Less than a 5-second load-up time would be best.

Is the loading if discs itself a key feature? Most productions of all levels seem to use computers for queuing these days, not optical media.

That seems poorly thought out. Fast load times or not you're going to have delays --- FBI and copyright warnings, followed by menu screens (with a few exceptions, such as Warner Bros.) And I'm not aware of any brand of DVD player that doesn't show its logo when its in standby.

At the very least you'd be better off using a PC rather than a set-top DVD player. What you're asking for just doesn't seem feasible to me, at least when it comes to consumer players. Maybe there's some sort of professional deck that would do what you want, but you'd still have the limitations of the discs themselves --- the copyright warnings and menus.

Just looking for a quick-loading standalone DVD player, if anyone has any recommendations.

Yeah, PCs start playing BD just about as fast as DVD. It's impressive.

Yeah, I think you've established that.

Is there a reason a PC won't work instead of a standalone DVD player?

I question your decision to go back and edit and even delete your posts to remove all the key pieces of information you previously provided. It seems like you're trying to hide something.

The essence of what you're trying to do, which is to show parts of (copyrighted) DVDs on a TV game show, and thus have some portion of the DVD load as quickly as possible while an audience sits and waits, just isn't going to work, for the reasons I provided above. Especially when you add into the mix that you don't want the DVD player's brand logo showing on the screen while the player is in standby. All of them do.

unless you get into unofficial "modded" firmware where someone has designed a new splash screen. I remember a guy on the DVDHelp forums who did a lot of modified firmware versions for Philips players and always designed his own splash screens. If someone has the know-how and is motivated enough, that, at least, can be done. Getting someone to do it for you might be trickier (and, of course, would depend on whether it's a player/brand they do mods for).

I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for, but my old Oppo DVD player allowed you to save a new screen using a thumb drive. I created one in Photoshop and copied it to the player.