Does anyone know what the most common cause of DVD picture freezing up is?

I’ve been enjoying my budget priced Sony DVD player (DVP -NC665P) for almost a year until a week ago when I rented Gods And Generals. I was about two thirds way through side one of disc and the picture froze up. After about 10 seconds, it skipped to next chapter. The side two of disc, about half way through, it happened again. I’m hoping it was the disc.

My DVD player does have that pause syndrome on some discs but for only about for a half second which I can live with. Will higher grade or different brand of DVD players do better against this problem?

Thanks for your forthcoming inputs.

The half-second pause is the layer change; some players handle it better than others, but half a second is fairly respectable (that's about the same as my Panasonic). The longer pauses and skipping chapters sound like a damaged rental disc in all likelihood.

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Spiker,

Could be a processor glitch. Try a reboot, like you would a PC. Power the player down, unplug it for a moment, plug it back in and power it up once again. Might work, might not, but at least you'll know.

Wayne

Had a similar problem with my Toshiba 5700 DVD player and heat was the cause.
When I had the HD cable box (Scientific Atlanta 3100HD) sits directly on top of the Toshiba, the picture regularly freezes and skips during the 2nd half and near the end of the movies. Apparently the heat from the HD cable box and the DVD player and causes the DVD player to overheat.
The problem completely went away when I provided adequate ventilation in between the units.