3) How bad ($) is it have a laser replaced? (gotta have my justification to buy a new unit anyway

)
Thanks for any assistance that can be provided.