DVD Playback Continuously Freezing (G73JH-A1)

Hey all,
I've got an Asus G73JH-A1 and I've recently been experiencing a problem with playing DVDs on my computer. I have utilized both Windows Media Player and VLC Media Player to verify that it's not connected to one program.

Namely, what happens is that after I insert a DVD and begin playing it, the DVD will freeze after a random period of time, usually 1-10 minutes. It will remain unresponsive for 5-10 minutes, and then the DVD will spin up again and continue playing.

If I exit the player while the DVD is frozen, and then attempt to interact with my E drive in any way, Windows Explorer will freeze up, crash, and reboot.

My question is, does this indicate a faulty DVD drive in need of replacement or something else? I'm running the latest CCC and drivers, and have tested both multiple programs and multiple discs with the same results. Although I only recently discovered this problem, it cannot have persisted for more than a month and a half (the last time I successfully used a DVD).

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

I had a similar issue on my desktop machine and I tried a bunch of different fixes with no success. The issue took care of itself when I replaced the hardware. With something of that nature, I would suspect that it is a problem with the hardware itself. The optical bay is pretty easy to access (you can see a disassemby guide here) and a replacement drive can be picked up that is relatively inexpensive as well.