NB: Panic over. It must have been static or something. I pulled the power cable out for 30 seconds, plugged it back in and it's as good as new! I've had a Panasonic Blue Ray player DMP-BD81 for well over 10 years now. It's been trouble free all this time but tonight when I tried to run a DVD (I play more DVDs on it than I do Blu Rays) it's started lagging terribly on all functions. Every time I press a button it takes a good 6-7 seconds before it actually performs the action. I've established it's not the batteries in the remote and it's doing it on all the discs I've tried. For what it's worth, once the movie/tv show is playing, it does so without any lag on the playback. Anyone else ever experienced anything like this?
Oh yes. Sometimes the laser reader can get dusty and cause just the sort of issues you were describing. You can get a cleaning disc from Best Buy for it, but I would advise reading the instructions before putting it in your player. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-laser-lens-cleaner-blue-white/8026149.p?skuId=8026149