yeh, it's the ps2 but it could also be the media or speed it was burned at. The ps2 was a pile of crap for playing DVD's. It has a really crappy laser that had hard time reading some burned media and would eventually burn itself out. Some older cheaper DVD players also had the cheap lasers and had the same problem. But also it could be the decoder chips installed and the AC3 track.But i also had problems with a new ps2 playing official DVD's

Was it the NTSC version you were having problems with? Best thing is to try it in an ordinary DVD player