Problem with Region Free DVD Player

[The Monkees]

Anyway, I have an RJTech DVD player (it also works as a karaoke player, apparently) anyway, it's a region free player. But I have a slight problem. The player seems to dislike certain DVDs. I have the 3 seasons of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers from Germany (region 2, PAL) but for some reason it will play an episode or two, but after a while the video will start slowing down and there will be spaces in the audio, like the audio will skip. Then the audio will be off and finally the video will really start slowing down and ******* up. It only seems to do it on these seasons and a region 3 of the film Taken. I played the documentary on my Phantasm (also region 2 & PAL) and it plays fine. So I don't get it. Has anyone else experienced such odd behavior from a DVD player?

I should also add that these DVDs played just fine on an older region free player I had that I no longer have and on my computer.

I also just noticed that it only happens with scenes that have a lot of movement, maybe it does do it with other DVDs I'm not sure, there wasn't a lot of camera movements in the documentary so that's probably why it played so well. But if I pause the DVD for a few seconds it seems to correct itself.

[hech54]

What output setting are you using on the player?.....IE....NTSC or PAL?

[lowellriggsiam]

I have an RJ-Tech DVD w/HDD and what I can tell you is that it's PAL & dual layer support is abysmal.

[jman98]

Anyway, I have an RJTech DVD player (it also works as a karaoke player, apparently) anyway, it's a region free player. But I have a slight problem. The player seems to dislike certain DVDs. I have the 3 seasons of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers from Germany (region 2, PAL) but for some reason it will play an episode or two, but after a while the video will start slowing down and there will be spaces in the audio, like the audio will skip. Then the audio will be off and finally the video will really start slowing down and ******* up. It only seems to do it on these seasons and a region 3 of the film Taken. I played the documentary on my Phantasm (also region 2 & PAL) and it plays fine. So I don't get it. Has anyone else experienced such odd behavior from a DVD player?

I've owned several different converting DVD players including a cheap Philips DVP-642 that still works. I have a lot of non-region 1 DVDs (I live in the USA by the way) and I've never had what you describe happen on any of my DVD players.

It could be that the player is just bad. I am also wondering - is this player in a place with very poor ventilation? You report problems after you've used the player for a while. I'm wondering if it's simply suffering from heat buildup. Today's DVD and BluRay players need a lot of open space so they can air cool. I've seen firsthand what can happen over time with heat buildup killing a player. It happened to my brother. Many people in the USA have these really nice looking cabinets they put their TV and DVD/BluRay players in, but those cabinets have very poor air circulation. What you need to do is play one of those episodes you're having problems with as the first thing you play on the player. If it plays OK, then you may have heat buildup issues that are just showing up after the player has been in use for an hour or more.