DVD player goes to PLAY but immediately back to 0:00

Did you try with multiple DVDs? We don’t know how old yours is as we don’t have the model, but some of the early ones from the 90s-early 2000s have problematic lasers with known reliability issues as they aged out, or are sensitive to burned media. See if it works with others - preferably commercial first, then a burned DVD to be sure.

Another possibility is a lot of the newer DVD releases are burned on blank DVD-Rs and sold as Manufacture On Demand (MOD). If you have one of those early 90’s players or even an early 2000’s upscaler they can struggle with these MOD DVDs. You need a player that handles these burned discs which can be an issue if the player is even 1 year too old. The only way out is a player designed around burned media.

If you are using commercial press releases and not a MOD release and it works with one but not the other, the disc may be bad. Try with another commercial press DVD and see how it works with 3 to get a larger sample. If 2/3 works, I would just replace it if it’s commercial with a cheap disc-only copy at a discount, especially if you have the case.