My Toshiba SD-2715 dvd player periodically stops playing and turns off. This usually occurs after 1 hour of play. This has happened with multiple disks, and I have tried cleaning them with no improvement. Can you suggest a strategy to solve this problem? For example, might I need to clean the lens or replace the laser? Thank you for your assistance.

Try a dvd lens cleaning kit. This may help.
It could also be the laser itself. Newer DVDs require a very strong laser to read them.Older ones do not.
You can pick up a cleaning kit at Wal mart for about 10 dollars.Hope this helps

I found the answer on your site. Unplug, wait a minute and plug it back it in, then press Play followed by Eject.

Smacking the machine is a good way to destroy the DVD lens. Get a CD/DVD lens cleaner and make sure there aren't any marks on the disk. Dirt & smudges cause about 75% of all CD/DVD player problems.

What format are the music videos in?

I mostly first always recommend a dvd lens cleaner to clean the lens incase there is something on the lens.

Is the player underwarranty? the lens may have a issue other than dirt and might need to be replaced.

What happened last time it worked fine? try unpluging the dvd player for 5 minutes and try again.

no your son broke the loadi tray and now it will not aline properlycheaper to buy a new the fix!

Make sure the a/v cables are lined up in the right columns in the back of your tv - ahousehold memebr may have swapped them for some reason or another

go to http://www.dvdunlocks4u.com

Toshiba says:
Information for Owners of Toshiba SD-3980 and SD-K750 DVD Players To ensure the satisfaction of our customers and to maintain the integrity and quality of our products, Toshiba America Consumer Products, L.L.C. is issuing an important product update. This is not a safety issue.
Toshiba is committed to customer service and to continuously improving the quality of its products. It has come to our attention that certain DVD players bearing the model numbers SD-3980 and SD-K750 may at some point in their life stop playing discs due to a component part failure. In such case, the error message "bad" will be shown on the unit's display. Affected units will have "SU2" at the end of the model name (e.g., SD-3980-SU2), which can be found on the back of the unit.
If you own either of these models and experience the issue described above, please contact Toshiba Customer Solutions at 1-800-631-3811 for information on how to obtain a replacement unit.

I've had the same symptoms on the last two Sony DVD's that I've rented. I managed to get around this by hitting one of the menu buttons after the loading message stopped.