Problems playing DVDs

[_dandy_]

Try a different player. If you *really* have no spare, bring the discs to a friend and try them there. If they play fine, then you know the discs are okay and you can rule that out. Even if they're dirt cheat nowadays, I wouldn't recommend a DVD player over a Blu-ray, since you're going to run across a Blu-ray disc sooner rather than later (even if you don't buy into the idea of owning another format).

I always rip my discs to a hard drive; the vast majority of my discs have been used exactly once - to rip them.