I have a Sony dvp-s360 DVD player, and recently I have had troubles with it locking up and skipping forward when playing movies. The screen will become pixelated and the image will freeze for several seconds and then will resume, often times several seconds or minutes ahead of where it was playing.

Is anyone familiar with this problem and how to fix it? Or am I in for an expensive repair?

A friend with the same player, purchased at about the same time, is also having this problem.

Welcome to the club!
I have a Sony 560D that had the same problem. If you go to www.audioreview.com you will find there are a lot of people having the same problem with their Sony DVD players.
Mine started slowly, brief pixilation and then some freezing but became worse over a short period. It was particularly bad with dual-layer disks. Most people start getting frequent C13 errors. I read about a calibration procedure on the web but, when I tried it it did not improve the problem.
I was very lucky - Sony has a 1yr parts and labor warr. on the 5XX series. I brough mine in with 2 days to spare before 1 year. However, the 3XX series only has 90 days protection on labor.( parts are 1 yr I think).

If you have a 3XX and it is over 3 months old I think you will be in for a $150 repair bill to fix it. It would be better to replace it at that cost.

ADVICE: If you have a Sony DVD player that even starts to show these symptoms get it to the repair shop ASAP before your warr. expires!

This is really too bad since I really like Sony products. But it looks like they had a real problem with their DVD design and the warr. protection sucks.

>If you have a 3XX and it is over 3 months old I think you will be in for a $150 repair bill to fix it. It would be better to replace it at that cost<

For a player that is not even 9 months old, that is un-acceptable. Looks like I wont' be buying any more Sony products if this turns out to be the case!

--Craig

I have the Sony DVP 360 for almost a year and i never had one single problem with it (KNOCK ON WOOD), i usually clean it about every month though, only one dvd ever skipped on me, and that was the dvd itself cuz i took it back and exchanged it and it worked fine.

just some advice for future reference

I live in Canada and work at FutureShop, and with all our electronics, we have a Product service plan aka extended warranty through our store not thru Sony

I never realized how vauluable this was, instead of a DVD player with 1 year parts and labor and 90 days on the remote control, we can go up to 2,3 or 4 years. It's all instore service, and we also cover a performance garuntee, replacement garuntee, no lemon garuntee, power surge protector, and the warranty is transferable. If your really anal, u can bring your DVD player in anytime u want and get it cleaned and everything is covered

For the price it can range from either $40 to 80 (CDN)

but its well worth it considering the price to get fixed

so what im saying, next time a salesperson goes on the extended warranty spiel, at least listen and inquire about it

Unfourtuantly, when i bought my dvd player, i never worked there, and i never got it, but i just got a reciever and a speaker package, and got 5 years on both