I have my dad's old DVD player which seems to have stopped working. If I load a DVD in it, the display simply blinks READING for about 30 seconds, then ejects the disc. The unit is a Philips DVD-763SA.

I came across this thread: http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=52830 where the guy got a replacement power supply board from Philips for $7, but finding it was not without some effort. I just got off the phone with them, and they have no support or parts available.

Any suggestions as to how I can get this working again? This is a just-for-fun project out of personal interest and curiosity. I have tried resetting the unit and running a lens cleaner in it, they didn't help.

I personally think that you can get a new one for probably not much more expensive than the part+shipping. I saw some JVC and Phillips players for sale around $39/$49 all the time.

It's not worthy to try to fix electronic stuffs anymore.

I'm almost 100% sure power supply isn't even the problem, chances are its the mech ... try popping open the DVD mech and use some alcohol and q-tips to clean the lens, its probably just dirty, lens cleaners don't work too well.

Philips is bad about supplying parts, especially for DVD players ... especially if the unit is more then a year old.

I cleaned the lens with alcohol and a Q-Tip last night, that didn't help. I also found the service manual and from it I ran the dealer script, it says PASS :p

CLEAN THE DISC(s), if u already havent done so. it can make a big difference.

1.If the power supply board was bad then the tray wouldn't open and the display wouldn't work.
2.Cleaning len's rarely helps,if the discs are clean and unscratched then the laser is probably dying/dead.
3.As was mentioned buying a new DVD player is usually cheaper than having it repaired.

Biggest tip off that all unit needs is lens cleaning is when you open it and its CAKED with dust 9 times out of 10 the lens is covered in dust as well ... but yeah just buy new player. Especially this day and time if you look around you can get a player as low as $20 ... don't necessarily mean its going to be a great player, but if you just want to play movies and don't care about PQ, SQ and all that, it gets the job done.