DVD Drive Question(s)

Recently, I've been having some trouble playing DVD's on the computer. This DVD drive in the tower is the original that came with the computer- it has to be six or seven years old by now. What happens is the video gets choppy and the audio eventually starts to screw up. I use the VLC player for DVD's and have tried upgrading and a few fresh installs but the problem still occurs. I tried another DVD software program and had the same issues. The video and sound cards are still in good working order, could the DVD drive need replacing? The drivers for it are up to date.