So I recently aquired a very nice condition samsung DV-5000, it plays some discs just fine but some look like they are having a tracking issue that looks akin to a vcr traking problem where lines of the screen go from top to bottom. This issue resembles a vertical hold crt problem or a tracking vhs problem. Any help identifying this problem will be greatly appreciated.

Try a CAV disc to see if its any better. It could be a crosstalk issue aka bad laser alignment.

im lucky enough to have 2 cav release will try those and get back to you

EDIT - CAV seems to be playing way too fast resulting in garbled video and audio, sometimes the video cuts out entirely and i get a blue screen

Sounds like it could be a million things that have already been talked about.

1 slipping disc or pad.
2 Dying laser.
3 dirty laser.
4 dying spindle motor.
5 belts somewhere to do something, usually these are for loading.
6 Tracking and gain, you mess up you fry the laser.

You need to find out what make this is, or if its a clone of another player to figure out if you can tinker to get it really working.
Also does this have CD playback, try a CD to see what it does then go from there.

Found an old topic about the same player. Search is our friend
Samsung DV-5000 player

If your player is like this then it may be a dying laser or who knows. Check it out hope it helps, but not much info on this player so
unfortunately you won't get as much help to fix it.

The fact that the player is capable of reading discs but just not playing them well, I would consider that the issue is probably dry capacitors in the power supply and/or system control section.

You can try and open up and see if you spot anything like popped caps, leakage on the caps, etc. If you don't see anything like that, it could still mean bad caps but you'll have to get an ESR meter to test them.

cds barely work they play like 2 seconds worth then don't. and inside it looks borderline mint just a little dust as with all old electronics

The optical bloc could be dead and not throw enough voltage back for proper reading.

Julien

That is very possible as well considering the laser pick-up on this unit is made by Sony and does have a history of early failure.