Not sure what might be up with your player since I've never had a problem on mine. Maybe it was a bad batch at the store you're getting these? Maybe try a lens cleaner incase there's some dust on the lens?

It sucks when this happens and, hopefully, you can watch the disc.

I got my dawn of the dead dvd yesterday, locks up at the layer change on BOTH of my dvd players. an apex ad-1500, and some hitachi. I'm gonna try to exchange today, but this really ruins my weekend. Right in the middle of the movie everything goes apeshit on my player.

i can also hear some weird ticking sound coming from my player when it starts messing up after the layer change

That was happening on my apex, i got a replacement from walmart. it still does not work on my hitachi but it plays on the apex, although it struggles to read it

Here is a solution:

I have had this problem with The Enforcer bought from Wal-Mart. I bought a copy, it didn't work. Exchanged for another copy at the same store, didn't work. I exchanged it another time, and kept it sealed. I then went to Fry's, opened that copy and it played fine. I then returned the unopened copy I got at Wal-Mart back to Fry's for my money back.

I had to do this with Dawn of The Dead and a copy from another store played fine. If you keep returning copies to the same store, you are just getting faulty discs from the same batch unless you wait awhile, in which case you might not be able to return it anymore. Granted, this is a little pain to do but it should get you a copy that works. Also, Best Buy tends to open exchanged copies so it may not work there.

My defective Dawn also made that ticking noise and locked up. On my copy that now plays fine, some of the extras make that noise when I first select them, but play fine.

I got mine from deep discount dvd, but got a replacement from walmart.

Looks like a layer/chapter change... on my Pioneer DV-434 there's a 1-2 sec pause at that scene.