A couple days ago my Panny S97 started having issues. I have only had it for about 2 years, if that. I noticed a problem when I tried to open the DVD tray.. it wouldn't open. The display said "OPEN" but the tray wouldn't open. I poaked at it and it finally opened. So I put my DVD in then more problems arose. There was digital noise sprinkled about the screen and when it got to the menu the DVD restarted and went back to the beginning. I gave the DVD player a rest as it had been on for awhile before I tried playing this DVD (so I turned it off). I came back and tried another DVD. This one made it past the menu, but with the same digital noise sprinkled about and flickering too. Once I got into the movie it was horrible. The height of the movie was about half of what it was supposed to be it , wasn't fully colored and there was tons of noise. The worst part was that the picture was frames were rotating sideways really fast (if that makes any sense). So fast you couldn't see the picture at all. The sound was fine. The DVD drawer worked ok this time. I was going to record a clip of what it was doing so you could see, but when I tried to put a DVD in this moring the drawer wouldn't open at all this morning.. not even with poking it. And now.. with the DVD player on and the TV set to the right input the tv says that there is no signal instead of it showing the "DVD" splash screen. (This was working yesterday).

My question is what should I do? I know that this player is one of the better out there, and I really liked it. Do I pay to have it fixed or do I buy a new one? The thing is that I am not wanting to spend $250 for another standard def player and I am not ready to buy into an HD player yet (until the format war is over). Are there any good standard def DVD players out there comparible to the Panny S97 these days?

Does anyone have any idea what could possibly be wrong with my player any help would be appreciated.

Greg

Not sure if my problem is related, but my player is freezing 1-5 times during a movie. When I eject the disc and put it back in it it plays past the problem area. The disc is clean. Any ideas?