I'm having a strange problem with Windows Media Center

Whenever I play a DVD, it seems to act very strange. If I minimize the
program or leave it on pause for a few minutes, it locks up and it doesn't
allow me to operate the CD/DVD drive unless I restart the computer. And just
yesterday my computer actually crashed while I was watching a DVD and I spent
an hour of my life going through an entire hard disk analysis, which didn't
find any problems.

Is there anything I could do to fix this problem, or should I switch to
Windows Media player or another program like that?