I have 2 home DVD players, the Hitachi P417U and the Samsung P429.
I have problems playing 3 out of 5 SVCD movies in both these players. The most common problem I get is the movie playing fine until 20 or 30 minutes into the movie, then it starts freezing (most of the time it just freezes up for a few seconds, then starts playing, then freezes up again, sometimes it just about locks up) or getting terribly out of sync with audio/video. I'll have to hit pause or stop, then play, and the movies will play again for a few minutes (sometimes only seconds) and the cycle repeats. Sometimes the movies start with these errors right away. If I swap DVD players, the movies won't freeze in the same places, sometimes if a movie starts freezing up at 20 minutes in one player, it may play fine for 35 minutes in the other. Friends of mine who have the same exact SVCD can play them fine(One of my friends has the same model Hitachi I have). I keep my HD defragged, use Imation 80 minute 32X CD-R and always burn SVCD at 4X on my Plextor 40X, either with Nero or VCDeasy. I'm getting pretty frustrated, not sure if it's the media I'm using, both my DVD players, or what. BTW, all these movies play just fine on the DVD player in my computer.
Thanks in advance for any help or tips.