Serious problem with Samsung v85k! Please somebody help me!

[castroneves]

I own a samsung v85-k, purchased in Hong Kong, which had no region set.

After I played some DVD-R's I made myself of some old movies, the player suddlenly STOPPED playing ANY REGION DISCS!!! Would ONLY play DVD-R's (or RW's... + or -).

I tried performing a system reset - by pressing FF and RW at the same time, which worked fine. After about 3 resets, the system WENT CRAZY:

a. the On-Screen-Display ("play", "stop", "no disc"...) is completely gibberish: weird squares and rectangles in stead of letters.

b. when a CD that is NOT in region 1 (remember, the player is still NOT hacked) is inserted, the player's LCD reads :Loading, and doesn't not change to 'no CD' as is supposed to. a message that says that the DVD is not compatible does NOT appear as normal.

c. there is no timer/counter. when I play a DVD (only region 1), I only see 'play' on the machine. no counter.

d. cannot enter the Player's menu (can't configure the player anymore).
I can't even enter the setup menu from the VHS mode (when I switch to VHS and press "setup" - for record programming - the machine simply prompts "STOP DVD PLAY TO ENTER SETUP" - I am in VHS!! and there is NO DVD in the tray!!!).

e. when turning on the player, the normal "samsung digitALL" blue logo appears, however every 15 seconds or so, the screen flickers and turns black for several seconds, then returns to the blue logo screen, and so on and on ad nauseum.

Any suggestions? Please?

[BJ_M]

buy a new player

[maek]

Yes, seriously. I purchased a Samsung player from Costco and its playback can be inconsistent at times for no explicable reason. There is one DVD I have that it skips out on near the last 15 minutes of the disc. I checked for scratches, smudges, etc., and it is completely flawless...like the playback on my Sony DVD player. I will never get Samsung again.

[castroneves]

Well, I do have another player, and also one from my laptop and the DVD writer... but I just wanted to see if there was any solutions... Thanks anyways for the replies!