Here's where my ignorance really stands out.

We have a Toshiba upconverting DVD recorder. We use it for both watching DVDs and playing CDs. But more for playing CDs...we don't watch a lot of DVDs in general.

In the last few days, we've noticed that the sound coming from the player sounds distorted. But not all the time. Everything will sound fine then suddenly the sound will get kind of garbled then it'll smooth out again. It sounds like when you aren't quite on the radio station and you get that fine line of white noise underneath the music.

Anyhow, after a few CDs last night, the bad sound became more frequent so Hubby went to turn the player off and we switched to my iPod. He said that the DVD player was really hot.

Could the heat be affecting the sound?
What would cause the DVD player to heat up this way?
Can this be fixed or do we need to replace it?

I've never liked this player, from the day I bought it. So I'm happy to replace it if I have a reason to do so. We needed the DVD recorder for a one-time use when we changed cable providers and had to save what was on our PVR, but we don't have a use for the recorder option anymore.

If I have to replace this unit, should I switch to Blu-ray?

Can I play regular DVDs on Blu-ray?
Can I play CDs on Blu-ray?
Since we use the player more for audio than for video, would I be better off getting separate CD and DVD/BR players?

Thanks.