use PC DVD drive in a TV with built in DVD

I have a 5 YO TV with a built in DVD that does not work very well. Half the time it can't play a movie at all. When it does play the content on the DVD it will pause every now and then, presumably recovering from read errors. Generically speaking, can I replace the DVD in a TV with DVD drive for a PC?   I guess I should open the TV and have a look. How will a DVD player in a TV be cabled?  Will the TV have the functional equivalent of a motherboard, with an IDE or SATA cable from the DVD player to the "motherboard" of the TV?

thanks,

No.

....they're completely different.

Well, I mean, obviously various mechanical parts will be the same (such as the pickup head, motors, that kind of thing), but once you've gotten the data bytes from the disc everything is different: form factor, interface, etc.

TVs don't have motherboards. Yes, they have microprocessors and logic-boards, but do not resemble a desktop PC at all. You'll probably find that the DVD player built-in to your TV is wired up (using some proprietary interface) to a decoding chipset and then an internal connection to the "TV" part of the set. It could be a cheap RF modulator that interfaces with the TV's tuner, or an YCrCb connection directly to the TV's controlling hardware.

You're better off buying a cheap set-top DVD player (they're like $20 or less now) and connecting that up to your TV and just ignoring the built-in player as it's unlikely you'll find spares or even a service manual.

@W3bbo:

W3bbo's probably right. However, I'd still open up the TV and have a look. It could be just a regular old IDE cable and drive.

Before you do that though, have you cleaned the lens on the drive?

well i would open it up and look, from the way stuff is mass made i would bet that it would be cheaper for them to use an off the shelf drive and just have a bit of the ide interface on the tv logic board. while not a pc system a newer tv (in the last 10 years) has a lot of stuff in it that is almost the same as a low end laptop.