Problem with Polaroid Portable DVD Player

[Mac130]

Greetings all.

My daughter's Polaroid portable DVD player is dying.

With a DVD, after around 30-35 minutes of play or 5-7 chapter forward skips, the picture freezes and the motor stops spinning the disc.

The same happens with CDs, obviously without picture freezing.

I bought a Memorex lens cleaner but the player won't recognize the disc.

Any idea why it will not play any disc past a certain point?

How can I clean it if it won't recognize the disc?

Is this thing toast? Any way to bring it back from the dead?

Any help you folks can be will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance.

[Krispy Kritter]

There is nothing to recognize on cleaning cd...there is no data to read. You put it in, the player spins the disc trying to read it, and while it is spining, the brush cleans the lens.

Sounds like hardware failure in the tracking mechanism. You could put it in the shop and get it fixed, but it is almost certainly cheaper to buy a new one.

[classfour]

Were it mine: I'd start shopping for a replacement.

There were also some guys on the net who replaced lasers and serviced portables - but I believe they focused on Panasonics (which cost much, much more than Polaroids - making it economically feasable).

[TBoneit]

One other thing examine the bottom of the discs. You wouldn't believe it but I get poeple that come because their cdroms wont work. You pull the disc and it looks like melted chocolate or jelly or tone fo fingerprints. Spritz with windex, wipe and they play. BTW most of these players will stop spinng the disc when the laser can't read the disc.

An easy test if you can find the interlock for the door open. If you defeat it you can actually see the laser through the disc. try several discs and see if they all die at the same spot. Look without a disc, see if something is blocking the lasers movement. Lots of these cheapo players you can see through the drive into the compartment.

The other thing if these are copies try originals and see what happens.